Bressler Risk Blog

In this month’s sponsor spotlight, Intapp highlights recent analysis and advice from Bryn Bowen, Practice Group Leader, Legal Risk: “Improve legal risk management and compliance: How midsize law firms can continue to thrive in a post-pandemic market” —

• “During the last year, midsize law firms have increased demand, maintained productivity, and experienced lower turnover overall than small and large firms.”
• “Risk and compliance, for example, remains a complex area that firm leaders struggle to properly address. Oftentimes, midsize firms lack the resources to properly manage compliance for the numerous matters they work on, while a general lack of knowledge around the evolving best practices for due diligence increases the risk of accepting unfavorable clients.”
• “The American Bar Association (ABA) also amended Comment 8 to Model Rule 1.1, which now requires that lawyers keep abreast with the capabilities of available technology and ensure its use will properly serve their clients; furthermore, lawyers must be competent in actually using that technology, and must ensure compliance with all other ethical responsibilities. By failing to implement or properly use suitable available technology, lawyers put their clients’ data at risk and may unintentionally run afoul of the ethics guidelines.”
• “Many midsize firms want risk and compliance tools that are equal or superior to those used by larger firms, and that will provide the same qualitative analysis and protection that large firms often enjoy.”
• “OnePlace Risk & Compliance, a cloud-based and AI-powered Intapp suite, can help your firm improve conflicts clearance, mitigate risk, and ensure compliance throughout the client lifecycle. Like all Intapp products, OnePlace Risk & Compliance was designed by experts who have a deep understanding of the unique characteristics, complexities, and challenges of midsize law firms. Clients can count on Intapp technology to meet their specific needs that other generic solutions fail to address.”
• “Throughout their lifetime, these tools can substantially reduce the need for non-knowledge work associated with admin processes, and by largely automating administrative tasks such as new business intake, your firm can onboard clients and accept new engagements more quickly. Additionally, by leveraging advanced AI-powered tools, your firm can reduce the risk of human error and better determine which clients and matters are problematic or profitable.”
• “Midsize law firms need to examine the lifecycle of all their work and ensure that all standards and requirements are continually being met. Properly equipped with the right software, your firm can successfully and efficiently manage risk and compliance throughout every stage of the client relationship lifecycle to improve the overall performance of your firm.”

For more detail, see the complete blog post.

In this month’s sponsor spotlight, Nigel Riley, Intapp’s general manager for risk and compliance solutions, reminds us to pay close attention to the unfolding enhancements Congress is making to AML rules. His article reviews details of the impending changes, and offers advice on how to prepare sound response strategies: “ENABLERS Act: Enhance your risk and compliance management” —

