Realize the full potential of Intapp Terms
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Legal
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Intapp Assist
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Intapp Terms
Learn about several standout features and functionalities of Intapp Terms that can maximize your ROI.
WHITEPAPER
Key factors and features for realizing the full potential of Intapp Terms
Is your firm struggling with the implementation of Intapp Terms? Or perhaps your law firm has implemented Intapp Terms but hasn’t yet fully realized the software’s potential.
This white paper discusses five key factors for achieving the full value of Intapp Terms as well as the essential features that can help your firm boost productivity, simplify workflows, drive adoption, and maximize ROI.
Software implementation without process changes is insufficient
If your firm is facing challenges with implementation or product adoption of Intapp Terms, these issues may be rooted in legacy business processes that hinder broader usage of the product. Or your firm may not yet be fully utilizing the product’s capabilities and features, discouraging wider adoption.
Your firm has probably already gained several benefits from the software, however. You’ve probably centralized client engagement terms — such as outside counsel guidelines, vendor agreements, and various other types of non-standard engagement documents — making key terms and commitments easily accessible in daily operations.
Nevertheless, we know from working with many law firms that, even with these initial gains, several obstacles often remain that prevent firms from achieving full product adoption and realizing all the benefits of the Intapp Terms solution.
A clear, structured process helps your firm integrate Intapp Terms effectively into its broader operations
Owning Intapp Terms is only the first step. Getting the most value from it requires developing clear, structured business processes and policies that integrate Intapp Terms into your firm’s broader risk and compliance framework — including processes like new business acceptance and client matter lifecycle management.
It’s also crucial for your implementation team to understand the full range of Intapp Terms’s capabilities and stay informed about industry best practices so you can fully harness the power of Intapp Terms and its new generative AI features.
Bottom line: Your firm can accelerate Intapp Terms adoption by:
- Reassessing and redesigning your internal processes for managing client terms and associated compliance approvals with Intapp Terms
- Understanding all the product capabilities or defining a future state operations model
Here’s how to get started.
Ask these five questions to redesign your processes
Here are five key questions to answer to reinvigorate your Intapp Terms project:
1. Who will manage Intapp Terms software, policies, and client engagement terms processes?
Some firms take a decentralized approach to managing client engagement terms processes, involving various subject matter experts from departments like the Office of General Counsel, Conflicts, Accounting/Finance, Timekeeping/Billing, Pricing, IT Security, Data Privacy, Records, Information Governance, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Other firms establish a dedicated department or resource to oversee the process in collaboration with these experts. The Intapp Terms workflow is flexible and supports various approaches.
2. How should historical documents be prioritized in the terms management process? Should they be included, and if so, which ones should be prioritized?
A firm’s collection of historical documents may include executed agreements, documents still in negotiation, terms that are active or expired, and terms applicable to specific clients or groups. It’s also important to consider the origin of these terms — whether they are firm-, client-, or vendor-created — as this can affect their relevance.
For example, firms may opt to add documents in phases, starting with the top institutional/high revenue clients, and backfill older documents over time.
3. Which terms are most critical for your firm? Are there any mandatory clauses in your engagement letters that need to be enforced? Are there terms essential for managing risk and compliance?
There are more than 92 standard templates available in Intapp Terms, and you may have custom templates as well. We recommend being selective and focusing on the terms most important to your firm and those with the highest potential risk. Having a focused set of categories that are meaningful to your firm also helps sharpen the AI categorization.
4. How can we encourage adoption of Intapp Terms across the firm, including by high-profile individuals (such as partners)?
Intapp has recently introduced a new generative AI feature, Ask Intapp, as part of Intapp Assist for Terms. It gives your lawyers and other staff immediate answers to terms questions and quick access to key insights on client commitments, along with direct links to the underlying source information, right in Microsoft Teams.
For example, when assembling a matter team, a partner can quickly get information on staffing requirements and restrictions in the relevant outside counsel guidelines. See “Intapp Assist for Terms.” For more details, please reach out to your Intapp Account Manager.
