A mindset for innovation
When the business you work for was founded on the question “What if there was a better way?”, it is not surprising that innovation is in the DNA of the legal team at Clearbank. The team’s ethos is to abandon the way “things are usually done” in order to find better, smarter ways to meet the legal requirements of the business. This year, with a clear focus on prioritizing high value and strategic work, the team challenged itself to drive further efficiency whilst continuing to meet the increasing needs of its business stakeholders.
They started their transformation journey with a self assessment exercise to determine where time was being spent and what tasks could be made more efficient, in particular, by using process changing technology. Budgetary constraints and the inevitable challenge of integration with enterprise wide systems meant procurement of external legal technology was not a feasible option. So the team focussed on re-purposing existing Microsoft 365 software and, with the help of Konexo, developed user friendly systems to:
> capture instructions from the business
> automatically generate documents
> track cases to completion
> provide reporting via visual and interactive dashboards
> create a chat-style portal interface
The project has been a real success with the first phase of development bringing oversight of ongoing operations and clarity to the work areas that deliver the most strategic value to the business. There has already been an 18% reduction in the teams’ business as usual activities, with signs of further reductions to come, freeing up time for the team to focus on the more strategic and complex work. Looking ahead, proactive use of the data analytics tools embedded into the new system and operating model will enable the team to drive continuous improvement. And, with a mindset focused on innovation and an ever increasing demand for legal services from the business, areas such as artificial intelligence and robotic process automation are the next steps being considered by the team as they continue their technology journey.
Commenting on the project, Tina Meschino, Deputy General Counsel at ClearBank and Ashleigh Kirstenfeldt Senior Legal Counsel at Clearbank say, “Our key focus was to enhance our existing processes and use of technology and automation to allow us to focus on higher value, strategic work. Whilst we made a start in the use of Microsoft technologies for our legal team processes, we did not have the capacity to design, develop and implement a solution to fully meet our requirements. Konexo worked with us to review our processes, identify key requirements and develop a Microsoft-based solution to capture instructions from our business stakeholders, track and collaborate on matters using Microsoft Teams and capture more structured data on the operation of the legal team.”
“We have greatly benefited from Konexo’s technical expertize and experience and it has been easy and collaborative to work with them. I would highly recommend Konexo to others looking to embark on legal transformation and technology projects.”