Considering an integrated platform for the law department? 

If you’re like most in-house counsel, you communicate with stakeholders and manage matters with a combination of email, letters, physical files, spreadsheets, and digital document boxes. Although you use these tools proficiently, they do have their limits. That’s where an integrated (or collaboration) platform for the law department comes in. Here are five practical ways a collaboration platform can make your work much easier.

1. Coordinate requests for proposals (RFPs) or information tender

Quickly draft an RFP for a new project in a dedicated project site where everyone in the project team can review the document. Responses to the site can be uploaded to ask colleagues for review; project team members can provide feedback in the comment section. Once the project managers have signed off, easily print the document directly to PDF so it’s ready to circulate to prospective vendors.

2. Review briefs

Invite relevant internal and external stakeholders into a project site where all parties can collaborate on drafts, securely store and share files, and communicate using social tools. Build and store project briefs, drafts, and concepts in wikis and blogs. Provide feedback in comments and keep track of project progress and deadlines by allocating tasks and project milestones in events.

3. Collaborate on projects

Avoid emailing drafts and files back and forth: instead, store and transfer large files through the project site. By keeping everything in one place, finalizing the project is quick and simple. Since communications are stored together with documents in the form of comments, nothing gets lost at the bottom of inboxes or sent boxes.

4. Work with cross-departmental teams

Often, teams need to share documents or work with other departments. Your legal department, for example, may need to manage various policies and notifications, such as data privacy or customer information, with other departments such as compliance or human resources. Teams can add relevant stakeholders from other departments to project sites and work together as part of the same team.

5. Sharing information with clients

If your company provides a service to clients, it can help to have a repository of information they can access at their own leisure. This could be things such as legal or financial resources, or even access to your billing system to see their historical invoices in one place.

Because it is more efficient, effective, and secure than the many other tools you use, the investment in a collaboration platform will more than pay for itself.