The Hidden Risks of Outdated Entity Management Software

When legal teams use outdated technology, they face multiple challenges, including rising legal costs, compliance gaps, and an inability to scale up effectively. Most often, legal professionals cite outdated design, lack of automation, and missing integrations as the most critical entity management inefficiencies.

Below, we discuss the costs of using outdated systems, outline the entity management software risks, and explore the benefits of modernizing legal technology.

The Costs of Sticking with Outdated Entity Management Software

When in-house counsel work with outdated legal software, teams may face one or more of the following challenges:

• Compliance Errors: Working with deficient legal technology that lacks essential functionality, such as deadline tracking or automated workflows, can lead to omissions and compliance gaps.
• Increased Reliance on External Counsel: When compliance technology does not provide the needed capabilities, legal teams must extend their reliance on external counsel to keep up with increasing workloads.
• Duplication and Manual Work: Legal teams using older technology often employ duplicative processes and manual work to compensate for a lack of functionality.
• Lack of Confidence: Inefficiencies and duplicative processes associated with legacy tools can lead to omissions, subpar record-keeping, and a lack of confidence in corporate data.
• Limited Scalability: Older legal tech solutions do not offer the scalability required for legal teams managing modern compliance in global organizations.
• Rising Legal Costs: Low efficiency and compliance gaps can potentially result in increased compliance software risks and legal costs.

How Legacy Software is Holding Legal Teams Back

According to studies, while 84% of organizations use entity management tools, 45% of legal teams express dissatisfaction with their technology.

While each organization and legal team has its own priorities, they often share similar reasons for dissatisfaction with their legal tools:

Hard-to-Navigate Interface

If entity management software doesn't deliver a good user experience, it doesn't encourage teams to use it at scale and comes with a steep learning curve.

When the teams struggle learning or using the technology, they fail to apply it to their tasks effectively, and start employing manual input or duplicative processes.

Lack of Customization

Constantly changing regulatory demands require legal teams to continuously customize their workflows and reporting.

A lack of flexibility in corporate governance software forces teams to rely on workarounds or other solutions to make up for deficient customization.

Lack of Functionality and Automation

When teams lack functionality in their software, they have to compensate by using other tools, relying on manual work or memory.

The absence of compliance tracking for deadlines, org charting, auto-populated templates and other essential functionality does not allow legal teams to automate their processes, creates inefficiencies and doesn't enable scaling up their workflows.

Poor Integration

In modern organizations, legal teams use multiple tools, including eSignature, document management systems, and other software for compliance work.

When legal software lacks integrations with widely used tools, teams cannot use it effectively and have to transfer data manually across various platforms, creating risks of misalignments and omissions.

Absence of Extensive AI Features

AI is transforming how legal teams handle compliance, providing in-house counsel with capabilities to handle large volumes of data, automate their processes and cut on manual work.

Outdated legal software lacks the AI features required for legal teams and does not allow legal departments to bring their compliance work up to speed with modern requirements.

What Legal Teams Need from a Modern Entity Management Platform 

Working with modern solutions like Athennian, legal teams can eliminate manual processes, reduce legal costs and entity management software risks, and scale up effectively, assisted by:

• Intuitive Interface: Modern technology like Athennian offers an easy-to-use interface that streamlines compliance work.
• Real-time Access to Corporate Records: Athennian provides teams with a centralized corporate database accessible from anywhere on any device with role-based access.
• Workflow Automation: Modern entity management software allows legal teams to automate compliance tasks using auto-populated templates and report automation.
• Deadline Reminders and Alerts: Athennian offers peace of mind by sending compliance alerts and automated reminders for filing deadlines.
• Integrations with Other Tools: Legal teams using modern technology benefit from integrations with eSignature, eFiling, and other tools for seamless filing and disclosures.
• Advanced AI Tools: Athennian’s AI tools provide significant productivity gains by reducing filing times by 90% and automating entity creation.

Taking the Next Step in Compliance Management

Outdated software isn't just inconvenient—it poses compliance risks, holding legal teams back while increasing costs.

By transitioning to modern technology, in-house counsel can reduce legal expenses, minimize reliance on external counsel, and achieve scalability with automated workflows, robust integrations, and advanced AI tools.

Ready to modernize your entity management? Explore how Athennian can help you stay ahead of compliance challenges. Request a free demo today.