Over the past several years, there has been a tremendous amount of innovation in the legal field, especially with the introduction of productivity-enhancing technologies or “Legal Tech.” Law firms and legal departments have adopted:
- Enterprise applications such as practice management platforms, matter management solutions, contact lifecycle management software, and other ‘business of law’ applications.
- Agreement and contract tools, such as document automation, help lawyers speed up the process of drafting and reviewing legal documents and agreements.
- Communication tools to improve collaboration between clients and internal resources, such as messaging (Microsoft Teams, Slack), video conferencing (Zoom), and file sharing (Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive).
And of course, most recently, with the rollout of the latest generation of large language models (ChatGPT, ClaudeAI, Gemini, etc.) and AI, there has been a veritable Cambrian explosion of new products for AI-enhanced legal discovery, document automation, document analysis/review, and the list goes on and on.
However, if we examine all those recent technological investments, we see that they’re focused on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the law firm or legal department. That is to say, these technology investments are internally focused. All those ‘business of law’ applications automate away many mind-numbing administrative tasks. Document automation, messaging/video conferencing, and file-sharing tools simplify legal document creation, communications, and file sharing with clients or internal resources. The AI-powered apps are force multipliers for attorneys. In fact, the internal productivity focus has led to the creation of legal ops teams, which, among other things, are focused on implementing and managing all this new productivity-enhancing technology.
As these investments scale Gartner’s slope of enlightenment, it begs the question: What’s next for Legal Tech?
Our opinion? It’s L2L or legal-to-legal technology. These are solutions that are designed to support external collaborations (i.e., arms-length collaborations) between legal teams from different organizations. The reason is simple: legal professionals spend a significant amount of time in external collaborations, working at arm’s length with people outside of their organization. These external collaborations often represent the most business-critical work that these professions do, as it includes:
- Negotiating agreements and contracts with external stakeholders such as suppliers, vendors, or partners.
- Managing external disputes to protect the organization’s interests.
- Overseeing audits to ensure financial and operational practices meet internal, professional, regulatory, and legal standards.
- Ensuring regulatory compliance to avoid penalties and maintain legal standing, just to name a few.
However, aside from eSignature (and the very transaction-specific virtual data room) there’s been very little effort to improve how legal teams collaborate externally. One can imagine the current state of technological affairs gives many legal professionals whiplash. When working internally (or arm-in-arm with a client), the professionals are exquisitely well supported by the most modern technology and platforms with the best usability. However, the moment they start collaborating externally, it’s back to the 1980s and the argy-bargy of email.
Why legal professionals need L2L collaboration tools
Legal-to-legal (L2L) collaborations have distinct characteristics that traditional, internally focused collaboration tools simply don’t address. It’s what creates the opportunity for L2L innovation in Legal Tech. Here are the top reasons why legal professionals need L2L tools:
- Independence: In L2L collaborations, each party works together but operates independently in order to protect their interests. This is why each party maintains its own separate workspace and only communicates or shares documents and files when they are ready—there’s a separation between “yours,” “mine,” and “ours.” For instance, only finalized revisions are exchanged during customer contract negotiations—never internal notes or comments.
- Structured: Each party's independence creates the need for structure in L2L collaborations. For example, when working on a contract amendment, every proposed change must receive approval from the other party. Each approved change yields a new version and is another step towards a durable agreement. And let’s not forget all those versions need to be retained to preserve a comprehensive record of the negotiation. That step-by-step process of achieving consensus is quite different from free-for-all joint editing sessions in Google Docs or Microsoft Office 365, where any team member can make updates at will (and read prior versions) whenever they want.
- Secure: L2L collaborations involve highly sensitive documents and agreements. Both parties need to compartmentalize (and limit participants to those who need to know) to ensure their work remains confidential. And when you’re done, that content should be archived and removed from the ‘collaboration’ space. Typical collaborative spaces—Google Drive, Microsoft Teams channels, inboxes. etc—are often open by default to facilitate ad hoc collaboration and frequently very loosely governed. In fact, these often end up as non-compliant data graveyards.
- Compliant: Many L2L collaborations are documented and monitored to ensure compliance with internal policies and regulations. This could include compliance with regulations such as GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in Europe, HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) in the U.S., or industry-specific standards like those in financial services. Many regulations and rules require strict controls over how legal documents are handled, shared, and archived. Specialized L2L collaboration tools help ensure that all interactions meet these standards, reducing the risk of sanctions and maintaining the integrity of the entire process.
The unique requirements of Legal-to-Legal (L2L) collaborations—the need for independence, structured workflows, heightened security, and strict compliance—underscore the need for specialized tools. But what kind of capabilities and features are required for L2L collaboration platforms?
What capabilities should L2L Solutions include?
