How Legal Teams Can Save Hours of Work by Automating Compliance

For legal teams, compliance isn’t just a task—it’s a growing challenge. Regulatory requirements are becoming more complex, deadlines are constant, and the margin for error is razor-thin. The result? Teams spend countless hours on manual, repetitive tasks, leaving little time for strategic work.

The solution lies in automation. By automating compliance processes, legal teams can save hours, reduce risks, and focus on higher-value activities. In this guide, we’ll explore the biggest compliance hurdles and how automation transforms the way legal teams work.

The Growing Burden of Legal Compliance

The increasing regulatory complexity and operating across borders do not leave room for manual processes or fragmented approaches. Today, the quickly changing regulatory and business landscape presents increased compliance challenges for global businesses, including:

• Increased Regulatory Scrutiny: A record-breaking pace of rulemaking in the US during the previous years and the increased scrutiny from regulators worldwide call for corporate compliance tools to ensure regulatory adherence.
• Focus on Data Privacy: As regulators are tightening their oversight on data privacy, businesses can no longer rely on unsafe data management approaches and need to move their corporate records to secure and reliable platforms.
• Complexity of Multi-Jurisdictional Compliance: The divergence of national jurisdictions and regulatory uncertainty call for implementing modern legal software solutions to support multi-jurisdictional compliance.
• Moving ESG from Optional to Mandatory: As ESG reporting becomes mandatory across jurisdictions, legal teams need corporate compliance tools to cope with the ever-increasing scope of disclosures.
• AI Regulations: Global businesses introducing artificial intelligence into their operations need effective frameworks to implement AI risk governance.

How Automation Transforms Compliance Processes

Instead, when global organizations implement compliance automation software, they can transform their workflows from fragmented and time-consuming to centralized and effective. At the same time, modern legal software solutions can become a one-stop shop for all teams helping manage multiple responsibilities across different compliance sectors.

Corporate Transparency and UBO Reporting

Automating compliance for addressing ultimate beneficial ownership requirements becomes a strategic imperative for global companies managing multiple entities. Given the number of data points for beneficial owners multiplied by the number of legal entities under the organization's umbrella, businesses need legal software solutions to ensure corporate transparency at all times.

AML and KYC Checks

As the volume of AML and KYC requests grows while regulations become stricter, managing these queries becomes more complicated and time-consuming. Corporate compliance tools can streamline teams' responses to AML and KYC requests, helping locate data instantly while maintaining compliance standards.

Document Management

As organization structure is constantly evolving, keeping all corporate records current and up-to-date becomes increasingly complex. Meanwhile, in-house counsels who leverage modern corporate compliance tools can have all minute books, compliance documents and filings immediately accessible in a few clicks, updating all their data in real-time.

Automating Filing

Automating compliance reporting and other filings is one of the most important benefits of effective legal software solutions. Compliance automation software like Athennian can help streamline repetitive tasks such as data entry and document generation by:

• Pulling data from the central corporate database.
• Offering customizable forms for compliance reporting.
• Filling in data into pre-populated templates.
• Filing reports automatically.
• Sending notifications on issues requiring attention.

Real Success Case Story

A North American investment firm with operations spanning Europe and Asia-Pacific faced significant compliance challenges. Their manual processes and disjointed systems were creating inefficiencies and risks, prompting the search for a better solution.

The Challenges Before Automation

Before adopting compliance automation, the firm's teams struggled with:

• Data Silos: Corporate records and documents were stored across multiple tools, making it difficult to find accurate, up-to-date information.
• Missed Deadlines: Tracking compliance and managing deadlines across jurisdictions was cumbersome and error-prone.
• Inefficient KYC/AML Processing: A growing volume of Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requests added to the workload, consuming valuable time and resources.

Why They Chose Athennian

After evaluating several legal software solutions, the firm selected Athennian for its:

• Customization Capabilities: Adaptability to meet unique operational needs.
• User-Friendly Interface: Simplified adoption and seamless onboarding.
• Comprehensive Support: Hands-on guidance from Athennian’s sales and customer success teams ensured confidence throughout implementation.

The Results: Efficiency and Confidence Restored

Implementing Athennian transformed the firm's compliance workflows:

• Centralized Records: All corporate data was consolidated into a single, secure platform, accessible by teams globally in real time.
• Time Savings: The firm reported a 20% reduction in time spent processing KYC and AML requests, with even greater time savings on document searches.
• Proactive Deadline Management: Automated tracking tools provided confidence in meeting compliance deadlines across jurisdictions.

Today, the firm relies on Athennian as its central hub for all compliance operations, ensuring efficiency, accuracy, and scalability as it navigates an increasingly complex regulatory landscape.

Transform Compliance with Automation

Compliance can often feel like an uphill battle, consuming valuable hours and resources. Automation changes that by eliminating manual tasks, reducing errors, and streamlining workflows.

With the right platform, like Athennian, legal teams can centralize their records, automate filings, and focus on driving strategic initiatives. The time saved through automation allows teams to operate with greater confidence and efficiency, no matter the complexity of their compliance requirements.

For more information on how to transform your compliance processes, please don't hesitate to reach out to request a demo today and see Athennian in action.