Fringe Legal

Innovation and Transformation Perspectives From Around the WorldAb: [00:00:00] Innovation and transformation perspectives from around the world There is tremendous variability in how the legal industry approaches innovation and technology initiatives, and the range is greater still when you expand the scope to different jurisdictions and regions worldwide. Through a series of interviews with innovation leaders and a review of published materials. I explored some of the factors that influence innovation levels across different regions. Namely, we focused on the UK., a number of African nations, Australia, and India. What I've found is that many interrelated  factors are at play: regional regulations, the maturity of the legal services industry, competitive pressures, and willingness to make financial investments in innovation and technology initiatives. Of course, there are also significant variations across firms within the same region, mostly influenced by the business culture.  Before we consider those factors in depth. We must define what we mean by innovation and evaluate the goals underlying innovative actions. The spectrum of innovation Innovation is not a monolith. It runs along a spectrum from the minuscule to the majestic and encompasses technology process or both. At one end are incremental changes to existing method or processes. These efficiency drivers are often small initially, yet over time they could produce marked results. On the other side of the spectrum are seismic disruptions, which may involve doing something in an entirely novel way or something that no one has done before. The disruption reinvents how a firm completes a task or follows a process. Innovation is, therefore, a process of both incremental changes and seismic shifts. It may affect technology and processes as each will have different primary challenges. With technological innovation adoption is often the biggest challenge. How do you get users engaged and active with  technology so the business yields a positive return on investment. Process changes on the other hand may or may not involve technology. In these instances often change management is the obstacle to overcome. How do you introduce the change and convinced legal professionals to embrace it? This begs another question. Why innovate at all? What's the purpose behind innovation? Before a firm embarks on a transformation journey, the business needs to establish what it's looking to accomplish? There are  regional factors that introduce a difference in approach, but also common ground to be found. I spoke with Caryn Sandler, Partner & Chief Knowledge and Innovation Officer at the leading Australian from Gilbert and Tobin, who explains. And I quote. There is a large variation within and between geographies. with some firms engaging and pushing the boundaries of what can be done in this space, and others only starting the transformation journey. There is now a general recognition in legal of the imperative for innovation and transformation globally, and we're seeing different ways of achieving that goal play out within law firms and in-house. End quote.  These regional variations impact the type of initiative that a firm may undertake. In new and emerging legal markets, it's harder to justify spending money on technology where the business needs have yet to be proven. Instead, we find that these areas may readily embrace new processes-  as they don't have the inertia of established methods to overcome. On the other hand, in mature and highly competitive legal markets, law firm and legal service providers can I add value for the client by making incremental efficiency improvements. Those firm's are likely focused on adopting technology, getting it off the shelf and into their practitioner's hand as quickly and as smoothly as possible. Lastly, some firms are looking to bring the client along on the transformation journey. They can do so by including the clients into technology and innovation design process. These firms often find value in adding a consultancy arm that can provide dedicated innovation services and digital transformation assistance. In all kinds of markets, firms are also exploring how they can pivot perhaps by setting up technology incubators, or otherwise investing in legal technology, startups.  Factors driving innovation, UK, Australia, African nations, and IndiaWhile there are numerous forces influencing innovation around the world, I have roughly classified them into four broad categories. Number one, the legal system and regulatory structure. Number two, the maturity of the legal profession. Number three, the level of competition in the region. And lastly, number four, the sensitivity to spending on technology or innovation efforts. Let's consider each of these in turn. The legal and regulatory system. Regulations can constrain innovation, and so can the flexibility and makeup or the legal system. There may be more opportunity and less constraint in emerging markets with less regulation and fewer established firms. These open markets can present considerable gaps in service, creating opportunities for firms to innovate and quickly move the needle on providing services. In more heavily regulated market. The amount of work required to bring about substansive changes is significant and fewer players will attempt to do so. Without a complex web of regulation, law firms have free reign to innovate. I spoke with Cathy Truter, Head of Knowledge Management at Bowmans a top African firm with offices in seven African countries. And here's a excerpt from our discussion: Cathy Truter: [00:06:36] There are pockets of extreme innovation and I think it's driven by opportunity in the sense that Africa is not necessarily as regulated as some of the offshore countries as I would call them.And as a result, there is an opportunity to innovate in pockets. Where in other jurisdictions you might be held back by what is the current, and have you go through regulators to get certain approvals and the like   It's in pockets. Innovation has really been fast moving. So I think that innovative a legal practices correlate quite closely with how innovative the legal sector that they service is. What's the appetite? So in some pockets, Extremely innovative.   Ab: [00:07:29] Where regulations established cultural differences can still drive an appreciation for innovation. For example, many European countries enjoy a data centric culture that embraces AI data and analytics as elementary parts of their future successes. See notes for a link to a great article discussing this. This attitude is spilling over into the legal profession as well. Maturity and general culture of the legal industry  The flip side of the regulatory structure is generally the maturity of the legal industry. In largely unregulated areas, the legal sector is nascent...

