Robert Ambrogi Blog
Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory is today unveiling an enhanced version of its Legisway product for managing corporate legal departments that is tailored for the U.S. market.
While Legisway is already widely used by legal departments in Europe, this version, built on the same platform, is designed to meet the needs of small and mid-sized legal departments in the U.S.
The platform is modular, so that legal departments can configure it to fit their particular needs. Every subscription includes two core modules, Entity Management and Contract Lifecycle Management, plus the customer’s choice of a third module.
Additional modules are available to add on at extra cost. These include modules for managing compliance, legal cases, IP rights, real estate and leases, GDPR, and invoices.
The AI-powered CLM product enables document creation, editing, redlining and version control, as well as self-service templates and a legal ticketing system.
Legisway’s ticketing and chat feature.
During a preview demonstration of the platform, Michele Alwin, product owner for Legisway, described the legal ticketing system as a “shining star” of the platform. While many legal departments manage requests through email or generic ticketing systems, Legisway’s ticketing system is designed for the unique needs of legal departments.
It allows others within the business either to request a contract from the legal department or generate a routine contract, such as an NDA, on a self-service basis. An option to be added in a future release will add the ability to request legal advice through the system.
The ticketing system includes a chat function so that, when a request comes in, someone in the legal department could start a chat with the requester to get more information.
The CLM module includes AI for contract review. It is able to extract data from contracts based on a checklist of 20 preconfigured data points and indicate whether the contract’s terms conform. Customers can also work with WK to create custom data points, Alwin said.
Another feature of the CLM module is the ability to create templated workflows and tasks with automation. The workflow can be used, for example, to indicate the steps that should be followed for a particular type of contract. Automation allows the workflow to move to a next task upon the completion of a prior task.
Ken Crutchfield, vice president and general manager of legal markets, said there are a number of point solutions available to legal departments that do pieces of this — such as contract management and entity management — but Legisway allows a smaller legal department to do all of those things in a single platform.
“CLM products are scrambling now to be more than CLM, but we are already there,” Crutchfield said. “We tick the box on being compelling.”
Another advantage of Legisway over other products, he said, is that customers know the company behind it and can be assured that it will still be around in another five years.