Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/13683
A NEW LEVEL OF CONTROL FOR CORPORATION LEGAL DEPARTMENTS information. This is a powerful tool for controlling the costs associated with e-discovery efforts. For example, most legal spend management solutions have the ability to automate the rate of outside firms working on a litigated matter. Through the integration of data, in-house counsel obtains the ability to automatically enforce rules governing e-discovery spend associated with that matter. While this example focuses on the power for controlling the costs associated with e-discovery efforts, this automated cost control can, of course, be focused on controlling all of the outside counsel costs. MATTER MANAGEMENT: CONTROLLING YOUR OPERATIONAL COSTS Corporate legal departments use matter management systems to manage and control all their legal matters on a day-to-day basis, including opening and closing matters, daily matter work, workload assignment, management and forecasting, outside counsel collaboration, and litigation metrics and performance measurement. In addition to the growing cost of litigation, corporate legal departments are faced with ever- increasing case loads made even more challenging by resource constraints. To meet their growing legal matter management demands, general counsels rely on matter management solutions that provide: • immediate access to detailed information on any legal matter, past or present • better management of staff time and resources • improved control over internal and external matter management costs through business rule automation The matter management solution is often viewed as the hub from which the operational control of the legal department is managed. With the right solution in place, legal departments not only have the ability to automate the workload of the legal group, but also manage operational costs. Matter management is an important tool in achieving streamlined efficiency. However, the in-house legal department also gains immense control with the addition of historical and real-time information gleaned from other legal enterprise applications. This information aids in delivering context to the matter at hand. By connecting the information from the matter management solution with the e-discovery and legal spend management solutions, corporate legal departments are developing a complete, integrated legal enterprise management environment that puts them in control like never before. For example, take a matter for which a corporate legal group is leveraging information from across the legal enterprise. They can know exactly what their overall spend on a matter is to date in real time, and compare it to similar matters that they have worked on in the past to understand, at a given point, if they are at a higher rate or a lower expense basis. Further, they can look at how far they are in the e-discovery process and mark how much more they need to analyze to be complete. Using knowledge of the current internal expense paired with their outside counsel expense, they can then predict how much more the case is going to cost. With this complete picture, they can start making decisions on www.iltanet.org Case/Matter Management 37