• “For years, experts have warned professional service firms in the U.S. that they need to start preparing for money laundering regulations. And in recent months, those warnings have become impossible to ignore.”
• “The latest and loudest alert came in July 2022, when the U.S. House of Representatives proposed the Establishing New Authorities for Businesses Laundering and Enabling Risks to Security (ENABLERS) Act. This bipartisan legislation, aimed at so-called gatekeepers, would expand anti-money laundering (AML) surveillance — currently required of financial institutions — to professional services firms, requiring accounting and law firms to collect, monitor, and report specific types of client information.”
• “Passage of the ENABLERS Act is not guaranteed. It’s currently an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which observers expect congress to vote on by December. It could undergo significant changes prior to the final vote, or not pass at all this year.”
• “My advice to firm leaders is simple:
  • Don’t delay. Proactively prepare by enhancing your KYC and AML processes.
  • Focus on the long-term. Augmenting your firm’s risk and compliance programs can have ongoing, positive impacts on other aspects of your business.”
• “Firms will have to find their own path, but they can get there by focusing on three key areas:
  • Process — Now is the time to thoroughly review current policies and practices, including overall governance framework and risk and compliance protocols for assessing risks associated with accepting new clients and engagements, clearing conflicts, onboarding new business, monitoring engagement performance, and managing client relationships. You can also map out a plan for review and conduct a gap analysis against the newly proposed requirements.
  • People — The risk and compliance team shouldn’t be the only function to prepare for the new regulatory requirements. Instead, a cross-functional evaluation of the client lifecycle and all touchpoints provides a better approach to comprehensively assessing your firm’s current risks, capabilities, and staffing needs. Enhancing team resources, upskilling staff, and identifying inefficiencies can create additional capacity to satisfy the new requirements and allow staff to allocate more time to higher-value work and analysis.
  • Technology — It’s critical to determine if your firm’s current software is optimal enough to support more robust tracking, greater amounts of data, and enhanced reporting as required by the proposed legislation. Take this opportunity to reconsider the software tools currently in use at your firm, evaluate paper-based or manual processes, and identify areas prone to human error where automation and systems integration could mitigate risks and make adopting new regulations easier.”
• “As my colleague and risk management expert Meg Block notes, preparing for the requirements of the ENABLERS Act will require firms to review client onboarding procedures and create additional mechanisms for ongoing monitoring throughout the client lifecycle. This process could create long-term benefits.”
• “Whether or not the ENABLERS Act passes this year, the message is clear: Professional services firms need to prepare for AML regulatory requirements. By starting now, firms can better understand how the regulations may affect them and where they need to focus.”

For more detail, see the complete blog post.

In this month’s sponsor spotlight, Intapp is inviting readers to watch the recording of its recent webinar, featuring the perspectives of three implementation partners (Aurora North, InOutsource and InflectionIT) on migrating your Intapp risk software from on-premises to the cloud: “WEBINAR RECORDING: OnePlace Risk & Compliance: Partner perspectives on navigating the cloud migration journey.“

They also wanted to highlight several recent partner-produced articles and resources in this same topic, for those looking for some additional background, detail and insight:

From Aurora North

	Our Increasing Intapp Investment: A Commitment to the Cloud
	Navigating Intapp Query Integration Migration: A Question of When, Not If
	Freeborn & Peters on Moving to the Intapp Cloud with Aurora North

From InOutsource:

	Interview with an Intapp Cloud Migration Expert
	Comment on Critical Intapp Changes — Transition of Query Integration to Data Sets
	New Business Intake and Beyond: Baker Botts Cloud Case Study

Details on the Webinar Event & Recording:

• The cloud offers significant advantages for Intapp customers. Don’t miss this session if you’re looking to migrate on-premises Intapp software, business processes. and data integrations to the cloud — or to better understand key steps your organization should be preparing today to smooth an eventual migration down the road.
• In this webinar, a panel of independent experts representing three key Intapp consulting partners shared their experience, advice, recommendations, and tips for navigating the journey ahead to the cloud.

Panel Discussion Topics Included:

• Success stories: Lessons and learnings from successful Intapp cloud migrations
• Technology preparation: Query integration-to-data sets, API conversion, premigration system updates, data integration re-architecture, and other critical tech concerns
• Strategy and planning: Making the case to management for investment, including incremental approaches

Watch the Recording Here.

Intapp @ ILTACON

Finally, for those attending ILTA, Intapp has several sessions of note planned, more detail here: “Connect with Intapp at ILTACON 2022” —

• Expert hours: Intapp Walls
• Demo: Intapp Terms
• Demo: Intapp Conflicts: Lateral Hires and External Forms
• Expert hours: Risk Cloud Assessment & Migration
• Demo: Intapp Intake AML/KYC Compliance

In this month’s sponsor spotlight, Intapp is highlighting an upcoming event sure to be of interest to every customer that has yet to migrate from on-premises to cloud: “WEBINAR: OnePlace Risk & Compliance: Partner perspectives on navigating the cloud migration journey”

Event Description:

• The cloud offers significant advantages for Intapp customers. Don’t miss this session if you’re looking to migrate on-premises Intapp software, business processes. and data integrations to the cloud — or to better understand key steps your organization should be preparing today to smooth an eventual migration down the road.
• This webinar includes a panel of independent experts representing three key Intapp consulting partners. Each of these partners has executed several cloud projects and will share their experience, advice, recommendations, and tips for navigating the journey ahead, including the following discussion topics.