Contracts are crucial to the legal process, however more frequently the process of contracting can be painful. In this episode we discuss how to remove unnecessary barriers from contracts while offering the same protections, benchmarking the performance of your contracts, and Alex’s reflections on 10 years since founding Radiant Law.  Key quotes Quotes have been extracted from the live conversation and have been edited for grammar and minor corrections. “looking now from where we were 10 years ago when obviously no one was doing that and you know we were one of the first. There has been progress, but it's been slow. Really what's happened is that everyone's talked a lot. I fear that too many customers have been fobbed off too easily… I don't think there's been enough change, and where there has been changed, I think has been quite token” “Our contention is that contracting matters. These contracts are where you get your money into your business. So these contracts matter, but I don't think companies take it terribly seriously. I think the lawyers involved take them seriously, but they are being starved for resources and ‘more for less’ and all of that” “how you build a sane contracting process is relatively well understood. You need to put certain things in place and there's a logical sequence to it. So we started with building the contracting capability maturity model - which is a five-stage process you go through. We've actually simplified it (and that’s what's coming out in the next version basically).  There are three things you need to do. It's really simple. You have got to make it a repeatable process. You put some basic automation in place... And then it's all refinement after that, it's continuous improvement.” “I don’t think we could have grown that much faster without taking capital. And I think, taking capital would have been disastrous, because it puts a clock on you that we wouldn't have been able to keep up successfully.” “one of the great things that's happened is there are a lot more opportunities now as two interesting things I think can be associated with the industry.” Resources mentioned Contracting Mistakes series#1: Accepting no time for the "important, not urgent"#2: Assuming change requires big bangs#3: Legal should stick to the legals#4: One more lawyer#5: "Robust" terms#6: Deals are different Alex Hamilton (LinkedIn / Twitter)  is the CEO and founder of Radiant Law, the UK-based award-winning NewLaw firm. Alex is focused on improving the contracting process for clients, leading product and tech development. He also regularly talks and writes on improving contracting, LawTech and the changing legal industry. He has led a number of projects that have been recognised by the FT’s Innovative Lawyer Awards. Before founding Radiant Law, he was a Partner at Latham & Watkins and co-Chair of Latham & Watkins’ global Technology Transactions Group.

Alex Low is an expert in helping businesses implement and adopt marketing and sales strategies. He regularly speaks to experts through his podcast The Death of a Salesman and applies the principles at BeyondSales and DLA ignite. Oh and he's worked in the BD function at PwC, as Client Relationship Manager at BLP (now BCLP), lead Client Dev at JLL, and more. In this episode we discuss: Why good marketing and a strong personal brand has never been more importantHow to implement a marketing transformation strategy how corporate content vs individual content is consumedsource: dlaignite.comHow you can reduce your recruitment costs with a good marketing strategyHow to leverage LinkedIn to build your brandwhat can you different to strengthen your profileHow to optimize your profile for search and storytellingHow your brand makes you a more obvious choice in competitive pitchesDuring our conversation, Alex also recommended the following book: Technology vs. Humanity: The coming clash between man and machineYou can find Alex on LinkedIn.

