Legal project management: A secret weapon for in-house teams

The legal and business challenges that in-house counsel face grow more complex every day. For three reasons, better internal and cross-departmental collaboration can be the key to solving those challenges. 

First, even the most skilled attorneys tend to view problems through a legal lens, missing out on opportunities for holistic solutions. 

Second, in-house teams can also get bogged down by waiting — and waiting — for feedback and approvals on documents. And sometimes when documents are shared via email, versioning issues can result, leading to teams working on the wrong documents and spending time doing unnecessary work.

Finally, business partners often perceive the legal team as a bottleneck that slows down deals, picks apart ideas, and is inclined to squash innovation, even when attorneys are just trying to protect their organization from unnecessary risk. This misperception of legal’s function can infect an organization, leaving in-house attorneys in the dark about critical issues.

It’s easy enough to say that collaboration is the answer, but it’s harder to put that into action. When you’re carrying a full plate of work, there’s little time to sit down with your colleagues and stakeholders to hash out conflicts, recognize emerging risks, or change longstanding perspectives.

But there’s a secret weapon, quite literally at your fingertips. Here are three ways legal project management software can organically improve internal and cross-department collaboration. 

Streamlining internal communication

Legal project management software facilitates internal communication by providing a structured framework for sharing information, updates, and project details in real time. With a centralized hub for client and matter information, every team member can see the progress of legal projects at a glance. That eliminates the time that would be wasted tracking down colleagues for status updates and gives everyone a higher-level understanding of the in-house team’s priorities and strategy.

In addition, the right legal project management software manages all your documents, access requests, and approvals in one place, keeping projects organized and on track. By integrating your legal project management platform with Office 365, you can easily share document edits and comments so your team never works on the wrong version of documents. 

Setting clear expectations and deadlines — and meeting them

Legal project management software helps attorneys establish clear project priorities, milestones, and expectations. You can set roles and responsibilities and show how each assignment relates to business objectives, keeping everyone on the same page and coordinating your team’s activities. You’ll also be able to set alerts for deadlines and other key dates, preventing tasks and deliverables from falling through the cracks.

Strengthening stakeholder collaboration

Ideally, in-house legal teams work closely with stakeholders across the organization’s business units, but scheduling time to discuss matters can be a headache, especially when stakeholders are scattered around the globe. Getting time on a business partner’s calendar becomes even more challenging when legal is viewed as a roadblock to be skirted rather than a helpful partner to be consulted.

Legal project management software lets you keep business unit leaders up to date on the most important information about every legal matter, from project status to negotiations, contract terms, and deadlines. Nor will you have to dig through your emails, texts, and other documents to sort out the status of a project; you’ll have everything you need to know about a matter in one clear dashboard. Best of all, the insights you’ll gather from tracking your projects in a comprehensive legal project management system will enable you to showcase the value your in-house team adds to the business.

Give your legal department a secret weapon

Solving the increasingly complex business challenges of today requires a legal team that’s connected and in the loop. Legal project management tools are the secret weapon your in-house team needs to build those connections. 

Sign up for a free demo today to learn how LinkSquares Prioritize can help your legal department streamline its internal communications, define and exceed expectations, and build strong collaborative relationships with other leaders across the business.