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August 2, 2021 Modern corporate legal departments receive an abundant workload each day. One of the most labor-intensive tasks they face is responding to subpoena requests. They have to juggle completing, tracking and communicating with other departments with the pressure of serious consequences if the subpoena request is not accomplished within the deadline. Our case study explores a Fortune 500 company that uses the TeamConnect SOP Manager to manually monitor and fulfill their subpoena requests, but as time passes the challenges in communications are taking their toll. As the InfiniGlobe team assessed the situation and listen to their needs, our team that the best course of action is automation. Does this situation mirror yours? Download our Case Study and get a full insight on how our solution to streamline their process resulted in a happier legal department. Got questions for us? We'd love to discuss it with you. Contact us at info@InfiniGlobe.com or (833) LGL-TECH.

Wednesday, July 21, 2021 Today InfiniGlobe announced its release of a new integration connector that allows for Mitratech TeamConnect™ to interface with NetDocuments™ services so TeamConnect users will not have to leave their browser to create a workspace in NetDocuments and can move documents between the applications with the click of a button. The integration is simple and results in significant time and costs savings, eliminating the wait for the batch sync process and optimizing staff’s daily tasks. “Our deep technology partnerships with both Mitratech and InfiniGlobe provide a value-add to our mutual customers and deliver additional ways to increase productivity,” stated Reza Parsia, VP, Strategic Partner Management, NetDocuments. This new InfiniGlobe product is the result of InfiniGlobe’s decades of industry experience in implementing best practices, upgrading, and integrating Mitratech TeamConnect as well as leveraging their ISV technology partnership with NetDocuments. "This is an exciting example of Mitratech partners -- InfiniGlobe and NetDocuments -- solving the office of general counsel's need of doing more with less resources." stated, Danish Butt, Director, Partner Programs, Mitratech. Read the official press release here. If your law department is currently using or planning to use NetDocuments™ and an ELM solution such as TeamConnect™, please reach out to us at info@infiniglobe.com to learn more about the capabilities and to see a demonstration.

July 11, 2021 In today's time, staying ahead of your competitors means the need to adopt new technologies and as one of the top banks in the US, our client, decided to upgrade their Document Management System. However, the problem arises when this new system does not communicate well with their current Enterprise Legal Management (ELM). Download the case study and get to know why the InfiniGlobe team believed that seamless integration is the best option for when your technology upgrade caused you, inefficiencies. For more information, reach out to us at info@InfiniGlobe.com or (833) LGL-TECH.

July 7, 2021 TeamConnect is the industry leading Enterprise Legal Management tool. It boasts its high customizability system that can meet any business's exact needs so it's not surprising that top legal departments use it. But through the years, its best feature becomes a hurdle. Whether you are an old or new TeamConnect user this whitepaper is for you! Download it now and learn how one tool can improve your TeamConnect experience by: Untangling legacy knots User interface simplification Streamlining processes results This showcases InfiniGlobe's years of expertise and includes three different cases from varying industries. For more information, reach out to us at info@InfiniGlobe.com or (833) LGL-TECH.

