Elevate.Together.Podcast‪.‬ Elevate Services

Using Data, Implementing Change, and Improving Productivity
The Impact podcast you're about to hear features Senior Director and Head of Legal Operations at Twilio, Andy Krebs, and Steve Harmon, Elevate's COO and General Counsel. Steve, Andy, and Elevate CMO Nicole Giantonio discuss planning for and executing a strategy to establish Twilio as a highly efficient world-class law department.
00:41 Andy shares comments on his career journey, including 21 years at Intel - from managing wafers to building a supplier diversity model and, ultimately, legal ops.  
01:39 As the new leader of Twilio Legal Ops, Andy elaborates on tactical team priorities and strategy.
04:08 Steve Harmon asks about the relative distribution between the things that make the legal department run better versus Twilio's focus to enable the business to make the business run better.
06:20 Tracking basic foundational metrics, revenue per attorney, and working with internal legal leadership to understand the metrics they care about.  Using data to make decisions.
11:06 Establishing a three-year plan, looking for short-term wins to get buy-in, then layering in and building out functions for longer-term impact.
13:26 Using data to support change, improve productivity and improve job satisfaction.  
15:45 Connecting Legal with Legal Operations, present a strategy and plan for getting there, and bring your colleagues into the discussion.
17:05 A practical Legal Operations function creates a huge opportunity to make improvements.
19:35 Some days, you're pulling your hair out, but that's part of it. If it were easy, everybody would do it.

How many contract templates is the correct number?
This Impact Podcast features Mike Russell, the Head of Global Legal Operations for Expedia Group, and Steve Harmon, Elevate's COO and General Counsel. Mike and Steve discuss two change initiatives and the impacts of those changes. The first outlines the deconstruction and rebuilding of litigation processes for a large manufacturing organisation. The second involves the process review and automation of buy-side contracts at Expedia.
01:01 Listen in as Mike Russell outlines his professional journey into Legal Operations and his role at Expedia. 
01:40 Now, Steve Harmon elaborates on his background and path to Legal Operations. 
03:28 We jump into one of our Impact experiences - reviewing, deconstructing, and rebuilding litigation processes, which resulted in measurable savings.
06:00 We connected dedicated national trial counsel and discovery counsel within a legal ops-driven process to keep track of all the moving parts.

07:40 There was a shift in work from the law firm side to the law company.

08:01 While implementing tech is often the first step; our focus from the beginning was adoption and tracking.

10:43 There were measurable savings, and the project provided a study on how an alternate service provider can add value and be an extension of the team.

12:22 Our second impact experience was buy-side contracting at Expedia.

13:29 Over nine months, we unwound our templates, contracts, playbooks, attorney knowledge, and contract manager procurement knowledge and developed workflows with the platform vendor and our implementation partner, Elevate.

15:21 Realizing outsourcing makes sense.

17:05 Routinising and documenting a process can substitute for a SOX control.

18:14 People have enjoyed adopting the platform; they like interfacing with it.

19:12 A reduction in cycle time resonates strongly with the business.

20:01 We are surprised by the benefits of having a strong contracting policy that dictates the minimum contracting standard and minimum acceptable terms.

21:38 Take advantage of the knowledge your partners bring, allow time for education..

23:01 Get involved in peer networking, CLOC, and ILTA, the ACC link, legal operators; there's an opportunity to learn from your peers.

The Commute and the Hybrid Work Model
In the second two-part podcast series, Director Paula Forbes talks with Daniel Hogan, an Engagement Manager in our flexible legal resourcing who leads our Asia pack initiatives from Australia. Paula and Daniel touch on trends they’re seeing today and what’s next in legal resourcing. 

[01:13] Work from home, return to the office, and hybrid work models – with office downsizing and talent preference – options and the hybrid work model *might* be here to stay.

[03:35] The office is a training ground for early career individuals, offering a social network and a suitable workspace. Then there is the commute.

[06:39] Many lawyers working overseas delayed their return to Australia as the borders opened, while lawyers locked down in Australia have gone overseas or are leaving.

[08:29]  Rates have normalized in the last quarter of the year from the increases available post-lockdown as the battle for talent in Australia has turned to other factors besides rates.

[10:58] We’re seeing more uncertainty in the market going into 2023, and there is a consideration that there’s a bit of risk within the interim market. Longer-term contracts of six or twelve months and temp-to-perm or interim-to-perm opportunities are appealing more.

[13:20] The construction and energy industries remain strong and should continue due to the volume of investment in infrastructure, energy, and the switch to renewables.  There’s been a drop in the volume of M&A transactions and an increase in data privacy and cybersecurity investigations.

[15:07] There is a direct correlation between how interested a person is in talking to you about a new opportunity and how flexible the business environment is.

[17:07] Many organizations are coming up with creative solutions to differentiate. Considering who they are, how they want to present themselves, their brand and reputation are increasingly important because talent has a choice.
 