In this episode of Fringe Legal, host Abhijat Saraswat speaks with Janet Stanton.I reached out to Janet after having read her article on the importance of strategic client management. We discuss the topic in detail including what it means, the benefits for individuals and the firm, implementation advice, and pitfalls to avoid.Janet is an accomplished business person who brings her experience from diverse industries and professional service organizations to bear on issues currently facing Law Land. Prior to Adam Smith, Esq., Janet was Director, Client Relationships Program at Orrick. Previously, she served as Executive Vice President at a global communications agency where she led several large, global client relationships for organizations such as Pfizer and the US Department of Defense.  She also served as President of a national communications agency.She was personally awarded a Certificate of Appreciation by the Office of the Secretary of Defense.Janet is a graduate of Vassar College, which she attended as a Regents Scholar.  She is based in New York City.You can read Janet’s article on the Adam Smith Esq. website, and find her on LinkedIn.

Making innovation everyone's business with Allister SpencerInnovation has as many definitions as the number of people you ask to define it. Regardless of what you think of as "innovative," the execution needs to permeate the business. Abhijat Saraswat speaks with Allister Spencer on how to make innovation everyone's business. In this episode, we’ll go over:Review the state of the unionearlier this year firms put their hand brakes on; some thrived, some fell apart. What drove this? What were the differences between segments (law firm sizes, law firms vs. in-house legal, etc.)?General hygiene across the professionHow firms can improve their operational excellence so they can make clients stickierget more clientsIncreasing profitsHow do we establish a baselinediscoverybenchmarkimprovementHow Alt-V approaches the abovelegal meth labTaylor Wessing workshop Quotes have been extracted from the live conversation and have been edited for grammar and minor corrections. What follows is a commentary based on the discussion from the episode. HandbrakeEarlier this year, the handbrake was pulled hard, and we saw a massive slow down across both legal and in-house counsel: Interestingly though the in-house counsel have certainly managed to achieve a little more gains in that space during the 2020 pandemic. But we have noticed that the thawing out of law firms, particularly in APAC… ramping back up. We're also seeing markets across EMEA rapidly getting back to normal. And I think that, given the number of months that have passed, just keeping the lights on for the first few months was absolutely critical. Businesses now realize that the programs that they had put on hold have to come back online, and things need to restart - the work must march on. Factors affecting the adaptability  Smaller firms with multi-jurisdictional teams fared better because they were better geared up to working remotely, as, in effect, many were already had a remote workforce. Many of the mid-tied single office firms, or those with a dated view that ‘bums on seats equals productivity,’ struggled to adjust quickly. Some of the bigger firms that are spread jurisdictionally also had issues. Several factors contributed to this, and one of those was the rapid lateral hiring approach. This resulted in the firms having disparate systems, and when you bring everything back together, those systems sometimes don’t talk to each other.  How did the law firms compare to in-house legal? Allister: I always equate a law firm with the profit center and in-house as the cost center. So, they're two very different, strategic alignments as to what makes money and what costs money. And in-house generally run on the smell of an oily rag. Whereas, law firms are very profitable. But, what we found is that given the opportunity they had, they [in-house] cracked on and because they had the structure and governance from the top they were less disrupted. Ab: That's important and one of my thesis is that the in-house teams, because they are a cost center, naturally work to streamline their processes and systems first, rather than just throw people at the problem as often happens within a law firm. And therefore you do reap the rewards when the resources for everybody else become tighter. It then becomes a more equal playing field. What are the next priorities? There’s a big push for ERP systems (document management, practice management, Exchange, and other basic systems that firms rely on so heavily) - some firms that have fallen behind are now rapidly coming back on board. However, it’s a cautionary tale: They’re big-ticket items - they're very expensive processes and implementations. That more firms have to understand that this is a 10-year project, and if you do it incorrectly, it's a 10-year mistake that is very hard to wind back if it's done incorrectly. The most common foible is taking an assumption-based implementation approach. Each firm has specific requirements, and without teasing those requirements out effectively, you're not going to get them the system they want. The business of law Ab: if you look at the law firm as a business, and you're focused on becoming operationally excellent - you're really only trying to achieve only two things:(1) How do you retain the clients you have today (how do you make them stickier); and, (2) how do you get new revenue (how do you attract more clients?) It is literally just those two