“Back to Earth” – A Wrap-Up of Interact 2019

We got up Thursday morning refreshed, karaoke’d-out (almost!), and ready to enjoy the final day of Interact 2019. Some of us may have been a little hoarse, but we were still eager to be part of the presentations and conversations ahead.

Wednesday night saw our attendees enjoying a “Night on the Town at Pete’s Dueling Piano Bar (Sponsored by HBR),” where we wound up at the legendary live music mecca singing a few tunes together and generally enjoying ourselves after long days of learning and networking. Thursday, Day 3, would be the home stretch, and it didn’t disappoint.

A General Session filled with “Key Findings from the Fortune 500”

The most eagerly-awaited presentation of the day featured three true leaders in Legal Ops: Brian McGovern, Mitratech’s Executive Director, Rick Radice, VP & Chief Operations Officer at Prudential Financial, and Justin Hectus, CIO/CISO at Keesal, Young & Logan + CIO at Keesal Propulsion Labs.

One summary remark by Brian resonated throughout the room:

“No one has enough people. No one has enough money. No one has enough time.”

After visiting over one hundred Fortune 500 companies over the course of a year and interviewing them about their organization and where they are in terms of their Legal Ops strategies and legal tech roadmaps, Brian shared a few of the major key takeaways: 1) Leverage technology to do more with less, 2) get the right data to the right people at the right time, and 3) build a team with diverse skills and expertise.

The importance of being cross-functional to hit objectives is well understood within Legal Ops, and both Rick and Justin touched on this.  “We’re on a journey,” is how Rick put it when discussing building diverse teams of people with varying skills, but who complement others to form a dynamic whole.

Client-specific examples were discussed to reinforce each of the three key insights Brian presented. The example of what KP Labs and Mitratech have accomplished with NetApp, growing from 10 TAP use cases to over 55, shows how a legal tech solution can benefit the entire organization. It starts with Legal Ops, but can deliver transformation across the enterprise. And, in the case of NetApp, $6MM in ROI since they implemented TAP.

Productive sessions on realizing the power of legal tech

Sessions during Day 3 focused a lot on roadmaps – whether you wanted to know where Mitratech technology is heading, or learning how to build an internal roadmap for your teams and technology adoption, we covered it all. Great organic conversations happened during and after all of these sessions.

Some of the sessions worth calling out?

The Buyer’s Guide to Legal Technology: If you’re like the other professionals we’ve spoken to who have been faced with making technology purchase and adoption decisions, you know how much  of a challenge this can be. This session focused on providing guidance in regard to the systems and requirements that are important to legal departments. That’s important because a legal tech stack is not like other tech stacks.

It was a terrific panel that discussed this internal buying process from both consulting and personal experience perspectives; our client on the panel shared how her team went through 4 RFPs over the same subject over 5 years to finally get the software they needed. Nobody should have to put up with cycles that take that long, and the panel explored ways to make the process concise and precise.  In fact, you’ll soon be able to find these insights in a “Buyer’s Guide” toolkit Hyperion Global Partners and Mitratech will be putting out.

Leveraging TAP and TeamConnect: What these two tools, TAP and TeamConnect, do separately is impressive. Together, they provide an integration that easily fulfils and seamlessly addresses a multitude of use cases. We went in-depth with two of these processes, Legal Services Request and Subpoena Fulfillment, to see how the two integrate to create enormous value for the legal department and even the rest of the organization.

Closing night: Time to rock on in Austin!

Then, of course, it was time to wind things up in true Interact fashion with our closing party, where our annual “RockStar Awards” get announced. Our theme for the party? “Live Music Capital of the World,” so people came dressed dressed as their favorite music stars…including this familiar-looking guy getting “tatted” on Twitter.

Wrapping up a fun and successful week of #Interact2019 with a rock star party! pic.twitter.com/zfeJFVIzrZ

— Mitratech (@MitratechLegal) September 5, 2019

Our CEO Jason Parkman 'getting tatted' at our #Interact2019 Rock Star party! A huge thank you to everyone that made this week so succesful. #LegalOps pic.twitter.com/eo8f4TyQrb

— Mitratech (@MitratechLegal) September 6, 2019

Interact 2019 was so rich with useful content, we’re going to follow it up with a bunch of posts that dive in detail into much of what was covered by our product experts, clients, and other presenters.  Keep an eye on The Mitratech Blog (or even subscribe to our newsletter, below) to catch these updates.

And lastly, here’s a shout-out to Interact 2019’s sponsors. They, along with the best client/user community in legal tech, made this year’s conference another resounding success.  Right now it’s time to come “Back to Earth,” as Willie Nelson sings, but we’re already looking forward to next year!