Outsourcing the annual legal follow-up

Outsourcing of annual legal monitoring, for whom? Why?

Corporate legal documents are often in large numbers, must comply with the financial data of the current year and last year, and of course comply with regulations that change from one year to the next. Also, they are both complex, require a lot of attention from teams, subject to strong standardization, with a strict regulatory framework and they are often redundant and perceived by legal teams as almost administrative.

In short, the drafting of current legal documentation takes a lot of time for your teams, is a source of errors and its repetitive nature can contribute to the fatigue of your teams, who are also very much in demand. Why not consider delegating your corporate compliance?

 

1) Who is this outsourcing for?

From SMEs/midcaps with a legal department reduced to large international groups without a dedicated team in France on these topics, outsourcing concerns the largest number of companies. Only common denominator, the will to free time to your legal direction, whatever its size.

2) What operations are involved?

Any classic company law transaction that generates documentation, such as the approval of annual accounts, but also other more exceptional transactions (changes in corporate name, closing date, officers, transfer of registered office, transactions related to statutory auditors, etc.) or related to restructuring transactions (merger, increase or reduction of capital, change of structure, transfer of goodwill, etc.) These transactions may all be outsourced.

Outsourcing can be:

• total: you are guided by the firm that accompanies you,
• or partial when you want to keep control of certain acts or lock access to certain types of documentation.

 

3) Automated corporate compliance - what is it?

The outsourcing of annual legal monitoring is not a recent offer in the market. What is important is the ability of traditional law firms to offer a corporate compliance offer that relies on technology to automate this monitoring. This is an intelligent mix between the automation provided by the Legaltechs and the retained business expertise, through the use of a traditional law firm.

From the use of electronic signature, the use of EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) files or the rationalization of operating costs via a scale and learning effect, the use of an outsourcing solution for automated annual legal monitoring brings together the best of both worlds of Legaltechs and traditional firms. Technology helps to reduce firm fees, while technological solutions are enriched by the human expertise provided by lawyers.

What can you expect from this type of solution?

 

Four good reasons to choose an automated corporate compliance solution

a) Saving time

The first advantage is that it saves time by using an automated corporate compliance solution. Documents are indeed produced more quickly, and the risks of errors or typos related to human writing are strongly or completely reduced. On certain corporate documents such as Annual General Meetings, the drafting of related documents can be complex and be a source of many errors. Thus, you can achieve between 50 and 80% time savings on a standardized document. The low risk of error is further minimized by the review of the specialist teams.

 

b) Risk management

Automation does not mean that human expertise is neglected. Teams of experienced lawyers oversee the production of documents by ensuring governance and compliance requirements. By outsourcing your annual legal monitoring, you benefit from the expertise of a firm that guarantees you a follow-up as closely as possible to the evolution of the regulations and a compliance of every moment, which may be more difficult to guarantee internally given the constant evolution of regulations and the current burden of corporate lawyers. The sources of errors are greatly reduced, and the use of EDI files retrieved from the accounting teams makes it possible to optimize the process.

c) Cost control

Automation reduces the costs associated with services. The cost of using an automated digital corporate compliance solution must be weighed against the time spent by your employees on these repetitive tasks. An outsourced offer based on automation allows you to benefit from lower costs than those usually practiced in a conventional outsourcing. By entrusting the writing to an external firm, the investment in time has already been carried by the latter, and you only bear the unit cost of the documentary production without bearing the cost related to the investment. Thus, you control your budgets and you can benefit from degressivity according to the volume of documentation produced.

 

d) A less obvious but equally important reason: talent retention and practice transformation

By outsourcing your annual legal follow-up, you open up your legal department to the outside world, offer new partners, and indirectly train them in new practices. Outsourcing the writing of time-consuming corporate documents such as the writing of account approvals for example, allows you to free your lawyers from tasks that can be repetitive, lacking visibility and interest. On the contrary, you free up time for them to be integrated into projects, upstream of company decisions. The outsourcing of annual legal follow-up is an opportunity to offer legal departments the opportunity to refocus their teams on topics with greater added value. Indirectly, you give them material to transform their practices and you contribute to talent retention.

The legal function is subject to many challenges. Among them, digitalisation, which offers significant transformation opportunities and tools that promote efficiency. The outsourcing of repetitive but strategic tasks, such as the documentation related to the general meeting of approval of the annual accounts, can constitute an opportunity for significant transformation of the function, provided that it relies on a fine blend of technology and human expertise.