European Global Manufacturer €11M saved through a legal technology overhaul.
Our professionals helped a European-headquartered global manufacturer achieve €11M in savings through a legal technology overhaul focused on automation, centralization, and integration, on a roadmap approved by the CLO and CFO.
At a glance
- Service
- Legal technology roadmap, matter management, eBilling, and outside counsel guidelines
- Scope
- A global legal department facing government investigations, restructuring, and a CFO savings target
- Outcome
- €11M in savings
What the problem looked like
The organization wanted to raise its legal maturity and gain savings through legal technology infrastructure, driving efficiency and cost control across its global operations. Its legal department faced four challenges:
Market: several large-scale global government investigations. Business demand: growth was stretching all resources, including legal. Organization: significant restructuring across the organization, including legal and compliance. Budget: a lower baseline budget and 3-year savings requested by the CFO.
What Swiftwater did
A roadmap approved by the CLO and CFO
Our professionals developed and implemented a comprehensive plan to gain savings through legal technology, focused on three areas.
Matter management
A centralized matter management system to track and manage all legal matters, improving visibility, collaboration, and regulatory compliance.
Management reporting and dashboards
A periodic reporting process built on the matter management technology, with management reports that escalated and highlighted matter progress, matter spending, and key dates.
eBilling
An eBilling solution integrated with the existing Accounts Payable systems to automate invoicing, improve billing accuracy, and provide real-time financial insight, deployed with new outside counsel and eBilling guidelines and new engagement letters that standardized legal services globally.
What changed
- €11M in savings, through increased operational efficiency, reduced manual work, and improved financial management.
- Simplified workflows captured information once for every level of reporting, and the matter management system became the single repository of truth.
- Several hours a week saved for each member of the legal staff, repurposed for substantive legal work.
- Better collaboration on complex commercial and investigation assignments.
- Better financial oversight from the eBilling system, standardized billing guidelines, and engagement letters; the key savings came from improved spend management at all staff levels.
Services leveraged: outside counsel guidelines, engagement letter frameworks, legal technology roadmap, legal technology system selection, process and technology design, project management and PMaaS, matter management and enterprise legal management, and eBilling.
Best for
- Legal departments asked by the CFO for multi-year savings
- Departments without central matter management or eBilling
- Teams standardizing outside counsel guidelines and engagement letters globally
Frequently asked questions
How does legal technology produce cost savings?
Through operational efficiency, less manual work, and better financial management. For this client, centralized matter management, reporting, and eBilling with standardized guidelines and engagement letters produced €11M in savings, with the key savings from improved spend management at all staff levels.
What should a legal technology roadmap include?
The systems to introduce, with the processes and guidelines that go with them, approved by legal and finance leadership. This client’s roadmap, approved by the CLO and CFO, covered matter management, reporting and dashboards, and eBilling.
Why integrate eBilling with Accounts Payable?
Integration automates invoicing, improves billing accuracy, and gives real-time financial insight, so legal spend is visible to Finance as it happens.
Want results like these in your legal department?
A 30-minute discovery call on where your legal operations, spend and technology stand today, and what a measured improvement would look like.
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