Canadian Lawyer InHouse

19 CANADIANLAWYERMAG.COM/INHOUSE JULY/AUGUST 2018 INHOUSE: What is your No. 1 challenge with technology right now? FARR: I can't really identify just one; I have to identify two. One is record retention and retrieval. We have a proliferation of systems across a variety of different platforms that don't communicate with one another. We don't have a centralized search capability, so, both in terms of responding to access to information and litigation discovery, it has become problematic. Add to that a corpo - rate culture of retaining everything even though it is transitory and doesn't need to be retained and that's finally brought the institution to a critical halt in trying to re- spond effectively and efficiently. We have a major initiative underway of a single data management platform that is being intro- duced. Probably the biggest change man- agement issue is a one-year retention period with automatic disposal: You either file what you have or you lose it after a year. That's just being rolled out now. The other area is driven by our risk man - agement framework and it is third-party risk management. We are using more and more third-party relationships, managed services [and] outsourcing. From an enterprise risk management perspective, we are redesign - ing our processes, so we have procurement through to the contract phase through to renewal, attestations, certifications and we haven't really paid a lot of attention to that in the past. GEARING: I echo the records retention is- sue. We don't have a centralized contract management software system. I also think communication is a big one. We're dispersed all over the country and using technology to stay in touch is a key priority for me. You can't always have in-person meetings, and dealing with each other just on email or phone calls is sometimes not optimal. ACKROYD: My challenge is probably a little different than some of the other larger or - ganizations. We don't have multiple lawyers in different jurisdictions or different offices, but for us, we have a relatively small number of important strategic agreements and con - tracts, so it's not about volume for me. But over the last five or six years, with people who have predated me, we have accumulated files of agreements and at what point do you purge or do some retention? I'm also at the point where we are starting to think about what might be an appropriate technology so - lution for contract management and for con- tract preparation. We don't do hundreds and hundreds of agreements, but there's prob- ably a better way. Historically, people did it all through email, but now there are more text messages with important details about deal terms, so I'm starting to think about a solution that would allow that to be docu - mented and retained so you could pull out an email with key points because it might not find its way into an agreement. So, it's a mat- ter of finding that balance because we don't need a full-on solution. I also don't want to be the first person to try something and get the white elephant nobody wanted. LAWAL: I would also mention contract man- agement and document management for the lifecycle. Those are huge for us as well. A lot of what we do today is constrained by one form of technology that doesn't communi - cate well with another. We have things like a tickler system that require manually input- ting the dates that matter. It would be great to have that automated and have that work with some other technology that we use. BABIN: For me, the biggest challenge is we do all the management of our external firms manually. We use Excel with the firms to track budget and matter management in - formation tracking and then we track that internally. All of our invoicing is done manu- ally, so there is one administrative assistant who spends a large part of her day dealing with managing that process. It makes it quite challenging to have meaningful data and analytics that I can then use to go out and try to negotiate some cost efficiencies with the firms. I have pulled together a team with our external providers and finance team and internal department to figure out how we can do that and determine if there is a technology solution that might help us with that process. INHOUSE: What about cybersecurity and data breach? LAWAL: Data is central to what we do. When you're transmitting financial information as we do, often there is a heightened sensitiv- ity around it. We have both customer infor- mation and client information and need to be mindful of that. On top of that we have some personal information, so there are layers to the data protection and data stor- age issues that we have. There's been a lot in the news lately about organizations that have been compromised and you never want to be that one. Interac as an organization takes that very seriously, again because of the nature of what we do and that will also manifest in how we handle information for contract purposes. FARR: Resiliency/systems risk is our biggest risk at the Bank of Canada. We plan on a We don't have a centralized search capability so, both in terms of responding to access to information and litigation discovery, it has become problematic. JEREMY FARR, Bank of Canada

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