Connie Brenton of CLOC Talks Legal Ops Automation Adoption

CLOC Institute 2018 is approaching fast, where professionals from enterprises far and wide will gather to connect and learn about the Legal Operations technologies re-shaping their organizations. And a mainstay of CLOC, Connie Brenton, has once more stated the case for Legal Ops evolution in an interview at LawGeex.com.

As Director of Legal Operations at NetApp, and President of CLOC, she’s clearly set forth the challenges driving Legal Operations technology adoption. By adopting tech like our own TAP Workflow Automation (about which she’s got plenty to say), her team has seen enormous savings.

“To take one example, we have achieved $2M annual savings using eSignature technology (Adobe Sign). In fact, some of our most impactful technology adoptions were the easiest to implement, for example, eSignature, and our workflow automation technology (TAP).”

Some of the other achievements her team has seen from Legal Operations technology? They’ve had a 10% increase YOY increase in the number of electronic signature users, and a 10% decrease in sales contract turnaround times.

Their success at applying select technologies like TAP to meet the challenges confronting today’s Legal Ops departments led, in fact, to their being named a Legal Department of the Year by The Recorder.

As Connie explains it, “We started with three technologies seven years ago, and now leverage 17.”

Her advice? Don’t wait on change

Her answer to the question, “what advice would you give to other legal counsel looking at new tech?” echoes that of Justin Hectus. It’s better to get started down the road toward Legal Operations technology adoption today, rather than wait – and potentially find yourself at a disadvantage tomorrow.

“There are a number of pieces of advice. First, ask your Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) colleagues where to start and what works – learn from their mistakes. Second, START (don’t let fear drive decisions). Third, choose a simple technology to implement with a corresponding high Return on Investment.”

We’re sure she and the other stalwarts behind CLOC will have much more to say when CLOC Institute 2018 kicks off in Las Vegas later this month. As she says in the interview, it’s an exciting time to be part of a legal department, and the new Legal Operations technology tools already at hand are evolving Legal Ops into a faster, more responsive, and more essential part of the modern enterprise.