LawHawk Blog

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment have just released an Advance Notice of their intention to re-tender the All of Government External Legal Services contract, which expires on 22 September 2023.

The revised fee structure caught my eye.

Topics: Future of Law, In-House Legal, Law Firm Management, Legal Automation, Matter Management, Legal Operations, Value Pricing

An issue with getting a legal technology project approved in an organisation is proving the importance of the project and that there will be a good return on investment.

It can be easy to focus too narrowly on what the benefits will be.

Topics: Document Automation, Legal Technology, In-House Legal, Self-Service Legal Automation, Legal Automation, Matter Management, Legal Operations, Contract Management

In an earlier post, I suggested that customers should focus more on the relationship with their suppliers and less on the current technology features. Because requirements are changing so quickly, the supplier must be able to keep up.

A great relationship should not just be reactive. A good supplier will understand and care enough about the customer's business and changing requirements to proactively suggest improvements that the customer can adopt to get even better results.

Topics: Document Automation, Procurement, Legal Technology, In-House Legal, Digital Signatures, Legal Automation, Matter Management, Legal Operations, Contract Management

One of the challenges in legal process automation projects is that it can be hard to figure out the current process and agree on what it ideally should be.

In many legal processes, there is no written process map at all.

Topics: Document Automation, Legal Technology, In-House Legal, Legal Automation, Email Management, Legal Operations, Contract Management

A lot of technology is bought and sold based on how many features it has.

Vendors are certainly responsible for a lot of marketing, emphasising all their features while simultaneously claiming that their solution is incredibly simple and intuitive.

Buyers, especially those going through formal procurement processes with RFPs, massively overcomplicate things by including spreadsheets with tens, if not hundreds, of requirements.

At some point, everyone loses sight of two of the most important things:

Topics: Document Automation, Legal Technology, In-House Legal, Compliance, Legal Automation, Matter Management, Legal Operations, Contract Management

The longer I've been working with legal technology, the more convinced I am that customers should be looking for relationships, not technology or particular solutions.

What do I mean?

Topics: Document Automation, Legal Technology, In-House Legal, Legal Automation, Matter Management, Legal Operations, Contract Management

There’s an ongoing debate about whether it’s better to have “point solutions” that only do one thing really well or a single platform that can do nearly everything.

There’s no obvious right answer but here's my thoughts.

Topics: Document Automation, Legal Technology, In-House Legal, Document autom, Legal Automation, Matter Management, Legal Operations

If you want to manage your legal matters better, a matter management system should be an excellent investment - if you're prepared to invest the time to set it up and use it properly.

However, if you're really just looking for a better way to use SharePoint and file your emails and documents, a matter management system is a costly way to go about it. There are better options at much lower costs.

Topics: Legal Automation, Email Management, Matter Management, Legal Operations

Last week I had a call from a law firm that I first spoke to in June 2016, basically right after LawHawk launched.

The partner at that time told me “Yes, our firm is interested in the use of technology / automation etc in the profession. We have recently invested significant amounts of time (and some money) developing our own precedents and their automation using the Infinity system.”

Now, more than 5 years later, they don’t appear to have made any significant progress. Why not?

Topics: Document Automation, Legal Technology, Document Assembly, legal practice, Law Firm Management, Legal Automation

The regulatory obligations that organisations need to comply with are rapidly increasing, and it's clear organisations are struggling to keep up and find ways to comply. Lawyers can help – ideally as part of a multi-disciplinary approach incorporating other experts and technology focussed on solving the business problem rather than just as legal advice without considering how it can be incorporated most efficiently into business processes.

The problem is not new. Even well-established legislation such as the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 is still causing problems for banks, with recent enforcement action being taken against two New Zealand banks for infringements over many years.

However, it is getting harder. New regulations are continuing to come out, with even more demanding ongoing requirements.

Topics: Document Automation, In-House Legal, Compliance, CCCFA, Health and Safety, Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act, SSSP