Top Legal Professional Challenges Eased By Technology

Regulators say that effective corporate compliance begins at the top. They encourage company executives and directors to set an example in terms of a responsible culture built around ethics, morals, values, and a willingness to do the right thing.

There are overlaps between compliance and ethics that influence corporate cultures. When stakeholders demonstrate their capacity to operate in ethically responsible manners, the message is received by the rest of the corporation. Employees in the organizational hierarchy abide by the same ethical principles and, therefore, create a culture that upholds compliance.

What is the culture of compliance?

A culture of compliance is a set of attitudes, behaviours, and values that guide corporate workers to align with policies, procedures, and regulations. Essentially, a culture of compliance uses ethical principles to enforce legally binding protocols.

Some companies create diligent compliance culture programs that are shared with their employees. The Starbucks Standards of Business Conduct is one prime example, in which the corporation describes a series of ethics, values, and principles that all employees must adhere to as they conduct their day-to-day responsibilities.

Why is culture important in compliance?

Companies with strong organizational cultures empower employees to operate under both legal and ethical best practices. According to Gartner, strong compliance cultures produce both financial and non-financial benefits for the corporation. Specifically, they found that:

• Employees in strong cultures are 90% less likely to passively observe misconduct
• Employees in strong cultures are 1.5 times more likely to report misconduct
• Employees in strong cultures are 2 times as likely to be engaged with their companies
• Employees in strong cultures are 2.5 times more likely to voluntarily report misconduct

The commonality is a sense of trust. When people trust the corporate values; that they can safely live by those values, and that they can report misconduct without fear of reproach; they’re more likely to abide by those principles. As a result, any behaviour that could compromise compliance is dealt with before it becomes an issue for the business.

6 steps to achieve a culture of compliance

Creating an effective corporate compliance culture isn’t something that happens overnight. It takes time, patience, vigilance, and resources to implement the proper cultural protocols.

Here are six key steps recommended by Thomson Reuters that your compliance team should follow. Use these recommendations to achieve an effective culture of compliance.

Create an internal awareness initiative

Regulators are constantly changing compliance protocols, and employees won’t know how to abide by the proper protocols if they don’t know about them. Ensure your compliance managers have the resources to remain on top of these changes. Your compliance team is your first line of defence to uphold corporate compliance cultures.

Set the tone that the C-suite will communicate changes

Culture is set right from the top, and the C-suite executive team must communicate the cultural expectations to the rest of the organization. Expectations, policies, and procedures must be set by leadership, and there must be transparent communication of those expectations to shape the culture that develops from those guidelines.

Disseminate cultural protocols to employees

As your compliance team learns about changes that could impact corporate culture, they need the means to educate the rest of the company. Give your team the resources to produce educational content that can be disseminated to the rest of the company. Education is the best weapon against non-compliance activities.

Use the right technology to enforce compliance

Part of the educational effort is through the use of technology. Create e-learning programs like videos, modules, and quizzes that test employee awareness of compliance culture protocols.

You should also use technology like entity management software to create structured compliance programs. Entity management platforms have built-in compliance frameworks that are easy to use. Plus, they provide prompt updates to your team if any data is missing, filings are late, or anything that could trigger non-compliance.

Develop a rewards program for positive cultural behaviour

Incentives are the best motivator to prompt responsible actions. Leadership can use suitable compliance incentives as rewards for abiding by the compliance culture. Employees are far more likely to live by cultural values when they understand how they benefit from doing so.

Establish whistleblower programs that protect case reporting

Employees must feel safe coming forward when they witness unethical behaviour that amounts to misconduct. By creating a whistleblower program that protects employees, people will find the courage to report misconduct so that the compliance culture remains in effect.

The purpose of your corporate compliance program is to protect the health and security of your business entity. Compliance programs help corporations avoid misappropriating human and capital resources; administer procedures for fraud, abuse, and discrimination, as well as install processes to secure operations and legally protect the business from outside risks.

As legal technology continues to advance, it increasingly becomes a reliable resource to secure your corporate interests. Platforms like MinuteBox are intuitive, and they’re developed with forward-thinking logic to help legal professionals remain on top of all compliance trends.

Here are four major compliance trends that business entities must effectively address to remain in compliance with jurisdictional laws. We’ll explore how legal entity management technology can help address these trends and secure corporate compliance.

1. Cybercrime and protecting corporate security

Financial crimes are part of a trillion-dollar industry, and it’s estimated that business entities lose three dollars for every dollar of fraud. Amongst the most alarming examples of cybercrime are ransomware attacks, which corrupt data files on harddrives and hold them hostage until payments are issued to unlock that data.

Sensitive corporate data must be protected to ensure compliance and avoid the massive costs of a ransomware attack. Your business entity must protect cyberhackers from corrupting the platform and holding sensitive data hostage.

Legal entity management technology like MinuteBox is protected by biometric and hardware key authentication solutions. It remains encrypted to all but a select few of administrators with authorization to access the platform. This enables you to safely store important legal entity data behind the most advanced cybersecurity parameters, thereby remaining in compliance.

1. Data privacy and safeguarding sensitive information

Cybercrime and digital hacking activities have placed greater demands for increased data privacy and security. Governments have enacted data privacy measures like GDPR in Europe for the specific purpose of enforcing compliance protocols to safeguard the handling of sensitive data and information.

Corporate entities must implement robust data privacy policies and procedures to properly store sensitive data. Solutions that guarantee data encryption, maintain controlled access to corporate data, and enable ongoing security audits are essential to maintain compliance with data privacy and security protocols.

Legal entity management technology functions as a single resource to store all sensitive legal entity data. Instead of using multiple sources, often as unsecured platforms, entity management software protects all data behind advanced encryption services. It becomes a centralized source of truth to store corporate entity data and maintain compliance.

