Legal IT solutions for Financial Services
Financial Services businesses are heavily regulated, and keeping up with continuous changes in local, national, and international regulations is a daunting task. Legal professionals must ensure that all technology solutions support compliance, whilst also aiding efficiency and collaboration.
Document Management Systems (DMS) supported with Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) and matter management solutions can transform Financial Services legal operations by enhancing efficiency, security, and compliance with integrated, cutting-edge technologies designed for legal professionals.
Legal technology selection
The breadth of Financial Services legal solutions can make it challenging to know where to start. This is where Ascertus can help to establish objectives associated to business needs, in order to shortlist appropriate solutions. Our full range of solutions includes:
Document Management Systems
Essential for efficient filing, storage and retrieval of important legal documentation.
Matter management
Helping your in-house legal department to become profitable, so it’s not seen as a cost centre.
Matter intake and triage
For more effective management of external legal spend and collaborations.
Dark data discovery
Locate, classify and manage unstructured data across your systems.
Manage KYC compliance
Streamline your knowledge management, workflow automation and compliance processes.
eSignature
Legally binding electronic signatures, document approval processes, authentication and security, compliance and audit trails.
Document workflow
From legally binding electronic signatures, document approval processes, authentication and security, compliance and audit trails.
Document sync and transfer
Manage documents across platforms and devices – wherever you’re working, without duplicating or compromising data.
iManage DMS
A powerful and empowering document management system such as iManage is essential for any financial services legal or compliance department. It can handle high volumes of documentation, long-term storage requirements and complex workflows.
Lawyers who have come from private practice will already be familiar with DMS technology and its time- and cost-saving benefits. They will be surprised (or shocked) if the in-house legal team they have joined has not implemented technology as fundamentally important as a DMS.
A leading DMS such as iManage offers role-based permissions, automated audit trails, advanced version control, metadata tagging (for faster search), automated document lifecycle management and specialised workflow automation.
A smart DMS makes compliance quicker and easier, prevents document overwrites and losses, and integrates seamlessly with other legal tools.
Co-Flo matter reporting
Co-Flo builds on the benefits offered by a DMS by extending beyond document storage and retrieval. It delivers a full matter reporting solution, designed specifically for legal teams.
While iManage is excellent for handling documents, Co-Flo complements and enhances its capabilities, providing a more comprehensive legal workflow and case management framework.
Co-Flo manages not just documents but also the entire lifecycle of a legal case or matter from start to finish. It reports on every aspect, including task assignments, deadlines and collaboration with internal and external teams.
Co-Flo’s task reporting is more sophisticated and is designed with legal workflows in mind. Furthermore, legal teams can track the status of all ongoing cases and view detailed analytics about time spent, costs incurred and outcomes achieved.
Lawcadia matter management
Lawcadia is a legal operations platform that focuses on managing legal spend, workflow automation and legal project management – with an emphasis on connecting in-house legal teams and external counsel.
It offers a different set of features compared with iManage and Co-Flo – providing a more comprehensive approach to legal operations (particularly around managing external legal service providers and costs).
One of the standout features of Lawcadia is that it allows in-house legal teams to manage and control legal budgets, track costs in real-time and ensure compliance with pre-approved budgets. It provides detailed analytics on legal spend, enabling legal departments to understand their external legal costs better and to identify opportunities for savings.
While iManage focuses primarily on document management and Co-Flo centres around internal matter reporting, Lawcadia adds value by providing tools that help legal teams stay within budget and optimise their relationships with external counsel. Its spend management functionality is more advanced than anything found in iManage or Co-Flo.
ActiveNav electronic data discovery
ActiveNav is a data discovery and information governance platform that helps organisations to locate, classify and manage unstructured data across their systems.
Its core strength lies in its ability to find and assess dark data – information that organisations may not know they have or that remains unmanaged. ActiveNav helps companies to reduce risk, ensure compliance and optimise their data management practices by making unstructured data visible and actionable.
While iManage, Co-Flo and Lawcadia focus on structured data and known documents within legal workflows or document management systems, ActiveNav focuses on finding and managing unstructured or dark data.
This could include legacy files, old emails, redundant or obsolete information spread across various systems or silos – data that may pose a compliance risk if not properly managed.
ActiveNav’s ability to search across all corporate systems – shared drives, email servers, cloud storage and more – to locate and categorise data makes it invaluable for companies that need a clearer picture of all the information they hold, especially as they navigate privacy regulations.
Litera document comparison and drafting
Litera is a suite of software solutions designed to improve document drafting, editing, proofreading and collaboration. Litera products focus on creating efficiencies in document production, collaboration and risk management – streamlining workflows, enhancing compliance and improving accuracy.
Key capabilities include document drafting and proofreading, real-time collaboration, risk and compliance management, template and clause management. Litera can be a valuable addition if you are already using a DMS such as iManage.