Panel Discussion Topics:

• Success stories: Lessons and learnings from successful Intapp cloud migrations
• Technology preparation: Query integration-to-data sets, API conversion, premigration system updates, data integration re-architecture, and other critical tech concerns
• Strategy and planning: Making the case to management for investment, including incremental approaches

Speakers:

• James Edwards, Director of Client Experience, Intapp
• Shalaka Natu, Director of Product Risk Solutions, Intapp
• Samantha Kobak, Risk Solution Engineering Manager, Intapp
• Curtis Russell, Chief Operating Officer, Aurora North
• Jeff Armbrecht, Vice President, Services, InflectionIT
• Eric Mosca, Director of Operations, InOutsource

Learn More and Register Here.

In this month’s sponsor spotlight, Intapp is highlighting a recording of their recent webinar on their latest innovation and success on client intake, conflicts and more.

Event Description:

• Join us to explore how firms effectively leverage OnePlace Risk & Compliance to thoroughly evaluate new business, quickly onboard clients, and easily monitor relationships throughout the client lifecycle.
• During this webinar, you will hear from our guest speaker and Intapp client, David Monteiro, Senior Manager, Risk and Intake, Goulston and Storrs. Learn how his firm turned their risk and compliance management issues into a competitive advantage with OnePlace Risk & Compliance solutions.

Of particular note the conflicts and compliance nerds out there — [I don’t know if Intapp wants me saying “nerds” on their sponsored post, but I’m saying it, with deep affection of course] — there’s some in depth content and demonstrations of their Interactive Conflicts Report (ICR) feature and their latest enhancements to watch lists and monitoring.

I’m always a stickler for customer references and proof points. And this one delivers, with Dave Monteiro from Goulston & Storrs sharing his story. He reports:

• They’ve been using ICR for over 36 months
• They have a 100% lawyer adoption rate
• That’s 200 lawyers
• An average of 450 ICRs generated a month
• An average duration from creation of ICR to matter opening of 30-40 minutes

Access the Complete Video Recording: Via this link

In this month’s sponsor spotlight, Intapp is highlighting their upcoming webinar on managing client and vendor commitments with Intapp Terms.

Date & Time: June 9, 2022 | 8–9 a.m. PT/11 a.m.–12 p.m. ET/4–5 p.m. BST

Registration: Via this link

Event Description:
It’s imperative that firms develop a comprehensive strategy for managing client commitments, as well as provisions within that strategy to mandate efficient management, provide visibility and insights, ensure compliance, and maintain customer satisfaction. That strategy must ensure thorough management of vendor agreements — and that the commitments within those agreements don’t conflict with client commitments.

Join this webinar to learn how your firm can ensure compliance with client commitments using new vendor terms functionality in Intapp Terms. This feature will give your firm a holistic understanding client commitments and gain visibility into vendor terms — a critical part of that understanding.

As part of new vendor terms functionality in Intapp Terms, firms can leverage 17 out-of-the-box templates and create custom documents. You’ll gain the ability to streamline vendor management, including:

• Uploading signed vendor contracts
• Ensuring users see only documents and terms relevant to their work
• Curating summaries of key contracts information

For more details and to register: “Intapp Terms Webinar: A Holistic Approach to Managing Client and Vendor Commitments.”

In this month’s sponsor spotlight, Intapp is highlighting a webinar case study showcasing how Hogan Lovells is using Intapp Terms to manage Outside Counsel Guidelines, engagement letters and other contractual/professional obligations.

