These are part of the findings of the Legisway Benchmark for Legal Departments, a study on the digitalisation of legal departments in Europe, conducted by Wolters Kluwer and the European Legal Tech Association (ELTA). This study, carried out across more than 20 European countries, questioned over 500 legal professionals and aimed to identify and analyse the position of their legal departments in their digitalisation journey.
Today's legal departments are facing persistent challenges that are affecting the productivity of their teams. And the report's findings are unequivocal: there is a high level of awareness about the benefits of technology in boosting the productivity of their legal teams, but senior in-house team members are still finding it difficult to make progress on the digitalisation curve.
This report delves into the challenges that legal professionals still face in introducing tools into their departments, how departments are developing their digital strategies, and the rise of the legal ops function as a catalyst for process improvement...
The data presented in the report is commented on by professionals who share their experiences and discuss the subject of legal tech in their departments, including Artificial Intelligence:
“The use of contract management software has become essential for legal departments. To enhance efficiency, AI tools should be integrated for rereading and comparing contracts and/or improving processes, such as automating the drafting of NDAs. This would free up lawyers' time, which they could devote to essential tasks such as contract negotiation. In this respect, I think there is still room for improvement.” Fabrice Guillou, Legal IP systems and processes manager at STMicroelectronics.
