How Law Department Leaders Should Approach Technology Adoption to Maximize Impact and Efficiency

I spoke with Anne Post, CEO of Xakia, North America, a provider of legal matter and contract management solutions. We discussed how law department leaders should approach technology adoption to maximize impact and efficiency, the biggest challenges in-house legal teams face in demonstrating value, and the most compelling opportunities for legal departments to become true strategic partners within their organizations.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Welcome to Reinventing Professionals,a podcast hosted by industry analyst
Ari Kaplan, which shares ideas,guidance, and perspectives from market
leaders shaping the next generationof legal and professional services.
This is Ari Kaplan and I'm speakingtoday with Anne Post, the CEO of Zakia,

(00:25):
north America provider of Legal matterand contract management solutions.
Hi Anne.
How are you?
I'm good, Ari.
Thanks for having me today.
It's my privilege.
I'm really looking forwardto this conversation.
So tell us about yourbackground and your role at Zia.
I was a practicing lawyer for about20 plus years and made the jump

(00:46):
over to Zia in 2017 when we werejust launching in North America.
We're an Australian based companywith global operations now.
Made the jump over and have beengrowing the team ever since.
I always joke that I've worn aboutevery hat over here, except I'm not a
developer and have grown into this rolemanaging our team here in North America.

(01:09):
How should legal department leadersapproach technology adoption to
maximize both the impact and efficiency?
One of the things I love about whatI do right now is problem solving
with teams, and one of the thingsthat we recommend is really defining

(01:30):
the problem before, you take tackleprojects and not only understanding
the why, the pain points that you'retrying to solve, but communicating
that why properly to your team.
Things have gotten better over theyears, but I ran into initially a lot
of situations where technology decisionsare imposed on teams, whereas now

(01:52):
there's a better process of engagingstakeholders, whether they're your
own legal team or whether they'refrom the business to understand why
you're going to use a particulartool, what pain point you're trying to
solve, and progressing it from there.
That's one major stepfor people to focus on.
Another one is that when you'vedefined, a problem that you

(02:13):
wanna solve, don't necessarily behyperfocused on only that problem.
Think bigger picture, longer term.
You might be looking forcontract management, but where
are you gonna be in 12 months?
In 24 months?
Are you gonna be trying to solve spend?
Do you have a core matter managementproblem that you need to solve?
If so, look for a toolthat can scale with you.

(02:34):
Otherwise you're going to be pluggingsystems together and you're gonna
be back in this process in 12 monthslooking for an additional tool.
Those two points are really importantto make adoption more impactful.
What are the biggest challengesthat in-house legal teams face in
demonstrating value to the business?

(02:54):
This is a consistent problem.
Start from the foundation that everybodyknows that the legal department is
important, but the business doesn't alwaysnecessarily understand what they do.
And legal is constantly fighting thattension between being that cost center and
also wanting to demonstrate that the workthat they're doing is really important
and showing how that's moving theinitiatives of the organization forward.

(03:16):
One of the biggest challenges is thelack of metrics and benchmarking.
A lot of teams don't start with data.
So data as a startingpoint is a challenge.
Legal is naturally used to speakingin beautiful words but the rest
of the business speaks in data.
And so getting you onto an equalplaying field so legal speaks the
language of the rest of the business.
Telling the story of what they dois one of the biggest challenges.

(03:40):
Benchmarking, datavisibility, and systems.
So how you're surfacing yourinformation through reporting,
how you're telling that story.
Then a really key one is aligning whatlegal's doing with the business goals.
How are you demonstrating that?
That's one of the really bigchallenges that we see for teams.
Where do you see opportunities for legaldepartments to become true strategic

(04:04):
partners with their organizations?
The data and reporting is one of the bestways that we've seen a lot of success
with teams who take on gathering andtelling the story that they wanna tell to
different stakeholders within the businessaround how legal is providing services,
what they're doing proactively becomingmore of a strategic partner because the

(04:26):
data will help them take on that role.
It moves them out of thattraditional reactive position
into more of a proactive partner.
What have you found typicallygets in the way of being a high
performance in-house legal team?
Resource constraints areoften a problem for teams.

(04:49):
One of the things that is aconstant challenge for teams
is being under-resourced.
Not having the people that youneed, but also the budget for
the technology that you need.
Usually legal comes lower on the totempole for getting that type of focus.
So those are two that I would focus on.
How do you see the relationshipbetween legal and other business

(05:14):
units changing in the next few years?
We're already seeing themomentum pick up in this regard.
Thinking about that old model of legalbeing traditionally the department
of no it's an old cliche now.
The new model is that legal ismore embedded in the organization.
There's improved process towork with the business units.
Legals moving faster and smarter.

(05:36):
There's more self-service, moreautomation, and that's only gonna
pick up with AI in the coming years.
What different skills do in-house lawyersand professionals that support the legal
team need in order to adapt in this way?
Curiosity innovation, having an innovativemindset, a willingness to modernize.

(06:03):
Legal is traditional thinkers.
They move more slowly.
They're risk averse.
There's a real reluctance noone wants to make a mistake.
Mistakes from legal have consequences,so there's caution . The most successful
teams with technology adoption arethe ones that are leadership driven.
Where you have a general counsel, achief legal officer who is saying, we

(06:23):
need to make these process improvements.
The expectations are X, Y, orZ from above, and driving those
expectations through the teamto make it more successful.
That's what really helps.
What are some best practices thatGeneral counsel should apply when
focused on modernizing their teams?

(06:45):
One of the biggest hurdles for legalteams is that they strive for perfection.
That is a big hurdle fordiving into technology and
iteratively driving progress.
One of the things that I reallypush teams on is don't get
stymied by analysis paralysis.

(07:05):
Just get started.
People who work with me are gonnahear me say that all the time.
I'm like, you're overthinking this.
The technology will move with you.
It will grow with you.
You can make changes.
Don't go into a project thinkingthat it has to be perfect from the
start because you're gonna want tomake changes as soon as you start
seeing how it functions for your team.

(07:26):
From a best practice standpoint, that'sone of the best pieces of advice.
Just get started with somethingbecause that lag of overthinking
and decision paralysis, you'relosing time, and where you could be
seeing almost instant improvements.
How can general counsel securebuy-in for new technology shifts and

(07:48):
processes that will elevate the abilityof the business to work smarter?
Be proactive in how you'reengaging the business.
GCs who really move more aggressivelyinto that strategic partner role are
proactively providing information to thebusiness and getting feedback and then
fueling the growth from there aroundthe feedback and the engagement and

(08:12):
the collaboration with the business.
That's where we see the bestsuccess is engage the stakeholders
and the decision making process.
Get feedback from them and identifythose pain points that you wanna
solve and then prioritize them.
How do you see the corporate legaldepartment evolving in an AI era?

(08:32):
You're going to see them becomemore productive and the service
levels becoming more focused onthe most strategic, complex work.
Being able to identify that andbeing able to use AI as it continues
to improve and actually solveproblems on the productivity side.
Relaxing a little bit around controllingevery aspect of the relationship with

(08:56):
the business partners and allowingthe business to self-serve more.
More templates, self-service documents,and automation, so that the work that
legal is doing with the business isreally strategic and you're aligning
with the business goals to provide theadvice that they really need from legal.
This is Ari Kaplan speaking withAnn Post, the CEO of Zaia North

(09:21):
America, a provider of legal matterand contract management solutions.
Ann, thanks so much.
Thanks so much, Ari.
It was a pleasure.
Thank you for listening to theReinventing Professionals Podcast.
Visit reinventing professionals.com orari kaplan advisors.com to learn more.