June 29, 2021 Given the trepidations the pandemic has brought us, it is best to face the future with the help of the Global Legal Department Benchmarking Survey which was participated by companies from around the world in different industries. The survey provided distinctions among the responding legal departments in Europe, and Asia. Legal Department’s Responsibility Legal departments have become an important part of every organization. They do not only mitigate risk but also strengthen relationships within and outside the organization. The report gave a deep insight into the current roles of legal departments. 18 % of them answered that they manage the contract documents after contract conclusion and termination. And 44% stated that the contracts are managed by the respective business unit and are therefore not accessible to the legal department. 6% of respondents said that contract management is not assigned to a management function in their company. Legal Ops & Technology Along with the goal of improvement comes the smart utilization of technology. With the great benefits of technology, 74% of legal departments who responded use IT tools mainly for communications and 65% use them for legal research tools. 55% also plan to apply tech to information extraction from documents, 54% for document automation, and 45% for data analysis. In general, most legal departments are still on the fence about spending more on legal technology and when they were asked about these the top 3 reasons are: 45% said that they decided to do other initiatives instead, 36% have no idea what to invest, and 15% lack knowledge. The survey showed that 67% have not allocated funds for it so only 33% had earmarked funds for their department. Of those that had a budget, the average amount was US$248K and the amount set aside is just 13% of the total budget spent. Trends and developments When it comes to challenges, legal departments do not come up short. Handling multiple areas of legal practice while safeguarding the interest of the company and its clients simultaneously. Not to mention, complying and keeping up with numerous rules and regulatory stipulations from time to time. The survey asked what the heads of legal prioritize in planning for the future of their departments to lay out the foundation of identifying current challenges. It showed that the top one is Further Internationalization of legal function with 85% followed by Optimizing processes and workflow with 84% and 80% gave importance to Providing proactive legal advice to the business. As for investments, 75% will increase funds for the success-critical expertise and knowledge of lawyers, 65% wants to invest in improving control and efficiency of their processes coming close to that number are heads that plans to increase the transparency of work processes. 61% also plans to increase automation. Budget Concerns GDPR spearheaded the focus on protecting consumers' data and this resulted in an obvious increase of new laws and regulations in the past years due to the rise of usage in technology. This also meant that legal departments' efforts on compliance. The expenditure of the legal departments of all the companies surveyed averaged US$2 million per US$1 billion in sales. The average internal expenses of the legal departments surveyed are US$291K per lawyer. There is clearly a visible path that the legal industry is on its way to adopting new technologies which are concurrent to the global digitalization happening across other industries. A more in-depth insight was tackled by InfiniGlobe CEO, Mori Kabiri, in a Forbes article where he shared the importance of adapting to the changes after the disruption created by the COVID-19 pandemic. After choosing the best technology, implementation is not a one-size-fits-all process that is often not considered by many. Large-scale changes would need better expertise and perspectives from professionals. Our consultants have decades of legal technology assessments for many law departments of fortune 500 corporations, reach out to us at info@infiniglobe.com or at (833) LGL-TECH.

June 7, 2021 Innovative thinking and strategic decisions defined Corporate Legal’s COVID-19 strategy. Most everyone faced an initial cut in outside counsel spend, which resulted in the inevitable increase in in-house counsel’s workload, but smart law departments began using technology to solve new inefficiencies. It has been the perfect storm to encourage legal to embrace, not fear, new technology and the industry has proven its resilience with smart choices that are evident in the recent survey conducted by the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC). Participants responded from 200 organizations across more than 22 industries and 21 countries. The in-depth report highlights current and future industry trends, as well as insights into what corporate leaders are interested in and working on. We read through it and wanted to share what we found interesting. Here are four key points where Corporate Legal made the most significant changes this past year: Increasing Legal Spend and Balancing Work Distribution Overall, Corporate Legal’s budget balancing between internal and