3 types of integrations every legal operations department needs to understand

Earlier this year, SimpleLegal sponsored the annual CLOC Institute in Las Vegas. The event attracted thousands of legal operations professionals who were ready to learn from industry thought leaders on how to build and manage legal operations programs that streamline operations and align with business outcomes to effectively protect and grow the organization.

Connecting Legal Tech for Greater Efficiencies and ROI

During the conference, SimpleLegal CEO, Nathan Wenzel was joined by legal and finance thought leaders from X – The Moonshot Factory and Splunk to discuss a framework for thinking about integrations and strategies for building an integrated tech stack that delivers efficiencies and ROI.

First discussed was the definition of a legal tech stack, which simply put, is a term for the totality of legal software (typically cloud-based) that a legal team utilizes. With technology being vital to business success in today’s corporate environment, integrating all of the technologies that your legal department uses could be your department’s competitive advantage, providing benefits such as:

Email, File-Based, and API Integrations

Often times, legal works in multiple systems and is left with databases that aren’t able to talk to one another. Fortunately, there are three approaches for integrating legal technology – all of which require varying IT support which allows legal teams of any size to get started on creating more streamlined operational processes.

1. Email Integration – This is a “shortcut” to get your initiative started. An email integration doesn’t yield a fully integrated process, but is an option to get an initiative started without  immediate access to IT resources.
2. File-Based Integration – This involves CSV files, flat files, or FTP folders and is a great way to transfer information if you need to move files, such as pdfs, around in a matter-heavy environment.
3. API Integration – An integration is a direct connection between two systems using a real-time call and response process, which often requires support from IT. One of the benefits of API integrations is they require fewer touch points and therefore minimize opportunities for error.

For more information about integration types and to hear the challenges legal operations teams faced when creating an interconnected legal stack (and how they overcame them), watch the session recording.