One of the hottest sectors of the legal tech market these days is contract lifecycle management, or CLM. But Evan Wong believes that, for many inhouse legal teams, CLM is not necessarily the best route for them to streamline workflows. Rather, he believes workflow automation is often the better way for legal teams to transform their operations.

Wong is the founder and CEO of the low-code/no-code workflow automation company Checkbox. He says that law department technology needs to be more focused on workflow automation processes than on CLM. In fact, he says that CLM can actually be counterproductive for legal teams, depending on their size and maturity.

At the same time, workflow automation platforms address the same benefits of CLM — such as efficiency, accelerating contract turnaround times and reducing administrative burdens — but without the pressure of high initial costs, long implementation times and change management.

Wong was just 17 when he founded his first company, and he founded Checkbox shortly after he graduated from college, earning him and his cofounder James Han a place in the 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30. Shortly before this episode came out, Wong turned 30.

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