High Impact Lawyers

How many of our in-house readers remember the learning curve that came when you went from private practice to in-house? Maybe you don’t quite remember your own struggles but are now training the newest batch of hires. You know that being an in-house lawyer isn’t just about practicing law - it’s also about learning the client’s business, operations, processes, goals, priorities and people. Excellent performance reviews in private practice – also doesn’t translate into immediate success as in-house lawyers because different metrics are used. In-house counsel value is measured on IMPACT rather than time billed.

Impact will be challenging if an in-house lawyer is not a great business partner. According to the latest ACC study, Chief Legal Officers (CLOs) are expected to be strategic business advisors and they certainly expect their teams to work the same. Meanwhile, budgets are tight and shrinking, with the legal team labeled as the dreaded “cost center”.

The Problem

What if in-house lawyers had a tool that not only helped them quickly learn and understand the business, but could speed up deal time and tracked metrics that quantified business value and revenue acceleration? And what if that same tool freed your lawyers up from time spent on lengthy contract negotiations, project management, and business research so that they could focus on the strategic advising necessary for their business functions?

This is exactly the problem we want to solve at V4 Final.

Tackling the problem, emotion was the guide at first. As a transactional strategic advisor focused on data protection, privacy, and cybersecurity, our founder simply hated reviewing redlines – it was a distraction from the high-impact work she was hired for and enjoyed. The latest ACC Law Department Management Benchmark Summary puts data behind this: nearly 100% of contract management is housed within in-house legal team. It’s unlikely there is an in-house legal team anywhere in the world that does not need to do contract redline review.

Let’s consider a typical contract negotiation. A lawyer’s job should be to assess risks, align terms with business priorities, and help negotiate the best possible agreement. But the law cannot be assessed without the facts. Most of in-house legal’s time is not spent reviewing the law or finding just the perfect way to say “do this”, but in finding, organizing, and digesting the facts necessary to determine what should or should not be agreed to.

Learning the product/service. What does it do right now? What features are on the roadmap? What features are never going to be implemented no matter what sales promised to the customer? Who approves changes to the roadmap or feature set?
Learning underlying business operations. How do we store and process information? How do we take, process, fulfil and bill for orders? If we offer information services, are the services operated the same way as the corporate operations? Are we going to make any changes to this any time soon? When? What if the customer wants us to do it differently? Who can approve that?
Learning business priorities and goals. Ever sales executive believes their contract review is the most important deal in the legal queue. Most are willing to accept any level of risk to get it signed – but what is the Big Picture? How important is this deal, really, and what level of risk is appropriate? Who is the right person to buy off on that risk (hint: it’s probably not the salesperson…probably).
Managing feedback and approvals. Which stakeholders need to be contacted? Which ones have already given feedback? Who sent me to someone else? Did that person have the right signature authority and role to agree to that change? Where did I file that email again? Am I done yet?
The delayed boomerang. Wait? Didn’t we sign that? It was six months ago and the customer is just now responding the last redline? Time to dig through all the old emails and draft versions until I remember everything that we discussed before and I understand what still needs to be closed out.

None of these tasks require legal expertise – but all are necessary for legal expertise to have impact. They also take an inordinate amount of time. It’s more than frustrating, it’s a terrible (and expensive) use of highly skilled professionals.

The Solution

Automating the process of fact gathering has always been a difficult task. Even with the tools dedicated to legal tasks like e-discovery still needed specialized help in running queries and validating responses, and still the tools were not a great fit for in-house transactional work. Time’s are a-changing now. AI has entered the chat.

V4 Final is innovating in this space, seeking to reduce the time spent finding, organizing, and tracking the business information necessary for in-house lawyers to quickly provide high quality reviews of contract redlines – and get back to their strategic advisory role. We’re using artificial intelligence technology together with automated workflows with a mission to close deals 50% faster – an impact that the legal team can measure in a way that the CFO and CEO can appreciate with faster revenue.

What does that look like for in-house counsel?

Honestly? It’s going to look a lot like what you’re used to. This is technology built for in-house, by in-house – no one wants to make you spend even more non-impactful time learning how to talk to a robot. What we will give you is:

Referenced Business Context. AI-driven research assistant that can pull relevant business data and information, designed to pre-classify risk and priorities so that appropriate stakeholders and subject matter experts can be consulted.
Parallel stakeholder input and approval. AI legal secretary to draft information and approval requests written in plain language (no more “legalese”) who will also keep track of all responses and follow up as necessary.
Auditable Logs. Know that every redline has been addressed, who has been consulted, and what their response is – even six months later when a new version comes back. Bonus: it can also provide metrics that will drive impact both within legal operations and with your internal clients.
Security, Privacy, & Privilege. Built from design with digital regulatory compliance and the ethics requirements in mind. We know the hurdles you face on integrating legal tech into corporate IT environments, and we’re ready to help you do it.

Impact Accelerates Here

The best in-house legal teams are more than just reactive resources for winning arguments. They are strategic advisors focused on the legal and business needs of their clients: mitigating risk while contributing to growth.

You’re already a good lawyer. Accelerate your business impact with V4 Final.

Interested? Comment below and sign up to get into the private pilot program.