Technology has revolutionized many areas in recent years, and legal work is no exception, whether we’re talking about corporate governance, contract workflow automation, team management, or even litigation.

According to the latest edition of Deloitte Legal’s New Ways to Dispute Resolution report worldwide, and in Romania in particular, Romanian legal directors are confident and open to using technological solutions in their ongoing activities. Thus, eight out of ten respondents are investing in the digitization of legal practice (78%), and their preferences are focused on software solutions to improve the analysis required in a dispute (53%), risk assessment solutions that represent disputes (47%). and litigation portfolio management solutions (44%).

What are the benefits of using technology in legal departments?

As the research also shows, technology is a catalyst for legal departments to improve the way they manage disputes and reporting, the spectrum of available solutions is very wide – from solutions for project management already used in the company, configured taking into account the specifics of legal activities, to solutions dedicated to managing disputes, related to the court portal and the electronic file.

The primary benefit of using technology is visibility into the litigation portfolio and access to data to strengthen the legal department’s decisions. With a dispute management system, teams can easily access statistics relevant to their work, from which they can decide how to coordinate the dispute and report on risk indicators that are important to the company’s business. Such a system also allows them to document workloads and team activities so they can measure performance and build teams according to complexity and workload.

Naturally, the efficiency of the department’s work also increases by reducing the time it takes to search for the necessary information, automating the drafting of procedural documents, in the case of repeated actions for conducting a large number of disputes, and, what is very important, optimizing the task, the execution of which requires a lot of time and effort. Even typical solutions Software for document management, which are already available in the vast majority of companies, such as Sharepoint or Google Drive, can have a big impact on the work of the legal department, but with minimal additional investment. Such systems reduce the time needed to find and access important information, such as legal opinions or court decisions, that can support an organization’s position in a new lawsuit. In addition, documents can be more easily distributed among team members, so legal counsel can work on different sections of the document in parallel, depending on their area of ​​expertise.

In addition, with the help of technology, teams can perform tasks that have traditionally been very difficult to complete. For example, lawsuits against new business partners that indicate a risk to cooperation, such as foreclosures or bankruptcy, can be monitored, or large volumes of court decisions and arguments can be analyzed with artificial intelligence to obtain valuable information about the degree of success argument type.

What obstacles do legal departments face in the process of digitizing the judicial sphere?

For the most part, legal teams manage a very large volume of ongoing tasks and rarely have time to document and create a plan to convince company management to invest in technology solutions designed for the legal department.

In addition, CIOs must make a strong case for digitalization plans to the organization’s leadership so that they are considered a priority in a context where companies are going through an accelerated digital transformation and their resources are concentrated in many directions (sales, procurement, human resources, etc.) ).

As such, it is critical that CFOs trust the digitization initiative and find partners both inside and outside the organization to identify and implement a technology solution that fits the team’s needs and budget constraints.

Also, another factor that legal departments should take into account in the process of transforming the judicial sphere is the degree of digitalization of courts. As the judicial system in Romania moves towards digitalization, the effectiveness of technological solutions will be greater, which will facilitate the process of internal digitalization. In recent years, measures in this direction have been taken in Romania, the functionality of the electronic file has been introduced, but only for certain courts.

The ingredients of the success of the project of digitization of judicial processes

For a digitalization project to be successful, it is critical that the decisions made meet the most pressing needs of the team. For example, if litigation management is outsourced, then it is worth investing in solutions that facilitate collaboration and communication with external lawyers, such as document sharing, invoicing or litigation status, and that provide visibility of the entire litigation portfolio and easy reporting. In contrast, when disputes are handled with the help of in-house legal counsel, technology solutions that include an integrated calendar, document storage and management, and collaboration with the rest of the organization are more relevant. Of course, data analysis and contention reporting capabilities are also important in such a scenario. As an organization faces a large number of lawsuits, document management automation functions become important.

Organizations must also align expectations with the maturity of the technology they choose to implement and the available budget. Solutions with a positive history of implementation and use generally meet all requirements, but require greater investment. On the other hand, the use of general and more cost-effective management solutions does not always meet all the company’s requirements. It is important that any compromises in functionality are made with full awareness.

Last but not least, involving the entire legal team of the organization in the selection and implementation process is key to ensuring that the technology users have a very good understanding of the decision and the reasons for the decision, an aspect that will facilitate the adoption of the solution.

To successfully implement a litigation software solution, organizations should avoid purchasing custom software until they fully understand the team’s needs and the solutions already in place in the organization. The time spent talking to the litigation team and liaising with the team that manages the IT infrastructure is very valuable and will pay off later in the process.

Review by Simina Muth, Partner, Lorena Rocia, Managing Associate, and Corina Damasin, Associate, Associate and Associates | Deloitte Legal