external expenditure was reported at an impressive average equilibrium with a 50-50 split, compared to last year’s 40% internal to 60% external. It also appears that smaller and medium size companies skew more towards a 50-50 split, while larger companies prefer to outsource. The distribution of work between internal counsel and outside counsel, such as law firms and alternative legal service providers, was surveyed with 41% reporting that they felt the balance of work has remained the same, 39% gave more work to in-house, and 20% outsourced more work. About a quarter of respondents stated that the number of alternative service providers they worked with increased in 2020. These shifts can be great opportunities for smart legal operations teams to survey their processes and systems to identify and assess chokeholds, inefficiencies, and obsoletions. Evaluate your technologies– there are so many efficiency and security problems that can be solved with an integration – and your vendors – there are so many alternative fee arrangements you can take advantage of to reduce cost while maintaining services. Take advantage of this transitionary period to transform your department’s operations and improve collaboration, security, and relevancy. Significant Growth of Legal Operations Across all industries, the survey found that the average corporate legal department employs 104 people. Breaking down the nuance of that number, small companies reported an average of 15 employees, medium companies reported 81 employees, and large companies reported around 200 employees. Not surprisingly the number of dedicated legal operations professionals per department follows a similar trend, with an average of 1 per small company, 7 per medium company (up from just 2 in 2019), and 13 per large company. Even the number of other staff a Legal Operations supports increased this year to an average of 23 attorneys. It’s clear that legal operations are increasingly becoming a vital part of most organizations. At least half of respondents stated that their Legal Operations colleagues/team functions at the director or manager level. When it comes to corporate hierarchy, 59% stated that Legal Operations colleagues reported to the general counsel and 11% to the Vice President. Legal Operations is often in the driver’s seat and it’s important to keep on top of trends in the industry and neighboring industries. With the high reach and holistic perspective of the legal department, Legal Operations professionals who were proactive in responding to COVID-19 are reaping the rewards now and setting an example for other companies to invest in their own Legal Operations teams. Putting a Spotlight on Issues that Matter As our social discourse grows with new perspectives and further reaches, it encourages us to reevaluate our professional values as well. For years, concerns around adequate Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) in the workplace have been growing. Fortunately, the survey found that 61% out of all respondents have programs surrounding D&I as their top priority, which is a great improvement from last year. There are more eyes and ears on the importance of D&I in legal than ever before, and technology has been a great help in organizing and collaborating efforts to improve workplaces. The acceleration of digitization across all industries has also had its effects on legal, with 57% of corporate legal departments choosing initiatives to automate legal processes and 54% sharing that they think their department should implement new solutions. This is incredibly encouraging for an industry known for its reliance on abiding by and not setting precedence and bodes well for the future of legal in the global services marketplace. As the adage says, “If you don’t keep up, you may get left behind.” Utilizing Technology Due to budget concerns, some Legal Operations professionals have considered leveraging technology tools to help them with streamlining inefficiencies and strengthening security. Participating legal departments reported having at least some kind of eSignature, eBilling, Contract Management, or Document Management software. These kinds of software tools take a lot of pressures and manual administration work off of the table so legal department staff can focus on high-value work and IT can maintain peace of mind. (Don’t forget your information security diligence check before onboarding any new vendors.) For those brave companies who took and are continuing to take advantage of the past year and a half to declutter, upgrade, integrate, and improve their technologies and processes, the results speak for themselves. It can be finally upgrading your legacy system or trying something new, but when all it takes is a click, you’ll wonder why you ever “put up with it.” With a long history of working with top corporate legal departments, InfiniGlobe subject matter experts specialize in evaluating current systems and applications and maximizing their technology investment. We listen to our client's needs, pay attention to details, and deliver tailored solutions to their unique needs. For more information, reach out to us at info@InfiniGlobe.com or (833) LGL-TECH.