1. IT governance and transparency of risk management

Just like legal business entities have compliance frameworks, most global corporations also have IT governance frameworks. IT governance refers to the structure implemented by organizations to align IT investments with overarching business objectives.

As cybersecurity issues like ransomware attacks or data security breaches become more prevalent, an IT governance framework becomes a concern that works up the organizational hierarchy. Executive leadership, including the board of directors, become very active in their efforts to ensure IT investments make practical sense for the business.

Legal entity management software helps organizations protect sensitive data and reduces external risks that may compromise the information. Board members and executive leadership are among an exclusive group of internal members who can be authorized to access minute book records within the platform. It ensures that all sensitive legal data remains secure while also guaranteeing transparent oversight to support compliance.

1. Ongoing monitoring and compliance management

Finally, the remaining compliance trend is the ongoing management of compliance itself. Like an IT governance framework, which requires diligent audits to ensure the technology safeguards sensitive entity data, compliance is an ongoing process itself. It requires constant monitoring and management to ensure the protocols are followed, and that the business remains protected.

One of the chief benefits of legal entity management software like MinuteBox is that it provides users with a simple-to-use compliance framework. The framework is built directly into the platform, and users can use intuitive drag and drop features to complete all the necessary steps and sequences necessary to maintain compliance.

The built-in compliance calendar includes additional features like annual calendars for filing dates, business name registrations/renewals, PPSA registrations, patent or trademark expirations, and more. Simply input your information into the platform, and you’ll receive automated prompts that ensure you never miss a compliance deadline again.

Don’t allow expansive compliance trends and requirements to derail the security and integrity of your legal entity. Join the MinuteBox revolution today and make compliance a central pillar of your business strategy.

Since the beginning of 2020, working professionals across a multitude of industries have aspired to achieve a healthy work-life balance. The legal industry is no exception as law firm employees must keep up with growing demands in an increasingly competitive marketplace for professional legal services.

One of the most interesting trends to emerge in the past few years is how legal talent uses technology to support healthier work-life balances. It’s not just the personal lives of your firm employees that benefit from work-life balance, but the firm as a whole also reaps the rewards.

There are practical business benefits for your firm by creating healthy work environments. You can both attract and retain top legal talent by supporting a healthy balance between professional and personal responsibilities of your workers.

How does work-life balance for employees help the firm?

As a managing partner at a law firm, you have three primary concerns for your business:

• Satisfying your legal talent
• Satisfying your legal clients
• Increasing Legal Recurring Revenue for the firm

Some legal experts believe the only priority is the third point on the list. However, the most successful firms prioritize all three, and they do so in the listed order that they appear on this page. Successful law firm managers understand a simple logic: Legal Recurring Revenue can only expand if clients are happy, and clients can only be happy if the legal talent servicing them are happy.

Give your firm a competitive advantage by investing in resources that help your employees achieve a healthy work-life balance. Legal technology is one such resource that automates many clerical and administrative workflows. It allows your employees to save valuable time on necessary clerical tasks, and that time can be reallocated into billable hours to service clients.

Increased casework is expanding demand for legal services

Over the past three years, there’s been a growing demand for legal services provided by law firms. The Clio 2022 Legal Trends Report identifies this increasing trend by comparing the past three years to the average amount of national retained legal business in 2019, the final full year uninterrupted by a global pandemic.

Following a slight decline in legal business throughout 2020, the following two years saw a rebound in retained legal services across the United States. According to the findings, firms opened new cases at an average of 10% above the amount of legal retained business in 2019.

Increased caseloads are also translating into expanded billable hours that are invoiced to clients. Compared to the baseline in 2019, the number of billable hours that are invoiced to clients is up by an average of 28% between March 2021 and August 2022. Collected revenue is also up by an average of 31% compared to inbound revenue from 2019.

Entity management software fosters gainful client relationships

Renewed demand for legal services and the boost in Legal Recurring Revenue for law firms indicates that the legal industry will continue to thrive for years to come. Part of the fuel for this trend is that a growing number of firms are incorporating legal technology like entity management software to support healthier client relationships.

Entity management software is a legal technology solution built by legal experts for legal experts. Its purpose is to automate and streamline traditional entity management workflows to help law firms maintain diligent minute book records at accelerated rates.

Time saved on clerical and administrative work translates into more opportunities to service clients. Entity management software functions as a single source of truth for any questions that clients have about their legal and compliance matters. Your clerks can simply open the platform, use the advanced search features to find the record in question, and provide immediate answers in only a few seconds.

Compare this approach to client relationships with the traditional method. Lawyers and clerks would take client feedback and scramble through boxes and binders of physical documents to find the specific minute book record in question. It’s a process that could take hours or several days to complete.

Which approach do you believe will support more fulfilling client relationships? Subsequently, which clients do you believe will be the most satisfied, and therefore more likely to renew their business interests with your firm?

Legal technology simplifies clerks’ lives and clients benefit

Your firm can make your legal talent happier, healthier, and live a more fulfilling work-life balance. Simply invest in entity management software and other modern legal technologies to create efficient workflows for your employees.

When people work smarter, not harder, they become more productive. Improved productivity at your firm means more time is available to increase billable hours and time dedicated to servicing clients. Greater service is far more likely to improve client satisfaction, which translates into expanded Legal Recurring Revenue for your firm.

Remember that you should focus on three main priorities to support your firm’s future growth:

• Satisfy your legal talent
• Satisfy your paying clients
• Increase Legal Recurring Revenue

Investing in solutions that prioritize all three responsibilities — and in that order — result in more profitable business to grow your firm. Get on the legal technology bandwagon and invest in an intuitive entity management platform like MinuteBox today.