CLO and Digital Transformation Final

As the Chief Legal Officers (CLOs), you stand to be a powerful agent of digital transformation for your department and organisation if you are willing to be at the forefront when it comes to regulatory requirements e.g. for data protection, cyber security and AI. Digital transformation is also increasingly used by businesses to improve their Environment Social and Governance (ESG) credentials, success, however, can be elusive.

Why CLOs should embrace Digital Transformation

1. To Gain Efficiencies

Transformation programs in other departments have typically been ahead of legal. Digital Savvy CLOs tend to incorporate technology solutions in stages. At a foundational level, general counsels are equipping their legal departments to leverage existing technology platforms within the organisation, including ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) data, workflow tools and other solutions already in place, typically in finance, HR, tax, or treasury.

• To Increase Transparency

This will help you as a CLO surface important management information and oversee their legal workflows, automatically triaging documents and processes so that the right lawyers or non-lawyers within an organisation are able to progress, process or negotiate legal documentation, as required.

• To Promote Integration

A large percentage of an organisation’s day-to-day business faces ongoing and increasing regulatory, compliance, risk and commercial considerations that need to be reviewed and considered continually.

Strategies for Digital Transformation of the Legal Department

According to experts, pursuing digital transformation with cutting-edge technologies requires careful attention to technical due diligence. If you are a CLO and would like to gain some insight digitalising your department and playing a role in organisation-wide digital transformation, below are some expert recommendations.

For digital transformation of your legal department, the following strategies are recommended:

1. Challenging ourselves to learn, to develop, to grow our confidence around technology.
2. Involve the CIO to move the project forward. 
3. Ensure that your team shares the same digital ethos.
4. Start with using technology that is already available within your organisation.
5. Build mature information governance.
6. Limit customisation of legal software.
7. Choosing your vendor is crucial to successful digital transformation. 

This partner should meet the following criteria:

1. Technical mastery;
2. Experience in change management;
3. Expertise in the legal profession; and
4. They must be able to help your team overcome obstacles before, during and after the deployment of the digital transformation project.

CLO Role in Digital Transformation within an Organisation

As a CLO you can provide important guidance on the legal and regulatory implications of new technologies implemented at an organisation. When digital transformation accelerates ahead of strong data privacy, security and risk frameworks, the fallout can be severe.

By partnering with cybersecurity and IT teams, you can oversee that proper safeguards are in place ahead of implementation to ensure any compliance.

How to be involved in Implementing Digital Transformation within your Organisation

As a CLO you can take several practical steps to ensure all new and emerging technologies are implemented securely across the organisation:

1. Encourage Discussion and Collaboration. Ensure communication and collaboration with IT to conduct careful decision-making about how data is handled.
2. Ask Questions to Evaluate Risk. When evaluating risk and exposures in new technology for both third-party and proprietary implementations, ask key questions to cover any security concerns.
3. Have all necessary parties thoroughly vetted the technology?
4. What will the technology be used for? Are there any compliance or regulatory concerns with this use?
5. Have there been any reported security concerns with this technology? How can these be proactively accounted for?
6. Thoroughly Assess Third-Party Technologies. Conducting third-party risk assessments before introducing any outside systems into an organisation’s networks allows potential risks to be mitigated prior to implementation.
7. Stay Informed. Staying up to date on the latest news on threat actor innovations allows an organisation to adequately prepare and avoid becoming the next target.

If you would like to share ideas and experience on how to assist CLOs in digital transformation, feel free to do so.