5 Signs Your Legal Team Could Benefit From ELM Software

Corporate legal teams manage more than legal matters. They also need to control budgets, work with outside counsel, track deadlines, manage documents, evaluate law firm performance and protect important information.

When these responsibilities are spread across emails, spreadsheets and separate systems, everyday legal work can become harder to manage. This is where enterprise legal management software can help.

Here are five signs your legal department may be ready for a more connected approach.

1. Matter Information Is Scattered Across Different Places

Can your team quickly find the latest documents, matter status, deadlines, and related information?

If not, your current process may be slowing everyone down. Legal matter management software provides a central place to organize matter information and activities.

With Mercury ELM's Matter Management, legal teams can maintain better visibility across active matters without relying on multiple spreadsheets or lengthy email chains.

2. Legal Budgets Are Difficult to Track

A legal budget is most useful when teams can see how spending is progressing before a matter goes over budget.

Mercury's Budgeting capabilities help legal departments track budgets alongside their matters. This gives teams greater visibility into planned and actual legal spend and helps them make more informed financial decisions.

For organizations looking for corporate legal department software, connecting matter and budget information can make legal spend easier to understand.

3. You Cannot Easily Compare Law Firm Performance

Outside counsel decisions should not depend only on familiarity or hourly rates.

Mercury provides Law Firm Performance Monitoring and Scorecarding to help legal teams evaluate outside counsel using consistent information. Teams can develop a clearer view of how different firms are performing and use those insights when managing their law firm relationships.

4. Managing Outside Counsel Rates Is Becoming Complicated

As the number of law firms and matters grows, keeping track of agreed rates can become increasingly difficult.

Mercury's Law Firm Rate Management helps teams manage outside counsel rates in a more structured way. Instead of searching through emails, spreadsheets, and individual agreements, legal departments can improve visibility into the rates associated with their firms.

This makes rate information easier to manage as part of a broader legal management software strategy.

5. Critical Legal Workflows Need Better Control

Some legal work requires more than standard legal case management software.

For example, teams may need to preserve important information when litigation arises or provide reviewers with the information needed to support resolution decisions.

Mercury includes Litigation Hold capabilities to support information preservation requirements and Resolution Desktop (RDT) to support resolution-related workflows.

Bringing these capabilities into the same ELM environment can reduce fragmentation and help teams manage critical processes more consistently.

When Is It Time to Consider ELM Software?

If your legal team is struggling with scattered matter information, limited budget visibility, outside counsel oversight, rate management, or disconnected legal workflows, it may be time to consider ELM software.

Mercury - Enterprise Legal Management Software brings together Matter Management, Budgeting, Law Firm Performance Monitoring, Law Firm Rate Management, Scorecarding, Resolution Desktop (RDT), and Litigation Hold within one enterprise legal management environment.

Bring More Visibility and Control to Your Legal Operations

See how Mercury ELM can help your legal department manage matters, budgets, outside counsel, and critical workflows more effectively.

Schedule a personalized Mercury ELM demo with LSG today.