March 9, 2021 The recent supply chain cyber attack that targeted everyone from the Washington State Auditor to Microsoft to Boston law firm Goodwin Proctor through their vendor, Accellion, was a reality check that there is no such thing as “too cautious.” Every type of organization is susceptible to data breaches. Just in the last year, it was reported that globally these breaches have cost $3.86 million and experts expect that they will become more and more frequent. Despite these grim predictions, management still has the responsibility to protect their organizations and comply with regulations. The best way to mitigate risks and prevent a potential security breach is to invest in preparing your team for the possibility of a security breach. Start planning ahead with these steps. 1. Assessment & Training Start laying the groundwork by surveying your colleagues and taking the time to understand what types of information they process, what programs they use, and vulnerabilities in their processes where documents or information could be unsecured. List all of your findings in a Risk Register where you can identify, treat, and track those vulnerabilities before they turn into threats. Equally important to monitoring data handling is prioritizing employee security education and awareness. Human error is common when it comes to data breaches and sometimes all it takes is one absent-minded mistake to have a huge impact on the whole company and its clients. It’s a great idea to do an annual training for all of your staff and employees (including vendors and contractors that have access to your network or systems). Employees and staff at all levels should have a solid understanding of data classification, storage, transfer, access, protection, and the consequences in the chance that it is mishandled, lost, or stolen. The sensitive legal information that firm staff process makes their daily work inherently high risk, so it is important to continually monitor folders and mailboxes that are sensitive, and to report anything suspicious immediately. 2. Compliance & Notifications There are a growing number of government regulations surrounding security compliance at the state, national, and international levels such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the GDPR. Determining which regulations apply to you and taking the time to invest in implementing the needed preventive measures to comply is quite a challenge. Not to forget legislation is constantly being revised to reflect new threats, as fast as technology evolves. One commonality between most regulations is notification time following a breach, containment, and resolution. Taking into account response time while creating your security plan will give you a guideline to follow when the crisis happens. Keep in mind that the deadline for reporting breaches varies, so take into account what your state’s notification laws are. As for GDPR, they require companies to report the breach within 72 hours from the moment they became aware of the incident, so if you work with or are based in the EU, take that into account. One last reminder if you’re not already convinced: the longer it takes between a data breach is discovered and fixed, the more expensive the consequences, so having a robust plan, and keeping everyone informed, will be a weight off your shoulders. 3. Verifying Vendors After planning ahead within your organization, it is imperative that you assess your vendors for how they handle security, particularly when it comes to your information that they process and handle. Take the time to perform a due diligence assessment on any of your outside counsel, partners, and contractors/subcontractors to make sure that they have information security policies, and if possible are certified under recognized compliance standards, such as ISO 27001, PCI DSS, HIPAA and ITAR. Vendors with several accreditations reflect how they value and will prioritize your data security. Most attacks are through smaller companies and firms, with the hopes of backdooring into legal departments, major law firms, and other big fish. Hackers know that breaking into an enterprise corporation or AM Law 100 Firm is next to impossible, but taking advantage of a vulnerability in the supply chain makes it a breeze. Knowing exactly how your vendors and partners handle sensitive data builds a stronger supply chain and protects everyone against this kind of attack. Remember, you’re only as strong as your weakest link. Next Steps Cyber criminals have gotten creative and have what feels like infinite resources to devise attacks and hacks, but what they don’t have is collaborative power. Even with major attacks, there are usually only a handful of actors that essentially got lucky with a vulnerability after countless failed attempts. If corporate legal departments and their vendors, from law firms to payroll to invoices to tech, pool their efforts and all prioritize information security, changes for a breach fall significantly. It all starts with an assessment similar to the one you do internally to evaluate your vendors’ current security state and practices that may lead to discoveries and opportunities for improvement. But we understand that this is a no small feat to do. You will need a tool that can help your department streamline the administration of this due diligence process for vendor risk management as different regulations require different risk assessments for different vendors. Getting everyone on board, collecting, maintaining and monitoring that information quickly grows into a massive administrative effort. With Counself Risk, an ISO 27001:2013 certified private-cloud platform, you can easily set up secure requests to collect information, evaluate your outside counsel, and optimize your assessment workflow and vendor compliance management. Counself has been designed specifically for legal with enterprise security features and integrations with SSO and leading platforms such as NetDocuments and Mitratech TeamConnect to make vendor management and monitoring as simple and secure as possible. Reach out to us here and learn more about Counself here.

