With all the talk of generative AI and digital transformation, you would be forgiven for thinking that corporate legal teams everywhere are using legal technology and have the most efficient processes in place. The reality is quite the opposite. Most corporate legal teams have limited technology, if any, and struggle getting budget approval for digital tools that help them deliver legal services more effectively. Corporate legal departments who use technology to serve their business colleagues attest to the considerable efficiency gains that can be realized in short order.

A common question we encounter when working with corporate legal departments who want to leverage AI technology is “Where do we start?” In our experience, a good place to start when transforming legal operations is to implement an AI-driven centralized intake platform.

Do the following resonate with you and how legal operations are run in your organization?

1. Relying on Manual Processes
   Business users seek help from the legal department for various tasks including answering routine and complex questions, drafting, and reviewing documents. Instructions are submitted to the legal department via email, collaboration tools (such as Slack or MS Teams), telephone calls and in-person meetings. In-house legal teams work on the instructions manually. Documents are drafted based on similar documents that have been drafted previously and are stored in local drives. Documents are reviewed manually by reading through each paragraph individually. Repeatedly asked policy questions are answered by searching for the latest version of policies, guidelines and codes.
   
   Missing information and clarification of the instructions are gathered through back-and-forth emails or over numerous phone calls. Without access to dashboards and analytics, lawyers must resort to manually tracking incoming requests. This becomes increasingly problematic when someone in the team is out of the office or leaves the organization. Departments that rely on manual processes often spend considerable time on tasks that could be expedited through technology. These processes can create inefficiencies, leading to slower turnaround times, and have an impact on the legal team's ability to focus on higher-value and strategic tasks.
   
   

2. Allocating Resources
   In many organizations the legal department is seen as a cost center instead of a valuable and strategic partner. General counsels face budget cuts, year on year, and are expected to do more for less. Very often, there is no budget allocated for additional headcount.

   This lack of resources and proper allocation of work leads to increased workloads and inefficient processes within the legal team. When requests are submitted to the legal department, a team member is assigned the task to manually review each request and decide who is the best person to handle it. Work may be assigned arbitrarily, such as to the least busy lawyer rather than to the one with the most relevant expertise. Allocation is often done on a round-robin basis, or it is based on who in the team has done similar work. Manual resource allocation means that the team find it difficult to manage their workload as there is no visibility into the workload of individual team members. Lawyers who are overworked risk burnout and that has a direct impact on the rest of the team and on the organization as a whole.

   Additionally, the lack of proper work allocation fails to highlight underutilized team members. This brings its own set of problems such as lack of engagement and work that does not align with skillsets or specialization. For example, a lawyer who reviews commercial contracts in the United States may not be the best person to review Data Privacy Agreements referencing GDPR. This mismatch leads to job dissatisfaction and a delay in output because the lawyer has to familiarize themselves with the new subject matter. Poor work allocation leads to bottlenecks, missed deadlines, higher error rates and risks delivering sub-par performance.
   
   

3. Communicating with Business Users
   Without access to a digital intake platform, legal teams have little choice but to rely on traditional methods of collaborating with their business colleagues. They rely on informal and unstructured processes of communication - via email, chats in Slack and MS Teams, telephone calls or meetings in person. Where additional information is needed or instructions need to be clarified, the process becomes even more flawed with the risk of missing key information or of misinterpreting instructions.
   
   These manual processes make it difficult to track tasks and request statuses. Business colleagues have little insight into the progress of their request or when they can expect the legal team to revert with a response. This causes business stakeholders to repeatedly chase the legal team for updates which in turn hinders the team’s ability to work on the task. This fragmented approach reduces the legal department's efficiency and frustrates both legal staff and business colleagues resulting in delayed work, longer response times and inefficient time management.
   
   

4. Data-Driven Insights
   When the legal team operates without a centralized intake platform, they have limited insights into the volume of work that comes in from business users, the types of requests and where the legal requests are up to at any given point in time. Legal teams who have no formal or automated systems to measure metrics, such as user satisfaction and turnaround times, find it difficult to track the impact they make in the organization. They are unable to quantify the value of the work they do and have no data with which to justify requests for additional budget. Furthermore, without analytics it is harder to track trends and allow legal teams to anticipate workload fluctuations and adjust resources accordingly. For example, if the analytics point to an influx of sales agreements at the end of the quarter, the legal team can ensure that they are appropriately staffed to manage the added workload. Without automated data analytics, legal teams lack insights to make better decisions and align legal goals with organizational goals.

