Cutting Legal Costs: How Automation Helps Reduce Dependence on External Counsel

Data Management 

Moving entity data to a single platform allows role-based access to corporate records for all teams from anywhere on any device.

When company stakeholders can search and access required information on a single platform, the number of inquiries to the legal department is immediately reduced, saving time for more strategic tasks.

Compliance Filings

When an organization employs automation in legal operations, compliance teams can leverage customized templates to reduce manual input, push data into reports and generate disclosures automatically.

Working in Athennian, the legal teams can further streamline their compliance work with eSignature and electronic disclosures to file annual reports and changes to government registers.

Documents Processing

The most advanced entity management platforms, like Athennian, offer AI-based tools to process multiple documents simultaneously within seconds. 

For example, the Athennian AI Centralize tool significantly reduces data upload time, saves multiple hours through automated data entry and allows a 90% reduction in document filing time.

AML/KYC Checks and UBO Reporting

With all information on ultimate beneficial owners centrally stored on a single platform, the teams can ensure UBO disclosures, provide for compliance at all times and streamline the AML/KYC checks.

Creating Legal Entities

Working in Athennian, the legal teams can use the AI-based Initialize tool to create legal entities automatically, reducing entity creation time from 45 minutes to under 10 minutes per entity.

Automated Deadlines Tracking

Assisted by automated deadline tracking, the legal teams can ensure regulatory adherence at all times and stay on top of compliance across all their entities and jurisdictions.

Org Charts, Cap Tables and Other Custom Reports

Athennian entity management platform includes an advanced org charting module that allows businesses to create detailed organizational charts within a few clicks, demonstrating entity data and complex ownership relationships.

The teams can further leverage the platform's capabilities for automatic cap tables and other custom disclosures.

The Challenges Before Automation

Westgroup's decentralized organizational structure and legacy entity management system created challenges for all teams, including executives, legal and finance:

• Large Number of Data Points: With several hundred entities in the organizational structure, their corporate records included multiple data points dating back to 30 years, creating significant challenges for all teams.
• Manual Processes: Corporate records included paper documents, which required scanning and validating, which slowed down searches and retrieval of required data. 
• Lack of Adaptability: When new legislation affected the company's operation, the organization had to prepare complex reporting for hundreds of entities individually.
• Heavy Reliance on External Counsel: The teams had to request external counsel to conduct searches among fragmented corporate records and handle all their information requests.

Why They Chose Athennian

The company realized that their existing entity management system was holding them back and looked for a holistic solution to: 

• Bring Most Entity Processes In-House: The management was aiming to have more control over their data and processes to reduce risks.
• Improve Collaboration: A new solution was needed to foster collaboration between tax, finance, and legal teams and allow various stakeholders to self-serve their information needs.
• Streamlined Workflows: An organization was looking to have a system that would allow it to improve productivity and provide access to entity information at the property level instantly.

The Results: Decreased External Counsel Spend

After migrating to Athennian, the company was able to significantly reduce its external legal costs with :

• Centralized Cloud Database: Powered by Athennian, Westgroup created a single source of truth for all their entity data available from anywhere on any device with role-based access.
• Immediate Access to Information for All Teams: Working on Athennian, the executives, tax, and finance teams could get all the information they needed directly from Athennian without emailing their external counsel.
• Decreased Reliance on External Counsel: By bringing their entity management processes in-house, the company was able to save over $10,000 in external counsel fees on a single project and continued to achieve significant legal cost reduction moving forward.

Modern Legal Technology

By choosing effective legal tools designed around compliance processes as they are implemented today, organizations can ensure efficiency and maximize ROI.

Effective Automation

An effective entity management platform should provide legal teams with the necessary functionality to automate their workflows, including data entry, document upload, compliance filings, eSignature, and automated deadline tracking.

Intuitive Interface and Easy Learning Curve

When legal teams automate their processes, they need a system with UI that is easy to learn, enabling them to start working on tasks without a steep learning curve. 

Streamlined Migration Process and Dedicated Support

The transition to modern legal technology can be made easier when the platform allows a streamlined migration and can provide dedicated support and training to legal teams starting to work with the system.