DocuSign digital signatures
DocuSign eSignature is trusted by hundreds of millions of users world-wide. It meets electronic signature regulations, including eIDAS. Financial services and legal teams depend on Docusign for legally binding electronic signatures, document approval processes, authentication and security, compliance and audit trails. This vital tool integrates with many key applications and platforms.
Sysero document workflow
Sysero is a document and workflow management platform that helps financial services and legal teams to manage their Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements. It streamlines knowledge management, workflow automation and compliance processes. Sysero is tailored for firms looking to create efficiencies in how they manage, store and share large volumes of documents, contracts and other critical information.
Its primary functions include document and knowledge management, workflow automation and compliance support. This platform integrates with existing systems (CRM, legal databases) and is highly customisable, making it easier to adapt to your requirements.
Sysero provides more customisable workflow automation than iManage. It also offers compliance tracking and audit trails tailored specifically for regulated industries such as financial services.
Syncly data sync and archive management
Syncly is a file synchronisation and integration solution designed specifically for regulated sectors, such as financial and legal services. It helps organisations to securely sync, transfer and manage documents across platforms and devices. Syncly’s primary role is to ensure secure and seamless file access and transfer between systems. This enables users to access up-to-date information wherever they are working – without duplicating or compromising data.
Key capabilities include file synchronisation across platforms, data security and compliance, version control and conflict resolution. Syncly can integrate with popular document management/collaboration systems (such as Sharepoint) and also with industry-specific DMS platforms – creating a secure bridge between systems that may otherwise operate in silos.
Why Ascertus?
Ascertus is an award-winning DMS and contract management technology provider and implementation partner. As specialist consultants with nearly 25 years of experience across all financial services sectors, we ensure bespoke DMS and contract management solutions with guaranteed ROI, optimal performance, seamless adoption, and minimal disruption.
We recommend and implement agnostic solutions that integrate with existing technology, tailored to your specific needs. Our skilled technical consultants, project managers, and support engineers focus on adoption to ensure your team embraces and effectively uses the new technology, maximizing performance, efficiency, and compliance.
The Ascertus solution
At Ascertus we work collaboratively. This means we work in partnership with our clients to:
- Establish the business needs and objectives
- Review appropriate solutions
- Build an implementation strategy
- Develop a bespoke onboarding program
- Train employees to ensure adoption
- Provide ongoing support and advice
Everything you need to for a successful implementation.
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Financial services legal technology resources
Financial Services Articles
What are the benefits of legal technology?
Legal technology enhances efficiency and accuracy in document management and contract lifecycle management by automating routine tasks, improving data security, and aiding regulatory compliance. It reduces costs, increases scalability, and improves decision-making through advanced analytics. Additionally, these technologies facilitate better client engagement and resource management, making legal services more accessible and efficient.
How is tech changing the legal industry?
Advanced technologies like AI and machine learning allow legal professionals to automate routine legal tasks—enhancing speed, accuracy, and freeing lawyers to tackle complex issues. Document Management Systems are now widely used to efficiently organise, store, and retrieve data, while Contract Lifecycle Management solutions streamline processes from drafting to execution, ensuring compliance and reducing manual labor.
What are the disadvantages of legal technology?
Legal technology solutions can be expensive to implement, however the risks of not using technology that supports compliance and offers auditing capabilities, is far greater. AML and KYC regulations are intensifying, along with an increase in wider data legislations, such as GDPR. It is now more important than ever for businesses to ensure they have best of breed legal solutions in place to help mitigate risk.
What our clients have to say
We don't expect you just to take our word for it. Our clients span a wide range of industries and sectors, in lots of different countries. See how Ascertus has helped them.
Ascertus clearly stood out for its professional attitude towards customer communication. Also, unlike many other organisations, the company lays equal emphasis on providing support services and delivering technology implementations. This approach clinched the deal for us.
Nikolaj Clausen, Chief Technology Officer
LUNDGRENS
Ascertus displayed great eagerness to understand our requirements and suggest approaches that would solve our problems. Executives from the CEO downwards were involved in discussions with us, which gave us a good insight into the company’s cultural attitude towards the delivery of support services.
Jurian Hermeler, ICT Director
NAUTADUTILH N.V
Ascertus continue to impress us with their knowledge and professionalism. Their deep understanding of the iManage suite allows them to efficiently resolve the complex issues that we escalate to them allowing us to focus on delivering benefits to our firm.
Steve Dalgleish, Applications Manager
SHEPHERD & WEDDERBURN
It’s clear to us that the Ascertus team has sound knowledge of iManage Cloud. They are working with us patiently and systematically to meet our system requirements. Their approach to working is very straightforward and professional – with a lot of emphasis on attention to detail.
Miriam Lindsay, Senior Legal Counsel
CARDANO
Implementation of iManage Cloud has been painless. Ascertus and our IT service provider worked collaboratively to deliver the solution to the firm. Our involvement was only in the initial design stages to decide things like policies for file naming and matter workspaces in the application. It could not have gone smoother.
Aoife Cullen, Office Manager
OCWM LAW
Using best practice document management for corporate compliance.
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