   Like most other departments in an organization, the legal department is expected to prepare quarterly reports on the work undertaken, work in progress and value added. Without automation, collating data from multiple sources to produce these reports requires considerable manual effort. The process is time-consuming and administrative in nature. The legal team’s already stretched capacity is focused on performing administrative tasks rather than delivering legal work and strategic initiatives.

Why is it key to have an AI-driven legal intake process in corporate legal departments?

Implementing a centralized legal intake platform in corporate legal departments boosts efficiency, manages risk, and improves legal service delivery. Generative AI-powered platforms enhance workflow management by intelligently categorizing incoming legal requests based on customizable variables that can, for example, filter requests to the appropriate practice area or lawyer.

1. Centralized Request Management: AI combines the various existing channels for legal requests, so business colleagues simply need to access one centralized interface to interact with the legal team. The centralized intake system can be accessed directly from the business users preferred communication tool without having to navigate elsewhere. For example, business users can raise legal requests directly within Microsoft Outlook or Slack. Once a request is submitted, it enters the centralized intake system, where it is triaged and assigned to the appropriate legal team member. The legal team uses the AI-driven tool to capture details, communicate with requesters, and track the status of each request, all within the same platform.
   
   

2. Dynamic Triage System: Generative AI legal intake tools streamline request categorization, allowing in-house teams to assign tasks based on urgency and expertise. This ensures that the right legal professionals manage requests that correspond to their expertise thus optimizing resource use. AI algorithms can analyze incoming requests to determine the areas they relate to and allocate them to the relevant topic. For example, questions relating to CCPA and GDPR can be categorized as Compliance, Regulatory and Data Privacy. Similarly, queries that relate to claims against the organization will can be triaged to Litigation and Dispute Resolution and prioritized over less urgent matters like general inquiries. By categorizing incoming requests, legal departments can manage workloads more effectively and ensure prompt responses to time sensitive and critical matters.
   
   

3. Real-Time Monitoring: AI-powered workflow management systems can provide updates on the status of each request. Legal teams can monitor progress through dashboards that display metrics such as requests over time, pending tasks, and overall workload distribution. Similarly, if a business user needs a status update on the legal request submitted, they can query the system to find out who, in the legal team, has been assigned their request, the status and when they can expect a response from the legal team. A structured intake process allows legal departments to track metrics related to incoming requests, responses, and workload distribution. This data facilitates monitoring of efficiency levels within the department and highlights which processes need to be refined.
   
   

4. Enhanced Interaction: Generative AI tools enhance interactions with business users by offering immediate assistance and efficiently capturing essential information. Deploying AI-powered chatbots on internal platforms such as Slack, allows business users to self-serve and access corporate information at any time. These chatbots can answer frequently asked questions and guide business users through the intake process by collecting necessary details, using customizable intake forms, before escalating to human lawyers. This cuts down turnaround times as legal teams have all the pertinent information to start working on the request. The system keeps business users updated on the status of the request or asks for more information where needed. A centralized intake process reduces administrative burdens on legal teams. By using tools such as online forms and automated systems to capture requests, in-house lawyers can focus on high-value tasks rather than getting bogged down with repetitive administrative work.

Conclusion

In-house legal departments face challenges when working without a centralized intake tool. They rely on manual processes that diminish efficiency, elevate risks of human error, and escalate costs. An AI-driven centralized platform, that acts as a legal front door, can match legal requests to team members' specialized knowledge and real time capacity leading to greater efficiency, increased job satisfaction, and improved quality of the work produced.

AI chatbots that address frequently asked questions based on organizational policies or codes of conduct can remove low-value tasks and administrative responsibilities from the desks of the legal team. Business users benefit from faster response times and the ability to self-serve certain information at any time instead of waiting for the legal team to address their inquiries, permitting the legal team to focus on the most important issues for the organization.

A robust legal intake platform is crucial for the modern corporate legal department. It improves collaboration, resource allocation, efficiency, data insights, and accountability. This leads to a more effective and efficient legal function that is aligned with organizational goals.