I actually attended this session and found the real-world story and perspective shared by Thomas Patteson (Hogan Lovells Conflicts Client Engagement Attorney and Manager) to be quite engaging indeed. (Pun intended. Sorry.) He described the firms vision and progress in streamlining this increasingly complicated but vital risk responsibility, and shared some stats including:

• Total number of documents stored: 42,000+
• Total number of terms: 1.2 million+
• Total number of activate templates [or categories] (standard and custom): 107
• Percentage of documents categorized by AI: 99%
• Document types uploaded:
  • Outside counsel guidelines
  • Engagement letters
  • Secondment agreements
  • Business association agreements (BAA)
  • Non-disclosure agreements (NDA)

And he details the journey, strategy and path the firm has taken to achieve (and build on) its success with the product.

For more details and to download the on-demand recording: “User Community Event Series: OnePlace Risk & Compliance for Legal — Intapp Terms.”

In this month’s sponsor spotlight, Intapp is highlighting new resources on risk assessment, anti-money launderings and client due diligence:

WEBINAR RECORDING: “Intapp Risk and Compliance Roundtable: An Expert Panel Discussion on Risk Assessment, AML, and CDD” —

• “One of the many ever-increasing challenges firms currently face is ensuring proper due diligence while managing their risk assessment processes. Firms are constantly seeking out new ways to address this issue and implement best practices for conducting necessary checks throughout the client and matter opening processes.”
• “on March 3, WE will SPOKE with two leading subject matter experts on risk-related issues such as Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) expectations and expanding risk awareness.”

UPCOMING WEBINAR: “The Intapp Advantage: Streamlining Risk Assessment and AML Processes” —

• “As a follow-up to our March discussion, on April 21, 2022, at 2 pm BST, 9 am ET we will be hosting a webinar to demonstrate how Intapp Intake for AML Compliance will support your firm’s anti-money-laundering processes and provide you with a comprehensive, configurable, and integrated AML solution.”
• “Firms continue to struggle with the challenge of managing their risk assessment processes in this post-pandemic environment. The past 2 years have seen a steady increase in the growth of fraud cases and data breaches — a trend that’s expected to continue into 2022. European Union anti-money-laundering (AML) legislation and Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) expectations have raised the imperative for firms to expand their risk awareness.”
• “At this webinar, you’ll learn how Intapp can provide your firm with an AML solution that integrates with your key systems as well as third-party data and a reputable ID verification partner to enable seamless, efficient, and accurate intake and AML compliance processes.”
• “This session will highlight:
  • Conducting AML compliance with prebuilt configurable forms and workflows
  • Integrating the Intapp AML solution with key firmwide systems, third-party data, and a reputable ID verification partner
  • Generating an AML risk score based on key inputs and firm business rules to quickly assess risk levels and escalate or resolve the risk
  • Streamlining documents delivery and managing client interactions using a secure external client portal
  • Automating real-time monitoring and notifications that may impact the risk assessment”
• Register Here

In this month’s sponsor spotlight, Intapp is highlighting two resources on lateral hiring: a blog post summary and a recording of their earlier product demo webinar. (I attended that webinar live and could not remember the last time I attended a session that had such a high level of audience Q&A participation…)

