Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions and legal operations experts to discuss corporate legal department spending trends in upcoming webinar

July 22 presentation will cover insights and statistics outlined in the company’s latest LegalVIEW® Insights report

July 19, 2021 —Nearly a third of Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions corporate legal department (CLD) clients showed a 90 percent or more difference between their lowest and highest annual legal spend amounts in the last five years, according to data compiled by the company. However, even with wild fluctuations individually, these clients – all of whom have had mature e-billing for at least six years – pay no more in total outside counsel costs on average than they did in 2016. The nuances driving these trends and other valuable insights from ELM Solutions’ recently-introduced LegalVIEW® Insights report will be among those discussed in an ELM Solutions-hosted webinar on July 22.

The webinar will also explore the emerging trends behind the overall legal spend volatility seen in individual CLDs. For example, 9 percent of CLDs showed a difference of three times or more in legal spend from 2016-2020, but in the last two years, law departments experienced a median 1 percent decrease in legal spend, and nearly two-thirds of CLDs experienced at least some decline.

Speakers include Nathan Cemenska, Director of Legal Operations and Industry Insights for Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions; Tiffani Hamilton-Huynh, Legal Operations Manager, DHL Supply Chain; and Don Knight, Director, Legal and Tax Operations, Crown Castle. They will delve into total annual outside legal spend trends, focusing on those insights most valuable for law departments going through their yearly departmental budgeting process.

The webinar is the latest in a series of 2021 thought leadership pieces, including blogs, podcasts, and other content leveraging information from ELM Solutions’ LegalVIEW® Data Warehouse – the most comprehensive legal spend database in the world, with more than $140 billion in invoices.

“Despite wild variations in total legal spend in any given year, overall, CLDs with modern e-billing solutions and legal operations focus are better able to manage this volatility than legal departments who have not made this investment,” said Cemenska. “Clients with mature e-billing and legal ops look at their legal spend with an increasingly appraising eye and, to the extent that law firm revenue continues to increase, that does not appear to be driven by clients with mature legal ops and e-billing.”

Cemenska, who joined Wolters Kluwer in 2018 and is the author of the LegalVIEW Insights thought leadership series, is responsible for developing research and thought leadership out of ELM Solutions’ LegalVIEW® Data warehouse. He also publishes other articles for the company and participates in podcasts focused on legal operations insights. Hamilton-Huynh, who has been with DHL Supply Chain since 2016, focuses on her company’s legal team’s technology, processes and workflows, and Knight has led Crown Castle’s legal and tax operations team since 2019.

ELM Solutions, part of Wolters Kluwer’s Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) division, is the market-leading global provider of enterprise legal spend and matter management, contract lifecycle management and legal analytics solutions. The company provides a comprehensive suite of tools that address the growing needs of corporate legal operations departments to increase operational efficiency and reduce costs. Corporate legal and insurance claims departments trust its innovative technology and end-to-end customer experience to drive world-class business outcomes. The other legal solutions business of Wolters Kluwer GRC is CT Corporation.

Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions was named a leader in both the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Enterprise Legal Spend Management 2020 Vendor Assessment and IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Enterprise Matter Management 2020 Vendor Assessment. The company’s award-winning products include Passport®, one of the highest-rated ELM solutions in the latest Hyperion MarketView Legal Market Intelligence Report and TyMetrix® 360°, the industry’s leading SaaS-based e-billing and matter management solution. CLM Matrix, meanwhile, was named a “strong performer” in The Forrester Wave: Contract Lifecycle Management For All Contracts, Q1 2021 report. ELM Solutions’ LegalVIEW® portfolio of legal analytics solutions is based upon the industry’s largest and most comprehensive legal spend database, with more than $140 billion in invoices.

About Wolters Kluwer Governance, Risk & Compliance

Governance, Risk & Compliance is a division of Wolters Kluwer, which provides legal and banking professionals with solutions to help ensure compliance with ever-changing regulatory and legal obligations, manage risk, increase efficiency, and produce better business outcomes. GRC offers a portfolio of technology-enabled expert services and solutions focused on legal entity compliance, legal operations management, banking product compliance, and banking regulatory compliance.

Wolters Kluwer (AEX: WKL) is a global leader in information services and solutions for professionals in the health, tax and accounting, risk and compliance, finance and legal sectors. Wolters Kluwer reported 2020 annual revenues of €4.6 billion. The company, headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands, serves customers in over 180 countries, maintains operations in over 40 countries and employs 19,200 people worldwide.

Media Contacts

Paul Lyon
Global Corporate Communications Director
Governance, Risk & Compliance Division
Wolters Kluwer
Office +44 20 3197 6586
[email protected]

Andrew Ferraro
Corporate Communications Manager, Legal Solutions
Governance, Risk & Compliance Division
Wolters Kluwer
Office +1 347 922 8809
[email protected]