5. How can your entire firm benefit from Intapp Terms?
Firms that have integrated their Intapp Terms solution with other Intapp products (such as Intapp Intake, Intapp Conflicts, and Intapp Time), can boost productivity, streamline processes, and improve efficiency.
Moreover, as Intapp Terms evolves and as your users become more familiar with its features, your firm may want to enhance its existing Intapp Terms solution and modernize its processes to align them with the firm’s strategic objectives. For example, conflicts teams can integrate any terms categories with the conflicts system so they can easily see relevant terms within the conflicts search. Finance teams can enforce billing guidelines more seamlessly.
Take advantage of these key functionalities and features of Intapp Terms to maximize your firm’s ROI
Here are several key functionalities and features of the Intapp Terms product that should be considered to maximize ROI:
Ask Intapp
Intapp has recently introduced a new generative AI feature, Ask Intapp, as part of Intapp Assist for Terms. Use AI-assisted categorization to quickly identify and classify key terms from uploaded client commitment documents.
- Link term documents to specific clients, client groups matter(s), or temporary placeholders.
- Assign terms to clients or matters based on pre-set criteria using the Inherited Terms feature:
- Client and matter selection-based: Link a client document across all matters, or to specific matters. You can also define whether all members of a group or only those meeting certain criteria should inherit the term provisions.
- Link a client document to a client’s corporate tree hierarchy.
- Set criteria for new clients and matters, as well as future clients and matters. For instance, an advance waiver can be linked to a specific client and all billable matters — and to any future matters — if they’re not categorized as “litigation.”
Terms Actions: Configure email notifications to be triggered based on document properties.
Terms Reminders: Set up date-driven reminders for terms requiring future actions. For example, a recurring reminder could notify relevant users of rate changes.
Terms Rules: Configure firm-specific rules to designate that some terms or paragraphs are mandatory and to alert the designated users in the event such terms are missing or modified, ensuring the firm’s compliance.
Terms Status (In Effect, Pending, Expired): Track term status and automate expiration processes, ensuring downstream systems reflect these updates. For instance, if a competitor term expires, its associated record in the Intapp Conflicts system will automatically expire as well.
Terms Tasks: Create auditable tasks for specific terms, with predefined status workflow, due dates, and priority levels.
Terms Comparison: Quickly identify changes to provisions — for example, by comparing new OCGs to terms that were agreed upon in the previous year.
Intapp Terms integration with Intapp Intake, Intapp Conflicts, and Intapp Time
Leverage native integrations between Intapp Terms and other Intapp products, such as Intapp Intake, Intapp Conflicts, and Intapp Time to:
- Standardize review processes
- Surface key data for the designated teams inside Intapp Intake requests and/or Intapp Time applications
- Enforce client’s billing restrictions
- Create custom integrations to leverage Intapp Terms data in downstream systems leveraging Intapp Terms’s APIs
Intapp Terms Approval Workflow
The Intapp Terms Approval Workflow follows a predefined sequence of stages and transitions that include uploading the document, reviewing it and categorizing the terms, assigning approvers for atypical scenarios, triggering the Subject Matter Expert (SME) review request, awaiting the SMEs’ responses, escalation path, and finalization of approvals.
Firms can choose to initiate this workflow for a client or matter directly from the Intapp Terms application or can launch this workflow right from the Intapp Intake product (for example, via the New Matter Opening or Maintenance workflow). The Terms Approval Workflow, along with the appropriate SME role, can be modified based on the firm’s process by an administrator.
Continue to optimize. Intapp can help.
It’s important for law firms to regularly review and refine their processes and use of Intapp Terms. That’s because as technology evolves — along with changes in regulations, client expectations, and firms’ priorities and strategic goals — it’s natural for processes to evolve as well.
We recommend that you conduct periodic assessments of your existing Intapp Terms configurations, including Intapp Terms Approval Workflow. While getting Intapp Terms up and running is an important first step, the real benefits come from designing and implementing the solution to support effective resources and processes.
By focusing on people, process, and the ongoing enhancement of the Intapp Terms solution, along with regular product training, you can establish an efficient workflow, gain better visibility into client commitments, ensure compliance and client satisfaction, and fully leverage your Intapp investment.
