So you’ve made the jump: After a career in private practice, you’ve moved in-house. Undoubtedly, you’ve already noticed a lot to like about the change, most notably leaving by 6 p.m. every day. But whether you were in Biglaw or a solo practitioner, a partner or a mid-level associate, you’ve also discovered new challenges.
For one, you’re likely to be forced out of your comfort zone, facing a need to broaden your practice beyond your areas of expertise. Of course, all attorneys face familiar issues: research, writing, negotiating — and the increasing pressure to do all of them more quickly and efficiently.
In your previous life at the firm, you could just write off (or have written off) the countless hours of research and drafting that your clients refuse to pay for. And just as you’re demanding more for less from your outside counsel, the C-suite is seeking the same from you. Task efficiency is the name of the game.
How can you balance those demands with the new burdens you face in-house? With technology. Specifically, with Thomson Reuters’ Practical Law Connect platform. Designed with the in-house counsel in mind, Practical Law Connect brings together in one place Practical Law’s wealth of up-to-date legal resources with Westlaw’s primary law content with other valuable tools. That focus on the in-house lawyer means Practical Law Connect is targeted directly at your pain points, offering an amazingly fast and accurate legal resource solution with a treasure trove of materials that add up to big cost savings for your legal department.
An Amazingly Fast And Accurate Legal Resource Solution
With Practical Law Connect all of the laws and regulations you need are at your fingertips faster than you ever thought possible. Seamlessly integrating Practical Law, Westlaw and other key tools such as Business Law Center, Company Investigator, and Drafting Assistant Essential, Practical Law Connect eliminates the need for multiple, disparate tools.
Practical Law Connect is structured the way lawyers work, organized around practice areas and a series of task-based menus, including business operations; legal and regulatory compliance; managing risk, claims, and litigation; and deals. The system allows users to quickly drill down to the discrete tasks or projects, where the most relevant forms, practice guides, and other tools are featured.
“Practice Point more efficiently categorizes the information and allows me, personally, to get to that information more quickly,” one user said.
“If I’m looking for a shareholder agreement, I know that I can go to the business organizations tab within the corporate tab and I’ve got direct links to then get to shareholder agreements,” another explained. “If I’m looking for clauses or if I’m looking for forms, it’s out there and it’s categorized in a way that intuitively makes sense.”
A Treasure Trove Of Material Ensuring Legal Departments Don’t Miss Emerging Or Evolving Issues
The right template exists, and Practical Law Connect makes it easier to find and access than ever. And it’s up to date. A team of more than 200 experienced attorneys work full-time to ensure the thousands of practice guides, model documents, and checklists available are relevant and state-of-the-art, and they constantly generate new materials as the need arises. “The content is excellent,” a user said. “It’s current, and we’re very confident that we’re getting the best and most accurate information we need.”
The task organization helps ease the feeling of being at sea in an unfamiliar area of law, while facing new problems arising every day with little time to develop substantive expertise relevant to every situation. The information you need is waiting for you — fully updated — including checklists to help you make sure you haven’t missed anything. Practical Law Connect provides access to an array of forms, model agreements and templates, and ready-made presentations, allowing users to quickly prepare for key meetings. What’s more, Thomson Reuters’ Business Law Center is fully integrated into Practical Law Connect, giving users instant access to key information about public and private companies, including regulatory filings, deal abstracts, and SEC staff comment letters.
Efficiency And Cost Savings
As always, it comes down to the bottom line. With its task-based organization, curated and updated information, and streamlined work process, Practical Law Connect is designed to make legal departments more efficient and cost-effective. Cutting out hours spent on redundant searches and background reading, the platform enables users to find the information and templates they need in a fraction of the time, allowing in-house counsel to focus their energies on perfecting their work product.
And with that extra time, legal departments can bring more work in-house, potentially saving millions. One user noted that his legal department potentially saved hundreds of thousands of dollars that would have gone to outside counsel by doing a multi-state survey internally.
“Practice Point has great checklists and broad overviews of different areas of law,” a user said. “I still have to go to outside counsel for certain things, but Practice Point is a great preparation tool to make sure we’re all on the same page at the beginning.”
Indeed, a survey of users shows 80 percent report a notable improvement in overall efficiency with Practical Law Connect — the kind of thing that gets noticed in the C-suite.