February 22, 2021 The national movement to increase diversity, representation, and opportunity for new voices has touched the legal industry and continues to grow in influence and results. A major contributor to the improvement in law firm recruitment and promotion practices in the US has been what is affectionately referred to as The Mansfield Rule. The Mansfield Rule measures whether law firms affirmatively consider minorities such as women, lawyers of color, LGBTQ+ lawyers, and lawyers with disabilities for at least 30 percent of leadership and governance roles, equity partner promotions, formal client pitch opportunities, and senior lateral positions in law firms and 50 percent in legal departments. Since its introduction in 2016, it’s being reported throughout the industry that it has helped drive results like innovation and increase trust in the organization. It has been a collaborative effort with clients taking the first step in requiring it from their law firms, and with firms picking up the rule and running with it. What is the Mansfield Rule for Law Firms? The idea of Mansfield Rule originated as an entry into the 2016 Diversity Lab’s Women in Law Hackaton – a pitch competition in partnership with Stanford Law School and Bloomberg Law aiming to encourage women in developing innovative ideas and products that will advance the legal profession. The creators took inspiration from the NFL’s Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview at least one minority candidate for head coach vacancies, and named it after the first woman who was licensed to practice law in the United States, Arabella Mansfield. For law firms to achieve the Mansfield Rule Certification, they need to exhibit at least a year of progress in increasing diversity in senior recruitment and leadership decisions. This is primarily benchmarked by the diversity of their candidate pool for senior positions: at least 30% of the candidates they consider must be women, people of color, LGBTQ+, and/or people with disabilities. The 30% is not a cap in any way, and many firms have grown their staff diversity beyond that, but there is a reason why it is the minimum for consideration. Why 30%? Inspired by the results of the Rooney Rule and a set of studies by Harvard Business Review, experts believe that you need 30% critical mass to disrupt bias. "The results from these studies were what we had predicted: When there were two minorities or women in the pool of [three] finalists, the status quo changed, resulting in a woman or minority becoming the favored candidate.” Why 30% for law firms? Well, firstly, the most effective change is often gradual. Plus, the study found that “each added woman in the pool does not increase the probability of hiring a woman, however — the difference between having one and two women [in a pool of three] seems to be what matters.” There’s something hidden in our psychology that makes it hard to make an unfamiliar choice or take a leap of faith in the minority instead of following the status quo of the majority. The Mansfield Rule aims to help ease the mental load of choosing change by making diverse options more available and more comfortable. Mansfield Rule for Legal Departments With its visible success in the diversification of law firms, Diversity Lab further developed the Mansfield Rule for Legal Departments (MRLD) in 2019-2020. For legal departments to meet the recommendations, they’re asked to try and get up to 50 percent diversity among senior staff and outside counsel over the course of a two-year period. This is an increase from the 30 percent requirement for law firms, because legal departments tend to be more diverse than law firms, however, they still lack true inclusion at the top ranks. Women only make up 31 percent of General Counsels in the US and minority lawyers make up less than 20 percent. Always Improving The Diversity Lab’s most recent Mansfield 4.0 certification sees active participation from 117 major law firms (up from the original 42) who are committed to a more diverse and inclusive workforce. Its importance and effectiveness were immediately clear, with 65% of participating firms reported that they promoted a higher percentage of diverse lawyers into equity partnership and 92% of participating firms reported a higher percentage of diverse attorneys participating in formal pitches in the first year of the certification alone. These numbers continue to improve. Similarly, although the Mansfield Rule for Legal Departments is still fairly new, of the 19 corporate legal departments that participated in the pilot program, including US Bank, Paypal, and Uber, 80% reported increases in discussions among leadership regarding broadening pool of candidates for positions within the legal department. Interestingly, only 15% of the pilot participants were tracking outside counsel diversity before the program; now, all of the original participating legal departments are doing so. Just like the original Mansfield Rule’s success, the MRLD pilot’s success has spurred even more interest, particularly among industry leaders. 39 more legal departments have committed to the certification process for MRLD 2.0, increasing total participation to 54. At Counself, we’re proud to be a multicultural and diverse team from 8 different countries and lots of creative perspectives, and have been championing the opportunities and innovations diversity allows for. We also see the trends and requirements shifting in the industry and encourage leaders in legal to look into adopting practices such as the Mansfield Rule, not only to benefit their business, but to help set benchmarks, not just meet them. For more information about us, our team, and our products, reach out to us here.

