Case Study: SMBC Americas Division saves $2.7M and streamlines outside counsel management with Brightflag

SMBC Americas Division saves $2.7M in 9 months with Brightflag

SMBC Americas Division, the commercial and investment banking arm of SMBC with a legal department of over 80 people, faced significant challenges in managing outside counsel spend. Their legacy e-billing and matter management system led to a time-consuming, manual matter intake process via Word documents and email, inconsistent application of complex outside counsel billing guidelines, and an inability to strategically analyze their legal spend data. To address these issues, they sought a modern solution from vendor Brightflag.

By implementing Brightflag's AI-powered e-billing and matter management platform, SMBC transformed its legal operations. The solution streamlined matter opening with a digital request form, leveraged AI to automatically enforce billing guidelines on every invoice, and provided complete visibility into spend data. As a result, SMBC saved $2.7 million through consistent discount application and recovered over 300 labor-hours by eliminating manual processes, achieving significant cost and time savings with Brightflag.

SMBC Americas Division