Case study
Driving faster, more confident legal outcomes with Practical Law Connect
Practical Law Connect helps Applied Digital speed legal response times, reduce spend on external counsel, and handle more high-value work internally with greater confidence‑value work internally with greater confidence
Executive summary
When Texas-based digital infrastructure provider Applied Digital Corporation wanted to expand its in-house legal team’s capabilities and cut spend on external counsel, it turned to Practical Law Connect from Thomson Reuters. Applied Digital, which delivers bespoke AI data centers and high-performance computing solutions, operates in a fast-moving arena that requires legal issues to be dealt with quickly and effectively. Practical Law Connect has augmented the knowledge base available to its small team of four in-house lawyers and delivered reliable legal know-how, extensive resources, and time-saving tools, all in one place. It has also helped the team cut external counsel spend by 10 to 15%, handle more high-value projects — worth tens of thousands of dollars — internally, and save around 20 hours a week on tasks.
10 to 15%
Reduction in outside counsel spend
20 hours
Reduction in outside counsel spend
Empower
Faster and more confident response to business queries
The opportunity: Doing more work in-house
Prior to deploying Practical Law Connect, Applied Digital did not have access to any software-based legal information sources and relied heavily on outside counsel for most of its legal needs, with significant costs involved. Mark Chavez, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer, saw an opportunity to save money and reduce the time taken to respond to business inquiries by bringing more work in-house, such as research and policy drafting. He decided to add headcount to the legal department and support his team with best-in-class legal know-how and research solutions, spanning both general commercial law and specialty areas such as SEC filings, governance matters, and real estate issues.
“We wanted to keep using our external counsel for niche areas of law that required a great deal of expertise, such as capital markets work, but those are very expensive resources. We felt we could do more of the work on commercial matters and policy drafting internally with the appropriate resources and software solutions,” explains Chavez. “Our business moves fast and requires answers to a number of legal issues very quickly, so being able to do more of that ourselves in a timely fashion without needing to go to outside law firms is critical.”
The solution: Integrated legal know-how, research resources, and tools
After investigating other products on the market, Chavez chose Practical Law Connect, which combines the expert guidance of Practical Law and trusted research from Westlaw — delivered through one seamless platform to drive faster, more confident decisions. Having used Westlaw in previous roles, the ability to access its case law content seamlessly alongside the standard documents, clauses, guidance, toolkits, and legal updates contained in Practical Law was a key selling point. “It seemed like Practical Law Connect had the most developed set of resources available to me and my team,” he says.
Applied Digital’s legal department makes full use of the various resource sub-centers available in Practical Law Connect, including the company policy resource center, company secretary resource center, compliance center, legal department management center, training center, and more. It also relies heavily on the Search and Summarize feature to accelerate searches and summarize the results in an easily digestible way.
Chavez explains that if he or his colleagues want to create a specific company policy, they can find an outline model of one in Practical Law Connect, which can then be adapted to Applied Digital’s specific requirements. They can do the same if they need certain types of standard documents or agreements or to develop training on matters such as regulatory changes.
The outcome: Saving time and money
Having Practical Law Connect as a one-stop shop for all the resources the in-house legal team needs is invaluable.
“Gaining access to case law and then being able to do research, and obtain summaries of that research, plus all the standard documents, policies, and agreements that are available: all those things have been very helpful in our practice,” says Chavez.
Cutting outside counsel spend
Chavez estimates that overall, Applied Digital has reduced outside counsel spend by 10 to 15%, partly by adding more in-house lawyers to the team and partly by deploying Practical Law Connect.
He says, “On the Practical Law side, there are a number of different projects that — without this tool — we would have had to go to outside counsel and incur fees that would have certainly been in the tens of thousands of dollars, if not approaching the hundreds of thousands. We’ve been able to do those ourselves internally by utilizing a lot of the features within Practical Law.”
Even when a matter does require advice from outside counsel, it’s helpful for in-house lawyers to use Practical Law Connect to get up to speed on unfamiliar or complex legal issues. Being better informed about the background or what the law entails helps them formulate their own ideas and opinions ahead of time and enables them to ask their external law firms more pertinent questions. This also helps save time — and money — in their interactions with outside counsel.
“Every minute I can save that doesn’t have to go to external counsel turns into significant savings for our company. So, for me, Practical Law Connect has been a tremendous investment and very much worth the cost.”
Mark Chavez
General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer, Applied Digital
Generating internal efficiency gains
Practical Law Connect has also generated internal efficiency gains, saving Applied Digital’s law department around 20 hours a week on tasks such as research or document drafting. By enabling the team to work through essential or routine corporate items more rapidly, time is freed for high-stakes mission- or business-critical tasks such as working on major transactions. Moreover, advice can be provided to other corporate departments or senior leaders in a timely manner, with significant implications for business decision-making.
“There have been examples where an internal client has been considering taking a particular action, and within the hour, we’ve been able to give them an overview of the potential risks as well as the benefits. It’s helpful to have that advice upfront before plans get too far down the line,” he says.
For Chavez, “Having Practical Law Connect has made us quicker to respond. Our company moves very, very fast, so the ability to give legal advice quickly is highly prized. So, there are not only the cost savings, but significant time savings.”
Confidence in a changing world
Practical Law empowers Applied Digital’s law department to stay current in a fast-evolving legal landscape, giving them assurance in the advice they offer. Chavez adds, “The law is always changing, and so while I may feel confident in my opinion on a particular matter, with Practical Law Connect, I can very quickly go in and validate it, or it at least helps get me started. Then when I’m delivering legal advice, I know it’s been thoroughly researched using the Practical Law ‘treasure trove’ of information, which is accurate and up to date.”
Looking ahead, Applied Digital plans to deploy the AI features in Practical Law Connect, particularly for SEC document drafting purposes, further accelerating processes in its legal operations for even faster, more robust decision-making. For a company at the forefront of technology, it’s vital to work with a like-minded legal solutions provider in Thomson Reuters that is committed to continuously upgrading and improving its tools with innovative features and functionality. Doing so helps Applied Digital ensure they’re ready for today— and tomorrow.
At a glance
Industry
IT services and consulting
HQ region
Dallas, Texas
Solutions
Practical Law
Year founded
2021
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