Canadian Lawyer InHouse

to change, so if they're set in their ways and you introduce a new system that doesn't always flesh out well. "There has to be a proper strategic approach [involving] getting feedback and educating new users. It can't be a short, fast implementation. The worst situation would be you make the upfront investment and users are still filing the old way," he says. edUcAte tHe USerS to customize. I knew exactly what I wanted and what information I would be looking for, the kind of questions I would receive from my internal clients." She started out by introducing an intellectual property database to bring together all the information Aldo had on its trademarks. When that proved to be a success, the company brought in a contracts management tool. The two-step approach was an easier sell when Ross presented her After budgets are allocated, Jaar says legal departments should avoid blowing their entire project budget on a shiny new system without leaving any funding for educating employees on how to use it, or tailoring it to the company's needs. There must also be a lawyer "power user" who understands how the system works and can answer colleagues' questions. "If you just implement it with a third party and they go away, you can't just rely on IT staff, you need someone who really understands the software from a subject matter expertise standpoint," he argues. But the lawyer overseeing the project needs to be someone who's able to quickly grasp its more technical elements, Borins says. "In some of our discussions with smaller organizations it's just the general counsel who would quarterback the task because it falls under their role. "That lawyer has to have some technical expertise, otherwise it would go over their head. Or, they would need to be willing to be brought up to speed quickly. There has to be some research and understanding." Before shoe company Aldo brought in a Legal Suite system about three years ago, general counsel Catherine Ross set aside time to thoroughly test the software herself. "Lawyers working for other companies were always surprised that I was so involved in the introduction of the tool because they thought it was something I would delegate to a junior lawyer or paralegal, but I thought it was very important to plan how to map the tool," she says. She explains it's not a cheap investment. "In my case I didn't want to just have an icon on my computer and feel [the tool] wasn't reliable or useful. So it was very important for me that we'd all use it. "There are certain fields that you need business case to Aldo's president. After getting sign-off for the contracts management tool, she manually added 30 to 40 contracts into the system to check that the results met her expectations. She then enlisted the help of two summer interns from law school, who followed guidelines prepared by Ross, in order to roll it out comprehensively across 800 contracts. "It was a really good experience for a student," Ross says. "This was more than Legal Counsel from a Business Perspective ® Eldon Bennett airdberlis.com w w w. c a n a d i a n law y er m a g . c o m / i n h o u s e ntitled-10 1 august 2013 • 27 13-07-03 1:43 PM

• Cover