I recently reached my two month anniversary at IntraLinks and started thinking about the interaction that I’ve had with General Counsel in meetings this year throughout the U.S. and in London, and at the recent LegalTech conference. This seems like a good time to reflect on market feedback about IntraLinks for Corporate Legal Management. I came here because I believe — after being a practicing attorney, adjunct law professor and leader of electronic product development for Wolters Kluwer Legal Markets — that IntraLinks has a unique solution for General Counsel. What matters most, though, is what the market says.  I can summarize the feedback I received from General Counsel over these past two months by what I have come to call “The Three Fives” — five solutions that IntraLinks provides for the five risks and five trends that General Counsel face. 

Today marks our first time as a public company that we’re releasing full year financial results. Investors, analysts, customers and employees are either eager or simply curious to see how we’ve performed both in Q4 and for the full year 2010. In many ways, it feels like just another year has gone. However, this year is clearly different as we’re now a public company and have the opportunity to tell the world about our financial performance in 2010.

 2010 was an exceptional year for IntraLinks, our employees, our customers and our investors. Highlights from our full year financial results include:

• Strong growth in our Enterprise and M&A principal markets drove record revenue of $184.3 million in 2010, up 31% over 2009.
• Non-GAAP operating income was $45.6 million, up 36% over 2009 and yielding an operating margin of 25%.
• Non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA was $62.6 million, up 39% over 2009, and yielding a best in class 34% EBITDA margin compared to other SaaS companies.

I recently attended the Argyle Chief Legal Officer Leadership Forum, held in Chicago. The event brought together over 150 global chief legal officers to discuss the challenges and issues that general counsels face. There were a number of speakers, panel discussions and breakout sessions focused on topics ranging from reducing costs and mitigating risk to tracking the legal impact of technology and social media.

While there, we had the pleasure of introducing Charles Wunsch, the general counsel and corporate secretary of Sprint Nextel. His presentation — "Legal Issue Spotting in a Changing World" — was a thought-provoking look at how rapid technological change has created new issues for legal departments. Here are a few of his key points:

I recently attended the Argyle Chief Legal Officer Forum, a gathering of 200 global corporate counsels to discuss the challenges facing legal departments. IntraLinks was a key sponsor of the event that including a panel introduction, sales introductions to targeted CLOs and a presentation table. IntraLinks also previewed a new enterprise offering that integrates secure legal document repositories, project management workflows and internal/external collaboration. In addition, we were able to interview keynote speaker Tom Sabatino, former General Counsel of Schering Plough (now General Counsel of United Airlines).

When I attend conferences for law department managers, four themes invariably get top billing: (1) controlling costs; (2) demonstrating the legal department's value to the organization; (3) managing staff and workloads; and (4) technology trends. Often, these themes are discussed in isolation of one another. On a typical agenda, there's a program about outside counsel fees. There's another one open only to chief legal officers about being a better leader. (That's the one they keep sending me to.) There's a program about outsourcing. And there's one about new contract management systems.

Practically speaking, of course, the themes of reducing costs, adding value, managing workloads and using technology are highly interrelated, and taking the time to understand how these themes converge can be quite powerful. When I consider purchasing a business technology solution, for example, I want to know "how will this solution help me maximize the utilization of our resources and deliver results aligned with the company's priorities?" That's a very different approach than asking "what does this thing do, and do I really need it?" If that's how you approach a potential solution, you're failing to consider its context and the broader impact it might have on your department's mission.