things. Everything else just feeds into that. Allister: Yeah, that's right. I'd probably add one more of that and that's the (3) leverage model (actually being more profitable)...So once you've nailed the process and the people within that process, you can leverage down and make it far more profitable? And we work closely with firms, but also with their clients to actually engage in our labs that. It's slightly controversial and you'll find that the lawyers get quite squirmy when they think of their clients in a lab context with them, showing inefficiencies that they are producing… this is the point to both sides. What you're trying to do is improve the service delivery of that piece of work to the client, but also hopefully make it more efficient. Hopefully make it more profitable for the firm, but cheaper for the client. So it's a proper win-win   To achieve this, you need a mindset of future state thinking - those individuals that understand that what may have been working for the last 10, 20, 50, or 100 years may not work the same in the future because there is a changing tide coming and it’ll be disruptive. And the funny thing about disruption is it hits you in the face; as soon as you turn the corner, you don't get a warning.  Operational excellenceThis feeds into running a successful law firm - from a reporting perspective, you have operational excellence and strategic excellence. One can think of one as the dashboard and the other as the table - you have to marry those two up. Firms, with all the best intentions, often miss the mark because they fall to the exclusion of the inclusion, i.e., they focus on improving things that happened, but not to convert those opportunities that may have slipped through the cracks.  The rhetoric from our perspective is what's above the line and what's below the line. You've got operational costs below the line that you can't control, but you've got leverage model objects out there that are the leavers that you can pull, and you'v...

On this episode of Fringe Legal Edge – host Abhijat Saraswat speaks with six outstanding women.There are each uniquely impressive, but all have one thing in common. They met (as well as 14 others) through a Linkedin networking group at the beginning of the pandemic. This one act led to the writing of an anthology of their struggles, experiments, and triumphs.Ab speaks with Winter Wheeler, Shari E. Belitz, Esq., Lisa Lang, Laura M. Gregory, Esq., Deb Feder, and Christon Halkiotis.Their stories are endearing; they show authenticity, talk about insecurities, confidence, and about what can happen when you show up.Here is a peek into their stories:Takeaway 1: How Shari E. Belitz, Esq. shed the label of ‘side hustle’ and became “founder and CEO… No side. Lots of hustle.”Takeaway 2: How Laura M. Gregory, Esq., CPCU made insurance coverage interesting to the masses and grew her following from 1k to 6k in just six months! LauraHasItCoveredTakeaway 3: How Christon Halkiotis lesson about riding a motorcycle through curves in a road (acceleration helps give you the traction necessary for a change) would apply equally to her move from a prosecutor to a private defense attorney.Takeaway 4: How Winter Wheeler struggled with going for her passion career (“my goal was right on the horizon, I was crippled by the notion that because I had worked so hard for my litigation career”) until she had no choice. And, how she found success through a careful and planned approach (even when sometimes didn’t know how!)Takeaway 5: How Deb Feder created the same kitchen table environment in a virtual world, the same kind of environment she had seen her parents create to bring communities together. Also, her recipe for corn dip sounds delicious!Takeaway 6: How Lisa Lang overcame her fear of networking (“I remember my first post—not the content, but the feeling I had when I hit the “post” button. It was sheer panic. I immediately logged out of LinkedIn.”) in three months to go from lurker to contributor to creator.You can find #Networked: How 20 Women Lawyers Overcame the Confines of COVID-19 Social Distancing to Create Connections, Cultivate Community, & Build Businesses in the Midst of a Global Pandemic on Amazon

Chatter is a special episode where Abhijat sits down with Vincent Michetti to discuss 3-5 varied topics. In this episode they discuss: Deloitte buys Kemp Little: Deloitte UK has bought the law firm Kemp Litte, which adds 86 lawyers (inc. 29 partners) to the legal roster for the company. We've been through this before, throughout the 1990s the Big Five accounting firms (as they were at the time)—Arthur Andersen, KPMG, Ernst & Young (EY), PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), and Deloitte—made a concerted effort to enter the legal services market. It was relatively successful but was shut down following a wave of accounting scandals that saw the fall of Arthur Andersen, and new regulation introduced that restricted the ability of the Big 4 to offer non-auditing services to audit clients.ILTA Tech Survey: the annual ILTA tech survey was published recently, which collected responses from 470 firms, 103k+ lawyers, and 208k+ users. Overall, there was a much higher focus on the Cloud ( lots of o365, exchange online, cloud with next upgrade), distributed workplaces (how will firms' IT teams support home offices), and change management continues to be the top of mind issue. How to Stop Phishing: we talked around this Reddit post which discussed a simple change that reduced a simple hack that reduced the number of people that fell for a phishing count to zero.