From a practical perspective, Legal-to-Legal (L2L) collaborations focus on the documents and files that define the matter at hand, or Legal professionals need to request, discuss, exchange, and revise documents and files. But that’s just the beginning—those capabilities represent a portion of the broader set of features required for effective L2L collaboration. Let’s review what else should be part of an L2L solution.
Security and Confidentiality
Ensuring the security and confidentiality of the content in L2L collaborations is non-negotiable. This means, at minimum, data encryption, secure access controls, and compliance with data protection regulations to safeguard sensitive information. Solutions should also adhere to recognized standards such as SOC 2 Type 2 or similar. In addition, the ideal L2L platform would also include capabilities for compartmentalization—restricting access to only validated participants. Data minimization features, such as ephemeral data (content is automatically deleted after a certain period), should be included, which are critical for limiting the proliferation and persistence of content exchanged during collaborations.
Document Collection Requests
In Legal-to-Legal (L2L) collaborations, the need for additional documentation often arises. Teams need a well-structured approach that makes communicating, fulfilling, and tracking these requests easy. Effective document collection capabilities streamline the collaboration by preventing misunderstandings and delays and keeping both parties accountable.
Real-time and asynchronous Communication
The ability to communicate effectively in real-time and asynchronously ensures that all parties, regardless of time zone or schedule differences, can stay connected and informed. Equally important is the co-location of communications with the documents and files being discussed. Keeping everything in the same place ensures that all communications occur within the proper context, reducing the risk of misinterpretation and confusion.
Files and Document Exchange
Exchanging documents—such as contracts, agreements, and other legal materials—is fundamental to Legal-to-Legal (L2L) collaborations. Rather than scattering the material across email, file-sharing tools, or messaging apps, keeping all this content (and related communications) together reduces confusion and significantly improves productivity. This approach ensures that everyone has all the relevant documents and files at their fingertips.
Version/Revision Management
Retaining document versions is important in Legal-to-Legal (L2L) collaborations, especially for contracts and agreements. L2L platforms should track document versions and provide easy access to prior editions. Appropriate version management ensures that all parties can quickly refer to previous iterations, see a history of changes, and avoid confusion over the most current version. In addition, with AI there is the opportunity for utilities, such as automatic document summarization and comparison.
Progress Tracking / Audit Trails
Having a clear, overarching view of the entire negotiation process is useful. From a pragmatic perspective, it’s because most legal professionals juggle multiple L2L collaborations at the same time, all at different stages. This can make it challenging to keep track of what has happened in each case, especially when weeks or even months pass between key actions. L2L platforms can help by providing a recap, or comprehensive overview of the entire collaboration. That clear timeline helps legal professionals quickly recall previous actions, decisions, and communications. It’s also useful when onboarding new participants and bringing them up to speed. Moreover, this timeline is an audit trail, promoting accountability and transparency throughout the L2L process. As it provides documentation of all interactions and changes, which is invaluable for compliance purposes and dispute resolution.
Interoperability
As mentioned in the introduction, organizational investments in legal tech have largely focused on streamlining and improving the efficiency of internal processes. To support effective L2L collaborations, the platform should seamlessly interoperate with the diverse technological environments and enterprise applications of the involved parties. Interoperability ensures that the legal professionals have a smooth, well-integrated experience, while still using their preferred applications and tools.
Immutable ledger
Given the business-critical nature of many L2L collabraotions, it’s worth considering how the platform is recording the various event that happen through the collaboration. In TakeTurns, all interactions—including file sharing, document requests, revision tracking, and communication—are securely recorded in an immutable ledger. This ensures that both you and your external stakeholders can work asynchronously, using your own tools, without the risk of conflicting edits.
Final Thoughts
Legal-to-Legal (L2L) collaboration is an area of innovation for Legal Tech. The need to improve external collaborations will become increasingly apparent as the legal industry continues to embrace modern legal tech to streamline internal processes. L2L platforms offer a comprehensive solution to the unique challenges faced by legal professionals when working across organizational boundaries, providing critical capabilities such as confidential & private content exchange, version management, document collection, and progress tracking.
As the industry moves forward, embracing L2L collaboration tools will be essential for law firms and legal departments looking to maintain a competitive edge. By fostering transparency, accountability, and seamless integration with existing systems, these platforms will enable legal professionals to navigate the complexities of external collaboration with greater confidence, control, and elan.
Try TakeTurns: The Safer, Easier Way to Work with People Outside of Your Organization
TakeTurns is your one place to share, collect, and collaborate on business-critical documents and files with your clients, vendors, partners—or any external organization. It turns that clutter of emails, attachments, shared folders, and messages into a structured, secure, and transparent TakeTurns Flow. Ready to improve how you collaborate externally? Try TakeTurns for free.
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