Blog post: “Integrated Onboarding and Conflicts Clearance” —

• “Although lateral hiring and onboarding workflows vary significantly across law firms, most of these processes share one thing in common: they’re hampered by an inability to quickly capture data. As firms face the most active period of lateral lawyer movement in history, firm leaders must consider investing in technology that can help them create faster, more seamless processes that also protect them from potential conflicts.”
• “During a poll, a majority of the webinar attendees reported that their firm’s onboarding success rate had been negatively impacted because of lengthy workflows. Additionally, as Bowen revealed, risk and compliance teams are facing increasing pressures concerning firm expansion, finances, strategic alignment, complex regulations, and client demands. Bowen explained that, without the proper technology to holistically evaluate risk and onboard laterals, firms will soon find themselves overwhelmed.”
• “‘Beyond analyzing whether a firm can take on the business [that lateral bring with them], firms are actually starting to assess whether they should take on the business,’ said Bryn Bowen, Practice Group Lead for Legal Risk at Intapp. ‘To make these decisions, firms need to communicate effectively, with all relevant background information at hand. The need to onboard these laterals quickly, efficiently, and in a compliant matter compounds the stress.'”
• “‘We’ve worked with our clients to develop a solution based on best practices across the industry,’ said Bowen. ‘The lateral hire solution is an out-of-the-box, low-impact, implementation-friendly tool for efficiently evaluating and onboarding laterals. Our lateral hire clearance solution provides … a central place for all the firm’s internal stakeholders and decision-makers to view and evaluate the full package of information.'”
• “‘The tenant is independent of your environment, allowing you to invite external users to come in, fill out a form, and give you the information required,’ said Kristian Uggla, Senior Sales Engineer at Intapp. ‘It will go through integration points and push that data into your environment. External users will feel like they’re in your environment, but they will in fact have no access to your information whatsoever.'”

For the video overview and product demo, see: “Expediting Lateral Hiring: Integrated Onboarding and Conflicts Clearance” —

• “To streamline these processes, Intapp offers lateral hiring and onboarding tools as an add-on to Intapp Conflicts and Intapp Intake. The software provides a prebuilt, configurable, internal and external workflow that helps firms onboard new candidates and clear portable new business.”
• “This session will highlight these new lateral hiring and onboarding features:
  • Lateral Submission — Let lateral candidates submit their history and verification information and documents securely
  • AI-Assisted Conflicts Clearance — Streamline the onboarding team’s review of the AI-categorized search results to clear or resolve potential conflicts of interest
  • Sponsor and HR Review — Help the firm sponsor or HR and recruiting professionals review the candidate and clearance information using an interactive workflow
  • New Business Intake — Prepopulate new business intake forms with cleared portable client and matter details integrated with the FMS”

In this month’s sponsor spotlight, Intapp calls out a recent article from its consulting partner Aurora North, who shares their perspective on best practices for managing OCGs, framed with a client case study in: “Taking Control of the OCG Treadmill: From Technology Potential to Practical ROI” —

• “In recent years, outside counsel guidelines (OCGs) have expanded so much in scope and complexity that law firms often find themselves in a treadmill of playing ‘catch up.'”
• “Many firms still lack a central repository for clients’ OCGs and other client engagement terms — and even the ones that do often find it challenging to track every component. We often hear from firms that negotiating and managing OCGs and enforcing compliance can feel like an “all or nothing” mountain to climb, but it doesn’t have to be.”
• “This article explores how firms can start small in building more systematic OCG compliance, drawing on the experience of an Am Law 100 firm that has been successful in taking an iterative approach and demonstrating clear ROI along the way.”
• “In the case of the Am Law 100 firm we worked with, the Finance and Risk teams started by defining critical questions they wanted to address:
  • How can we share knowledge and distribute information on OCGs and client terms within a firm with over 1,000 attorneys?
  • How can we monitor OCG compliance internally and fix any issues quickly — before a problematic invoice reaches the client and results in write-offs?”
• “The firm’s key priority initially was to take steps that would immediately help reduce write-offs — so we agreed to focus our efforts on improving the visibility and enforcement of client billing restrictions. In other words, the firm decided from the outset to take a more focused approach that would demonstrate ‘quick win’ results.”
• “Another project we worked on focused on making client-specific staffing restrictions more visible to lead attorneys, to prevent them from assigning first-year lawyers, for example, to a client matter if it was explicitly disallowed per the client’s OCGs.”

Read the complete article here.

Read more about Intapp Terms here and how it helps organizations: “Gain visibility into increasingly complex and demanding client terms of business to promote enforcement with confidence. Intapp Terms centralizes and streamlines storing, categorizing, and approval-routing of client mandates, enabling your firm to effectively deliver on the promises it makes.”