Technology Innovation Institute
Introduction
The Technology Innovation Institute (TII) is a leading global research centre based in Abu Dhabi dedicated to pushing the frontiers of knowledge to develop innovative solutions - spanning engineering, AI and renewable energy - for a better world.
Having experienced a significant growth in its workload, TII Legal recognised the need for a more sophisticated, streamlined and efficient legal operations framework to continue supporting the business at its growth. And what’s more, with lots of research opportunities come lots of NDAs, which TII Legal was looking for support with in order to free themselves up for more strategic initiatives for the business.
TII sought out an expert partner who could not only provide them NDA review and negotiation support but who could deliver the ongoing legal ops support they needed to meet their objectives of becoming a highly efficient, effective and data-driven legal team.
Step 1: Discovery
Kicking off with a detailed Legal Ops Diagnostics Workshop, we identified three four key areas TII were looking for support with: implementing a legal front door, implementing a Document Management System, developing playbooks and redesigning their policies to be more business-friendly.
We also held a separate session to deep dive into their current NDA review process, explore their preferred positions and fallbacks, in order to develop a bespoke playbook to power our AI-assisted review.
Step 2: Set-up
Playbooks
We delivered a bespoke NDA playbook to TII, which we also uploaded into our AI system, to begin reviewing their NDAs with precision and efficiency.
System set-up
We were given access to all of the relevant systems we needed to explore what tool would work best for their legal front door and what was outstanding in terms of implementation of their Document Management System.
Step 3: Delivery
NDA review
We reviewed and negotiated TII’s NDAs end-to-end, freeing up Legal for strategic matters.
Legal front door
Using our bespoke methodology, we created a legal front door for TII using one of their existing tools, to minimise spend and maximise the chances of adoption by the business. By centralising all requests for Legal support, TII was able to glean valuable information and reporting from the system to inform their function more broadly.
Document Management System
We project managed the implementation and rollout of TII’s chosen DMS, which was adopted across the business, and enabled TII to centrally manage its documents and risk.
Policy redesign
We redesigned TII’s business-facing policies to be more user-friendly, enhancing their compliance as employees were able to better understand TII’s processes and their own obligations.
The Outcome
TLB has been able to help TII optimise their legal operations continuously through our unique Legal Ops-as-a-Service program. By building out a Legal Front Door, TII now has a structured and efficient process for handling incoming legal requests from business stakeholders, which has reduced response times and improved communication.
The implementation of a Document Management System has also allowed TII's legal team to work more efficiently, making it easier to manage their workload and access relevant information. Additionally, TLB's creation of playbooks for common agreement types has empowered TII's business stakeholders to negotiate and drive agreements with less input from legal, freeing up the legal team to focus on more strategic tasks.
Overall, TLB's partnership with TII has allowed the organisation to continue advancing cutting-edge technologies and promoting innovation, while ensuring their legal team functions optimally.