Start Smart When It Comes to Your CLM Implementation
Executing your CLM implementation smart is the topic of this lively podcast.  Listen in and hear how the CLM market has changed the world of corporate contracting.  Join two of the industry’s most knowledgeable resources, Bernadette Bulacan, Chief Evangelist at Icertis and Kami Paulsen, Managing Director at Elevate, for this conversation.
01:25 Meet Bernadette and Kami.
02:25 Legal ops teams cut their teeth on technology.  Today those learnings are being applied to CLM implementaitons.
04:56 CLM presents a great opportunity to introduce legal technology across the enterprise.
06:03 Big bang or a phased an enterprise CLM implementation,what's the best approach? 
07:12 Best practice includes stage gates, iterating, starting with a smaller universe of agreements and creating a team of champions.
08:50 Readiness includes ensuring your contract templates in order - and knowing where they are. 
09:50 Starting with a process like NDAs provides the experience to be applied to more complex processes.
11:20 The SOW process forces customers to look at Big Bang while starting small has the benefit of establishing and testing processes for a larger rollout.
13:42 The Elevate and Icertis SmartStart offering is front end loaded with harmonization for customers that don't have time for harmonization.
15:35 Once you harmonize the content developing workflows and KPIs are less daunting.
17:02 Capturing information in an organized way pays dividends.
21:12 Prioritization and understanding organizational drivers including consolidation, and turnaround can direct the implementation.
24:47 CLMs fail when the clients say, “This is our process, we have to do it this way” - and we give them a faster way to implement their bad process
26:31 Challenging process is imperative, you have to be ready to take a look at contracts, actual physical documents and the process and the people that are working. 
27:03 Technology is not a magic bullet, build a team of champions, have playbooks, be okay with iteration.
30:56 Programs like StartSmart and overall industry maturity have slowed the 3-year cycle of rip and replace.
31:39 Was it a training issue, or was it a change in management? what we've seen in development in the last few years is incredible, and companies that may have 10 years ago, now with everything being in the Cloud, it's opened up this entire new world of integrations
33:25 We are all moving very fast, if we take time in the beginning to slow down and look at the processes, where they're broken - before we take that leap of faith into CLM we'll benefit by having the ability to move much faster with information and data that's reliable. 

Don’t Panic and Take a Deep Breath.
An Expert series podcast, this episode covers data breaches from three angles – legal, technology, and services.  Our host for this podcast is James Manari, a Vice President at Elevate, and our three industry experts introduce themselves at the beginning of the podcast.    
[00:47] Meet our guests: Melissa Ventrone, the Business Unit Leader for the Privacy and Cybersecurity team at Clark Hill; Adi Elliott, is the COO at Canopy Software; and Megan Silverman, is a Director in Elevate's Incident Response Practice.
[03:43] The evolution of incident response and where the industry is today. 
[04:53] There is a consumer expectation that if you hand your information over, a company will take the proper steps to protect it.
[07:38] Laws are struggling to keep up with technology and change.
[09:55] Lawmakers don’t necessarily understand the scope of what they're asking companies to do in response to these incidents. 
[13:56] Affected entities are surprised at the amount of data they have and what it contains. 
[17:05] Have a plan in place for what do we do when there is an incident, go on a data diet, understand where your information is, know your cyber insurance provider, know who your attorneys are going to be 
[21:34] While consumers are becoming desensitized to these incidents, legislation is continuing to drive tighter security controls, and regulations will continue to evolve.

Australia and Others Practicing More Flexibly.This Expert series podcast highlights two leaders from Elevate's flexible legal resourcing business, ElevateFlex. Elevate Director, Paula Forbes, talks with Dan Hogan, an ElevateFlex Engagement Manager, leading our Asia-Pac Initiatives for Australia. Paula and Dan touch on two unique years, trends they are seeing today, and what's next in legal resourcing.[00:47]   Extensive lockdowns have marred the Australian market for legal resourcing. [02:47]  Australia relies on resource movement in and out to refresh the knowledge and experience pool.[04:00] Talent in short supply becomes expensive.[06:09] Pay a competitive rate, make a decision quickly, condense the number of interviews to one, get the decision-makers on that call.[06:53] Talent wants an element of stability - longer contracts.[08:01] People are evaluating flexible work and how it works for them.[10:31] Work is underway on learning and development for junior lawyers working remotely.[12:24] Today’s location-independent jobs provide more opportunity.[13:47] The UK and the US legal talent is starting to move away from big law firms with big salaries.[15:47] Talent is heading back into the larger law offices, and there is a salary race to entice Talent into roles[18:12] One of the patterns that we started to see over 2021 was the movement of Talent even from permanent opportunities.[19:39] There is an increase in opportunities in cybersecurity, and the corporate M&A sector is red hot in Australia and beyond.