In professional circles, legal matter management is one of the hottest topics right now when it comes to structural organization in corporate legal departments. As such, a growing number of companies are actively using a legal matter management system on top of smart contract management software.
In this blog article, you’ll learn why smart contract management and legal matter management go hand in hand, and how they can help you streamline processes and optimize collaboration in your legal department.
What is legal matter management?
The concept of legal matter management encompasses the documentation and management of all legal matters arising both within a company and from cooperation with external partners. Such legal matters can range from investigations, claims, and compliance issues to disputes, litigation, and legal counseling.
Digital matter management makes it possible to gather, manage, and store all of the case-related information and documents efficiently and in a structured manner. Some examples of this kind of documentation include investigations and research, meeting minutes, correspondence, decisions or resolutions, expert opinions, invoices, and of course, contracts.
The goal of matter management is to reduce the workload of the in-house legal department by optimizing processes and enhancing transparency. This frees them up to deal with any legal matters more swiftly and consistently. Successful matter management helps eliminate redundant communication between the various parties and encourages productive, resource-efficient interaction.
The advantages of digital legal matter management
The role of the legal department staff is to provide optimum support in all legal matters. In many companies, the associated file management is still handled in a paper-based format, which creates a considerable amount of work. Digitalization in this context is imperative and inevitable in view of the current drive to continuously optimize processes and workflows in today’s business environment.
Arguably the greatest advantage of digital file management is that related information can be stored clearly in a single location – in other words, a “single source of truth.” This ensures that legal processes are transparent for the people involved and prevents varying levels of knowledge. In the same way, document versioning helps to maintain an overview of any changes.
The all-in-one solution for modern contract and legal matter management
In the current discourse, contract management and legal matter management are often viewed as distinct, and in some cases even competing, systems. This is also reflected in the existing software offerings on the market today, most of which target only one of these areas.
Yet when comparing the functionality and features of the two products, it’s easy to draw parallels that demonstrate how, rather than limiting each other’s capabilities, they complement and support each other.
The following overview of the benefits of using digital tools for these types of management makes a strong case for combining them into one tool:
- Cloud-based access any time, anywhere
- Automated work processes
- Digitalized, standardized legal inquiries
- Direct link between contracts and legal acts
- Simple integration of external parties
- Complete transparency and traceability of file management
- Accelerated search and retrieval processes
- No need to switch between systems and other tools
- Maximum data security
Cloud-based document and process management systems such as Fabasoft Contracts build on these insights, bringing the two forms of records management together in a convenient all-in-one solution. This covers both digital contract management and the higher-level handling of all legal matters. As a result, legal departments free up valuable resources, giving them more time to focus on their core tasks – offering counsel and support in legal matters.