February 17, 2021 The aim to create, developing ideas, products, and processes to solve our never-ending challenges is a human urge. Despite challenging circumstances, we find opportunities to assess, learn, and grow every day. With the current global landscape, businesses have changed and we’ve been pushed out of our daily routines and professional comfort zones. Now that we’re starting to get a chance to catch our breath and get back on our feet, many businesses are faced with the massive amounts of information we’ve generated and collected during the pandemic as we’ve transitioned and adjusted to our new working worlds. So let’s take a look at how we can use what we’ve learned from 2020 and apply it to the landscape of data and analytics going forward. What is Decision Intelligence? There were significant strides in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Data Science (DS) technologies this past year. Many bright minds found time freed by reducing commutes gave them opportunities to develop algorithms and tools that will help make use of the data businesses collect en masse every day. Therefore, Decision Intelligence (DI) refers to applying AI analysis results to decision making, management, and support. Decision intelligence offers a framework of best practices in organizational decision-making while also focusing on the needs of the business and incorporating the results of tailored machine learning algorithms. As the demanding business environment begins to pick up pace, decision-makers in complex situations need to quickly come up with scalable solutions. Instead of coming up with a quick-fix, they are expected to provide long-lasting solutions across vast resource-intensive data sets that can be difficult to calculate and account for alone. Businesses who maximize their AI and ML resources when making decisions will see far greater long-term security than others who use them for simple insights. That’s not to say that adopting decision management and modelling technology is not without its own considerations. Your team will have to consider how many logical and mathematical techniques you want to invest in, whether they must be automated or semi-automated, or must be documented and audited. It’s important to have a proper understanding of business needs and critical problems and the company should have a platform that can handle complex datasets. Decision Intelligence in the Legal Department The legal industry might have been slower in adopting AI technology but more and more law firms and legal departments are working towards automating their processes and gathering valuable business intelligence for better decision making. Now with Decision Intelligence options such as Counself Insight in the market, organizations that step up and take advantage of an intelligence-based decision making framework can transform their decision models and see effective ways to solve their problems. Decision Intelligence is a newer discipline in the field of AI, but it is still highly regarded for its significance and is included in Gartner’s Top 10 Trends in Data and Analytics for 2020. This report is based on the aftermath of the pandemic, using the data collected during the peak of the pandemic to help identify best practices and make better future decisions. Gartner predicts that two years from now more than 33% of large organizations will have analysts practicing decision intelligence, including decision modelling. Do you want to be the firm or legal department left behind?

February 3, 2021 A few days ago we covered the Christmas Day Accellion breach that affected the Office of the Washington State Auditor (SAO). Accellion, a Palo Alto-based company, developed the File Transfer Appliance (FTA) for transmitting large files and to overcome limits for substantial email attachments. Hackers have targeted this service and obtained unauthorized access to the firm's data. Yesterday, Goodwin Procter, a top Boston law firm with several Big Law clients acknowledged that they were also affected by the incident. Their memo states that a “small percentage of our clients may have experienced unauthorized access to or acquisition of confidential information.” Bloomberg has obtained a memorandum released by the law firm confirming that their software vendor notified them on January 22, 2021 that the file transfer service was targeted. They said that they stopped the services instantly upon knowing the incident. And added that those who were affected within their firm were immediately informed about the situation. As we’ve covered before here, here, and here, the most sophisticated threat actors are always looking at the legal industry in general and law firms in particular, given the amount and value of sensitive data they transmit, process, and store. Third-party service providers these law firms often use are increasingly being targeted for backdoor access into even the most secure systems. Read about how Firefly, one of the world’s leading cybersecurity firms, was hacked through one of their vendors here. According to Accellion’s Chief Information Security Officer, “Our latest release of FTA has addressed all known vulnerabilities at this time,”. They also announced that they have been working with a top cybersecurity forensics firm to conduct a compromise assessment. Manage your vendor effectively and transform manual vendor risk management processes with Counself Risk. Our secure cloud platform is under the scope of ISO/IEC 27001 certification, achieved by InfiniGlobe LLC. If you want to learn more about Counself, go here or reach out to us here.