Corporations hire experienced legal professionals to oversee legal entity management on behalf of the business. These hires can be either in-house, under the direction of general counsel, or as contracted members of an outside law firm.

In either scenario, legal professionals rely on their team of law clerks or paralegals to help administer entity management best practices. This includes assembling all corporate filings into one centralized database of records to maintain business compliance with regulatory laws.

How corporate entities maintain business compliance

Legal teams follow entity management practices, policies, and procedures to maintain business compliance with regulatory authorities. Entity management is a governance system that organizes the corporate records of a legal entity to improve business compliance and corporate transparency.

Effective entity management organizes records from an array of sources into structured minute book records. Examples of prominent sources to collect entity management data include:

• Organizational charts

• Organizational calendars

• Corporate workflows

• Statutory non-compliance records

• Date-based compliance records

• Clerical and administrative records

Many legal professionals use entity management software to assist with the management of corporate data in support of business compliance. Entity management software is a specialized system built by legal minds for legal minds. It simplifies how law firms and legal departments manage large amounts of corporate data in service of numerous legal entities.

Four tips to help paralegals maintain business compliance

Simplification goes a long way to helping paralegals and law clerks remain on top of the entire business compliance process. Each record of data must be inputted into the master entity management database, which requires diligent recordkeeping skills and vast amounts of time dedicated to this process.

So, how can you make life a little easier for your paralegal team, while still ensuring that business compliance is maintained? Entity management software is one of the best resources to simplify the workload. Here are four helpful ways these platforms will help your paralegal team maintain business compliance, and also preserve their own mental health.

1. No-code document assembly

One of the biggest reasons companies choose not to insert modern technology into their workflows is that platforms require technical expertise to manage. Many legal departments don’t have the staffing or resources to invest in a tech guru. In fact, according to the Association of Corporate Counsel, the median total of legal staff in any given department is just six people.

The chief benefit of entity management software is that it’s built to support the non-technically savvy legal department. The platform includes no-code document generation templates, allowing teams to leverage intuitive software that easily creates and customizes legal documents with no technical requirements. This approach significantly reduces the time it takes to create documents to a few simple minutes.

1. Time to consult with stakeholders

Paralegals and law clerks often wear multiple hats. In addition to managing corporate entity data, their responsibilities include serving as the primary point of contact between the heads of the legal department and the other key stakeholders of the business.

Scheduling time to converse with those stakeholders with fully briefed and informed documentation is a challenge for paralegals. Since the average team has only six functioning staff members, juggling all these responsibilities without sacrificing the requirements for effective business compliance is a tall order.

The simplicity of entity management software streamlines the entire business compliance workflow. Using these systems, legal teams save valuable hours on recordkeeping, enabling more prompt and effective meetings with key entity stakeholders. It’s a workflow that generates value and improves the efficiency of meetings throughout the entire organization.

1. Greater alignment between attorneys and paralegals

Any documentation submitted to regulators will undergo meticulous scrutiny. Business entities provide transparent records to regulators, who then review and make their judgment on whether the entities meet the standards for business compliance.

Sometimes, supportive positioning statements that provide additional context to the records make or break the case for regulators. If there’s misalignment between the legal professionals and paralegals who submit the records to regulators, the argument may become diluted or confusing.

By using a platform that centralizes all records and streamlines the time investment necessary to maintain those records, attorneys and clerks can dedicate more time to making their arguments in clear, concise, and aligned manners. It will also allow any misalignments or disagreements over submissions to be squashed without leaving paralegals feeling threatened or at risk of dismissal.

1. Paralegals will not succumb to burnout

The most consistent benefit of entity management systems is the time saving efficiencies they provide to resource-strapped legal teams. Valuable working time is granted back to legal departments, chiefly, the paralegals, whose primary duties are to maintain those records.
Paralegals are under enormous pressure to maintain business compliance. It’s natural to feel overwhelmed at times, especially if workloads become overwhelming due to rigid time constraints. Using entity management software, the work gets done faster, paralegals feel accomplished, and creeping thoughts of burnout dissipate into the subconscious. It’s a win all around for everyone!