July 14, 2023

 Tom ‘Hersh’ Hershenson

manage requests best practices AFAs alternative fee arrangements manage billing chatgpt contracts insights

Popularity and wisdom are not synonymous. That said, when a blog post from an Elevate expert receives significantly more views than the average Elevate post, it’s safe to assume it contains worthwhile guidance.

So, without further ado, here are the five most-viewed Elevate Expertise blog posts thus far in 2023. Notably (especially for statistics geeks out there), every one of them exceeds the average views of all our 2023 posts by at least two standard deviations.

Number Five: ‘Doing AFAs the Right Way: Part I’: This January post by Erica White is a two-for-one: it provides a framework for law departments to operationalise a better and wiser approach to alternative fee arrangements (AFAs) and explains crucial aspects of risk collars, graduated fee caps, and fixed-fee AFAs. Part II (see below) of Erica’s series on AFAs took an even higher spot in our Top Five list – proving that a sequel can outperform the original.

Number Four: ‘Enough Is Enough: Don’t ‘Over-Interview’ Candidates’: When it comes to rounds of interviews, more isn’t always better, Paul Shephard explains. He offers four factors to consider in deciding how many rounds are best: duration of the role, the specific needs in filling the role, the role’s position within an organisation, and considerations related to a candidate’s temperament.

Number Three: ‘Long Before OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Elevate’s Contracts Insights Service Leveraged the Power of Structured Contract Data’: This June 28 piece by Jason Block (VP, Contracts) and Neetika Narula (Managing Director, Contracts) took the Number Three spot on our list in a matter of days – and the views keep coming! With AI all the rage lately, they delve into how, for ten years now, Elevate’s expert-led, software-powered Contracts Insights service has used advanced AI to help businesses leverage contracts information in post-merger integrations, regulatory compliance efforts, migrations to Contracts Lifecycle Management (CLM) systems, and more.

Number Two: ‘One Plus One Equals One: Integrating Software and Services to Deliver a One-Stop Solution’: Jake Hills (VP, Legal Ops) lays out the arrival of the ‘one-stop’ paradigm, with solutions that deliver technology and services as an integrated whole. As an example, he details how Elevate customers have benefitted from two components of our ELM integrated with our services: Manage Requests and Manage Billing.

…and (drumroll, please) our most-viewed post thus far in 2023: ‘Doing AFAs the Right Way: Part II’: In her second post (see Part I above) on AFAs, Erica White lays out best practices for law departments and outside counsel to collaborate on developing and implementing AFAs, including clarifying the reasons to use AFAs, determining appropriate AFA structures, evaluating proposed AFAs, and more. Notably, this post garnered nearly 20% more views than Part I, posted in January.

In six months, we will provide a year-end list of our most-viewed posts – in the meantime, stay tuned for more pieces from Elevate Experts with practical, actionable guidance.