Ab: Hello everyone. And welcome to this experimental episode. And this episode will be using machine learning too. read out one of the articles I've written in the past. Probably will be getting a few of these in the coming months. So please do let me know what your thoughts are and excuse any mispronunciations from the ai you can find the full text of the article on fringe legal.com and as always love to hear your feedback. Enjoy.AI narrator 1: This is the audio version of an article, read by your friendly neighborhood artificial intelligence.AI narrator 2: Solving the Last Mile Problem for the Utilisation of Legal Technology  The last mile is a concept that specifically focuses on the movement of goods or services from the distribution centre to the destination – this final aspect of the supply chain is often the most difficult and expensive than any other part of the supply chain.This article considers the last mile problem framed as the utilisation of technology at law firms, and how solving it could provide significant business benefits.The Multi-faceted Approach of Considering the Last Mile Problem  The idea of the last mile was originally conceptualised around the delivery of telecommunications and electricity; since then it has been extended to many other verticals, and is commonly referenced with regards to logistics and transportation.The question we consider here is what is the last mile affecting the legal profession, and how should we start to solve it?The last mile is partly a matter of perspective – when considering the legal eco-system the problem to be solved depends on which part of the legal supply chain is considered – the delivery of legal service, the utilisation of technology, or one of the many other end points.The Promise of Significant Business Gains  Regardless of which part of the value chain is considered from the perspective of a legal technology leader, the mandate should be to help the lawyer (the end user) finish their work quickly and with a high degree of competency.In this article we will demonstrate the value of solving the challenge of the last mile problem by focusing primarily on the utilisation of technology at law firms. My hope is that in working through this a mental framework can be constructed which can also be applied to other forums.Below we will define the problem, consider the benefits, and review some considerations for IT leaders and knowledge professionals.  Delivery and Utilisation of Legal Technology  There has been a boom in the number of technologies being offered to and implemented within law firms. This is particularly the case in large legal markets such as the USA and the UK. The same observation can be made of emerging legal tech markets such as Singapore, where initiatives promoted by the government and other agencies are ensuring a healthy appetite for law firms to obtain legal technology.Law firms are complex businesses with many moving parts, but they all want the same thing: to realise the full potential of their investment. For this to be accomplished there must be a smooth delivery from end-to-end. This is done by maximising the bandwidth so that workflows can be created that put the right tools in the user’s hands at the right time, and in the right way.Often the last mile is the least efficient part of the delivery process. When implementing technology this is often translated as complexities with implementation itself, troubleshooting and training to maximise adoption.Most firms have a fragmented eco-system of legal technology. The annual publication by Litera Microsystems – The Changing Lawyer – reported that almost half of firms are working with over 10 legal technology suppliers, and 68 per cent of firms say that their tech tools overlap in functionality.The problem with this approach is that the users are perpetually confused by which technology to use, and there is a dizzying array of training that must be attended and remembered each time a simple task needs to be accomplished. In solving these issues, we must work towards a simplified system which encompasses a large workflow that is frequently followed by lawyers.  Benefits  Before considering how to solve the problem, let’s consider the benefits of doing so.If we return to our earlier example of transportation, it is easy to see the business paybacks to be gained by solving the problem.In the last five years, within the transportation vertical, companies such as Bird, and Lime have become some of the fastest growing – Bird became the fastest Unicorn in the US (company valued at over one billion USD) – by focusing on solving the last mile problem through the use of scooters. In doing so, the company considers what is the easiest and the most cost effective way of getting an individual across that last mile: from the hub (eg a train station) to their home.Solving for the last mile with regards to delivery of technology means saving time and effort. For lawyers the result is to have more time available to think and, to provide greater value to their clients. This has the secondary benefit of minimising the mundane, inevitably increasing morale and job satisfaction.For a business, the benefits include reducing errors in delivery of the work product, having the ability to service more clients, and generally increasing revenue.What must be considered is that most customers expect quick delivery but are not willing to pay the high premiums. Therefore, to accomplish the task productivity tools for a lawyer that improve workflow, efficiency is needed.  