The Power of Connection: Mitratech+ThinkSmart and CLOC

With a week to reflect on my time at the Corporate Legal Operations Institute in Las Vegas, I have thought about so many potential takeaways – such as how the evolution of Legal Operations can be a driver of change throughout an organization, or how clients have heightened expectations for technology that simplifies their lives.

Or, how the role of the legal department and, by extension, the role of the technology used to run the department are evolving. But the common thread that ties all of these takeaways together is the power of connection.

As many of you may know, ThinkSmart’s CEO Paul Hirner and I met at the first CLOC Institute two years ago. That initial connection led to a successful partnership between our two organizations.  Flash forward to 2018, and in that short amount of time our initial connection grew into one of Mitratech’s most strategic acquisitions to date – making the ThinkSmart Automation Platform (TAP) part of Mitratech’s solutions. It’s no coincidence that the mission of TAP is to rapidly connect people and processes across an entire organization.

The power of this connection not only simplifies our client’s lives, but it positions the legal department to be at the center of evolution for the entire company. The bottom line is that people are looking to take the legal department out of its silo in order to make deeper connections than previously thought possible, benefiting the organization as a whole. Mitratech+ThinkSmart will make that possible. I am confident we will reflect on this moment as one of the most important in Mitratech’s history.

A shared vision for legal transformation

At a time when legal operations is emerging as an innovator ushering in change that impacts compliance, HR, procurement, and risk management, to name a few, TAP has emerged as a workflow engine that quickly and easily automates processes to connect legal to those departments, as well as those departments to one another. These connections increase collaboration and reduce mundane work, empowering users to transform the role of legal operations within the organization.

Our vision has always been to enable transformation, innovation and change for our customers, and we’ve always focused on making legal the best-run function in the business. Today, that means Legal Operations professionals are going beyond the walls of their own department and bringing value to the other parts of their organization. Today, this means Legal Ops is a central hub of connection.

Clients are also looking for technologies that work together, choosing those that will best fit their needs by applying parameters that are uniquely important to them. And while they may purchase different products from different vendors, one thing remains consistent – clients expect these solutions to work together seamlessly. It’s that expectation that formed our CLOC Institute presentation.

Together with three other solutions providers, including ThinkSmart, HBR, and KYL, we walked attendees through live integrations with more than a half-dozen other technologies, such as Box, DocuSign, and Salesforce. Honestly, I don’t think we realized how much of a need there was to see seamless integration (not to mention cooperation) being tangibly demonstrated between vendors and their solutions. But the line of people that gathered to talk with the presenters afterwards sure made that point.

The continuing spirit of connection

But perhaps the greatest reason that the power of connection emerged as my biggest takeaway is the fact that CLOC itself embodies the very spirit of connection. It’s about bringing people together so they raise the level of their profession, about sharing ideas and philosophies that spread among a connected group of colleagues and take on a life and impact of their own.

It’s about establishing networks of colleagues and friends that become resources and coaches down the road. And, of course, it’s about reconnecting with the people who have taken this journey with us, whether those people are clients, partners, colleagues, or even (gasp!) competitors. At this year’s CLOC Institute, I was lucky enough to be with about 2,000 such people.

I could not have been prouder than to be there, sharing the story of Mitratech and ThinkSmart’s first connection at this same conference just two years earlier.  I’m grateful for the power of connections between Mitratech and ThinkSmart, and how our technologies will come together to empower our clients to make legal the center of innovation for their organizations. For all those who were on hand for our announcement, thanks for sharing your time with us.

Welcome to the next frontier of Legal Operations.