The Movember Foundation chose Xakia to coordinate communication among lawyers on three continents and its seasonal secondees.
Situation
Movember is the world’s leading charity changing the face of men’s health, uniting experts from around the globe to collaborate on projects that change the way men in need are treated and supported when they experience mental health issues, prostate cancer or testicular cancer. Since its inception in 2003, Movember has raised more than A$1.1 billion, funding more than 1,250 men’s health initiatives around the world.
Movember has a five-member legal team with individuals in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Challenge
As the name suggests, Movember’s activity peaks in November, when Mo Bros and Mo Sistas from more than 20 countries Grow a Mo, Host a Mo-Ment or take on a Move challenge to raise awareness and funds for men’s health. Movember works year-round, with MayEight events, Father’s Day activations and September’s Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride events on the calendar as well.
The months leading up to these campaigns were very busy – but if Movember hired full-time lawyers for these bursts of work, they would be underutilized six months of the year. Instead, the organization engaged Hive Legal, a nontraditional law firm, on a flexible retainer: Movember can scale up its legal team with Hive Lawyers when it needs them, and scale down accordingly.
While this provided much-needed manpower, it also presented a challenge for General Counsel Cate Bennett: How do you coordinate Legal Department personnel spread across three time zones and a group of seasonal secondees?
Approach
Ms Bennett began looking at matter management software to serve as a hub for Legal Department communications, and she ultimately chose Xakia.
“It’s really user-friendly,” she said. “It has the core functionality we need, and you can tell it’s been put together by a legal team who do this stuff day in and day out.”
Xakia provided her disperse team with a centralized place for communication. She added the Hive lawyers as users when they were on duty with Movember, and Xakia’s updates and notes functions allowed Australian lawyers to coordinate work with colleagues in the U.S. and the U.K. without being stymied by time differences.
Moreover, she said, the Legal Department was ready to start examining its operations and performance, and Xakia’s reporting would empower that analysis.
“We had a legal function that really needed to mature, and we needed to look at our process, and we needed to look at how we were doing things and how we were serving the business,” Ms Bennett said. “We didn’t want a system that maybe hid that.”
Result
In addition to facilitating communication, Ms Bennett said Xakia has provided important insight into Movember’s legal operations.
By tracking and analyzing the Legal Department’s matters, she was able to identify bottlenecks and start conversations with business units about their strategies and priorities.
“We had a lot of people in the business who said, ‘I’m not getting what I need from Legal. It takes a really long time. I don’t understand it,’” she said. “Xakia has helped us to put a framework around how we use the reporting and what evidence is behind any gut feeling you may have.
“So that’s given me the ability to have conversations that are structured around robust data, rather than just what I think and feel.”
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