Better Technology and More Integration  When thinking about how to achieve said benefits, it may be tempting to opt for even more technology. However, I would argue that this is not the right approach – as it further fragments an already fragmented eco-system. Instead firms should aim for better technology, more conversations, elegant delivery mechanisms, and more integration.Systems that are put in place should provide an integrated approach to the workflow – this means integrating with relevant systems (for example, a Document Management System (DMS)) so that as many of the necessary actions can be accomplished from within the application where the lawyer spends most of their time (such as Microsoft Word).  Is Your System Being Used as Intended?  If we consider this from the perspective of an IT leader or the business unit, it is important to pay attention during the implementation stage to ensure that the delivery being received is as intended.Are your users able to go through workflows (eg creating, checking, and collaborating on a document) in a cohesive manner without significant cognitive burden?Companies like Litera Microsystems have formed around this specific narrative and as a result their suite – the Litera Desktop – can be delivered as a single, lawyer focused ribbon. The advantage of this is that it provides all the necessary tools for the entire workflow which all look and feel the same, allowing the lawyer to focus on the task at hand instead of jumping from tab-to-tab and ribbon-to-ribbon.  Integrating – In and Out...

Eric Laughlin is the CEO of Agiloft - the no-code contract and commerce lifecycle management software company.  I think, as everything changed, people had to have had sort of two insights: one insight is that the world changes more rapidly than I even thought that it could. And then the second thing is, I, as an individual, as a human, was able to adapt more quickly than I thought that I might've been able to. And that sort of plasticity that we discovered in the world and in ourselves, I hope has allowed everybody to, think of a sort of positive outcome from this pandemic, which is, it allows people to be more, imaginative about what the future might look like. and that should have implications for the way that we work. And for the way that we have our family life and our personal lives, but it certainly has implications for the way that we think about technology. What technology we choose, what we think that technology does, how long we think we'll use that technology and, the rigidity or sort of plasticity that we expect from the technology.In this episode you'll learn about:What is contract lifecycle management?The benefits of no-code technology - from an implementation, design, and adoption perspectiveFrom the legal ops perspective why you should consider all software instead of just legal tech solutionsWhat Agiloft plans to do with their $45M investment Eric’s experience as a new CEO - his onboarding experience and his leadership focus for the next few monthsSUBSCRIBE AND REVIEW:  iTunes // Spotify // Pocket Casts // Stitcher If you're sitting in a law firm or if you're sitting in legal ops, you might be thinking, what are my legal tech options? you certainly should be thinking: what are my technology options, not what are my legal tech options. And especially in something like contracts, where, there are many people outside of legal department who have their hands in contracts every day, whether it's the procurement department or it's sales operations, those are either your partners in the law firm, or they're working in parallel with you on different contracts. You can find Eric on LinkedIn and find out more about Agiloft here.   Agiloft Secures $45 Million Growth Equity Investment from FTV Capital   Names Accomplished Legal Tech Executive Eric Laughlin as CEO to Accelerate Growth in No-Code Contract and Commerce Lifecycle Management Software Company   Redwood City, Calif., August 17, 2020 – Agiloft, the global standard in no-code contract and commerce lifecycle management, today announced a $45 million growth equity investment from FTV Capital, a sector-focused investor in innovative companies in enterprise technology and services, financial services, and payments and transaction processing. Bootstrapped since its inception and profitable, Agiloft’s investment from FTV is the company’s first round of external funding and will be used to build on its leadership position in the rapidly growing enterprise contract and commerce lifecycle management (CCLM) space as it accelerates its AI-based product development and expands its vertical and geographic market presence. Agiloft’s no-code platform drives industry-leading configurability and automates complex enterprise workflows through an iterative design process at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional software. In conjunction with the transaction, Agiloft appointed Eric Laughlin to the role of CEO, effective immediately. Laughlin most recently served as global leader of legal managed services at Ernst & Young, LLP, where he managed the Pangea3 and Riverview Law teams and provided clients with technology and service solutions in the contracts, e-discovery, and compliance domains globally. Founder and former CEO of Agiloft, Colin Earl, will remain with the company as chief technology officer, overseeing product development, engineering, security and technology infrastructure and providing strategic guidance to the company.    “Colin and his team at Agiloft have built a unique company, emphasizing customer-focused execution and a culture of trust and transparency — all built on a foundation of technical excellence,” said Laughlin. “The result has been steadily accelerating growth and consistent profitability. I’m honored to have been chosen to lead Agiloft in the next chapter of its development. A big part of my role will be to grow the company while maintaining the elements that have made it so successful.”   "Eric not only has a track record of success, growing and leading large global organizations, he has the vision, domain expertise and integrity to lead Agiloft in its next phase of growth and product innovation. The search took over a year–and it was well worth it to find the right individual.” said Earl. Named a leader by Gartner in its 2020 Magic Quadrant for Contract Lifecycle Management, Agiloft has reported 134% growth in new sales thus far this year, an implementation success rate of 99.6% and has a loyal customer base of more than 600 customers, including Honeywell, CDW and Roche. Its adaptable contracting software is built on a no-code platform, allowing organizations to customize complex contract and commerce workflows without writing a single line of code. A robust AI engine simplifies the intake and organization of existing contracts and also identifies the level of risk in documents and clauses. The result is cost discipline in procurement, quantifiable reductions in revenue leakage in sales, and visibility into contractual risk and regulatory compliance for legal departments. The platform is easily extensible to the commercial processes adjacent to contracts such as spend management and integrates with enterprise systems.  “Agiloft has established itself as a trailblazer in the fast-growing market for contract and commerce lifecycle management software,” said Alex Mason, partner at FTV Capital. “To develop a no-code product that customers love, while prioritizing profitable growth without external investment, is a remarkable achievement. We are proud to be a collaborative partner to the Agiloft team and look forward the exciting journey ahead.”    “With digital transformation moving at the speed it is today, contract management solutions that are well-scoped and executable are mission critical,” said Abhay Puskoor, principal at FTV Capital. “As businesses continue to find new efficiencies and ways to reduce costs, contract management will play a significant role in adoption of automation, and Agiloft’s highly configurable no-code platform will enable automation at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional software. We welcome the opportunity to connect Agiloft to the enterprises in our Global Partner Network who will value ...

Ray Biederman is an experienced litigator with nearly two decades of experience removing obscurity from the eDiscovery process for other attorneys and corporate resources. Ray is the President and co-founder of DiscoveryMaster.co, CEO of Proteus Discovery Group, and Partner at Mattingly Burke Cohen & Biederman LLP.most people went to law school to practice law and not to practice technology, or practice updating Excel spreadsheets all the time. It's like the rule of 80% rule, right? You cover 80% of what the needs are, and then the other 20%, either custom build or figure out a workaround for it. As litigators, we're working in a pretty fast-paced environment, and that 20% is critical. So you don't want to make a move until you've got everything covered or you don't have to change your processes that much.And that was part of the beauty of what we've done; people don't really have to change their practices all that much, it unifies everything into one place and they get the information they need, but they don't have to learn a new piece of software in order to do it.In this episode we discuss:Technology adoption and innovation: the difference in enthusiasm & sophistication between in-house legal teams and AM Law 200 firmsCloud: the dichotomy between legal tech ecosystem moving to the cloud, and requirements by IT teams to keep things on-prem for security reasonsIn-house/outside counsel: the dynamics of this relationship and how the bleed from consumer tech into the professional world is affecting it. the law lives in the past a little bit and so trying to add new tech or add tech stacks to the legal profession is an exceedingly difficult road. What we've noticed is, at least lately, we launched at the beginning of COVID, and I think that instantly brought in-house teams in the cost-saving mode as fast as possible.You can learn more about DiscoveryMaster here, and connect with Ray on LinkedIn.