Earlier this month, the ThoughtRiver team attended LegalWeek 2020, ALM's annual conference in New York. It was a busy few days of great meetings with customers, prospects, and key media such as Zach Warren and Niki Black. We thoroughly enjoyed our time discussing the legaltech landscape with the many in-house teams, law firms, and partners that joined us at our extremely popular ‘Time for Tea’ event at the Hilton: it was great to see our event so well attended, and we look forward to hosting it again next year.
Throughout the conference, we ran demos of our AI-driven intelligent contract pre-screening platform to show the benefits of automated risk review and AI guided remediation of legal contracts, and we learned a great deal as we navigated the expo hall and engaged in both in-depth conversations and the many thought leadership-based sessions on offer.
Here's a rundown of our team's key takeaways:
At many law firms, innovation is in everyone's job description
It's no surprise that innovation took center stage amongst the conference panels, but what was interesting to hear during the many conversations with attendees we had was that, at law firms in particular, everyone is being encouraged to think about innovation in the way they work. From the potential introduced by automation, to establishing new ways of doing more with less, firms now expect every individual to think outside of the box.
It was great to hear that contract review fell firmly into the innovation agenda, and many attendees were interested in finding out more about ThoughtRiver's potential in streamlining processes, introducing the power of analytics into the review process, and establishing KPIs for Legal Operations.
The importance of contract review in the broader sales/deal velocity conversation
Every company that has an enterprise sales force will have a high volume of contracts to review, and getting them negotiated can make or break quarterly performance. Many in-house and law firm leaders took the time to tell us what technology tools make their lives easier, and when we shared the ThoughtRiver solution, it was universally agreed that it could help to identify risk levels in contracts and to assign resources accordingly to get through the backlog.
In short, it was refreshing to see the potential impact of technology on their day to day work, and how our technology is positioned to transform business.
The role of AI in the 'GC Dream List of Law Firm Needs'
In the opening session of the conference, Heather Nevitt, Editor-in-Chief of Corporate Counsel, Inside Counsel and Texas Lawyer, and James Willer, senior analyst with ALM Legal Intelligence, presented an overall view of the legal industry, including 'The GC's Dream List of Law Firm Needs.'
It was fascinating to see just how significant the role of technology is in these needs, and how AI will continue to inform these requirements: 'Direct, practical advice they can then take to their business leadership, 'Proactive monitoring of their business, warning of potential issues and where they can support,' 'Horizon scanning for future areas that I need to be aware for and need support,' are a few of the examples, and it was great to see 'technology and innovative support for internal legal tech' claiming a space on the dream list.
Our vision is that intelligent contract screening will stop the legal industry from being held back by low-value, high volume contract screening, helping bring the GC's ‘Dream List’ a little closer to reality.
We'd like to extend a big thanks to the team at ALM for an amazing event focused on inspiring ways technology can help solve today's legal challenges. We're looking forward to LegalWeek 2021, and, if you didn't get a chance to meet the ThoughtRiver team at this year's event, get in touch today – we'd love to answer any questions you may have.