Category: Legal Operations

Legal operations is gradually becoming one of the most important disciplines for legal departments around the globe. Broadly speaking, legal operations encompasses all the responsibilities of a legal department that are not the law itself, including spend management, increasing efficiency and productivity of the legal department, vendor management, legal technology implementation. It is, therefore, multi-faceted with many roles and responsibilities and enables legal counsel to focus on providing legal advice in the most valuable and productive way possible. A legal operations team needs a wide range of skills to generate the best outcomes.

Fortunately, the legal operations head does not need to be perfect in those areas, as they can sometimes build a diverse team around them. Nevertheless, an excellent legal operations manager should always strive to develop generalist skills to mentor and lead the specialists within the team. Those with teams are the fortunate ones, though. A solo legal operations manager runs most legal operations functions in Europe, and it is even more critical that this person develops the necessary key skills.

Whether you’re already in the job or aspire to transition into legal operations, here are five essential skills every legal operations professional should have or be actively working on improving, especially if they are in a “team of one.”

1. STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT AND COMMUNICATION

A legal operations manager needs to define and identify the relevant stakeholders for projects to understand their needs and address them while balancing competing requirements and priorities. On occasion, final budget decisions will be made in other departments of the organization, so maintaining effective communication and a positive relationship with all stakeholders is vital. The legal operations director is the link between the legal department and the rest of the organization, ensuring stakeholders are involved and updated. This may also entail influencing stakeholders to buy into a project in the first place by identifying how the project benefits the wider business. As other departments may be unfamiliar with the legal department’s workflow and the resulting obstacles, a legal operations manager must be able to explain projects and benefits in terms that make sense outside of the legal silo. They should be able to network and communicate with people at several levels throughout the organization. As Ben Eason, Head of Legal Transformation at Barclays, says, “Evidence of flexibility, interchangeability, negotiation, and managing stakeholders are crucial. These skills are arguably the most important for legal operations success.”

2. LEGAL DEPARTMENT BUDGETING

A legal operations manager should be able to manage and calculate the budget the legal department has and the budget it might need, even if this responsibility is outside their remit. Reliable, stable financial planning will help the legal department to develop consistently. While there should be an understanding of previous and actual budgets, as this helps with forecasting, actually planning the future is more important. The legal department will constantly be pressured to be more efficient, and resource optimization is key to success. Part of the job will be to spot new cost-saving opportunities. Spend management tools can make the visibility of these metrics, and therefore decision making, much easier. The legal operations director should have the acumen to acquire a budget for a project when there isn’t one by communicating with the budget holder/s and creating a business case that advocates what is best for the legal department and the whole organization. This links with stakeholder management and communication skill in that the business case must resonate with the budget holder/s aims and objectives, not just the legal department.

3. LEGAL TECHNOLOGY KNOWLEDGE

Technology is playing an ever more significant role in the role of a legal operations manager as legal departments strive to become more agile, collaborative, and efficient. A legal operations head needs to have an innovative and curious approach to problem-solving. They should be confident in rolling out tech (or knowing where to go for help) and have the ability to plan and implement a long-term process and technology roadmap. The rapidly evolving legal technology landscape can cause distractions, so staying up to date with legal tech trends and new entrants to the market to avoid any sense of overwhelm is important. This also helps the legal operations manager ensure projects and plans stay true to the department’s objectives. The ability to critically evaluate the relevance of the current plan and pivot quickly if required is essential. Since many lawyers are still doing repetitive and time-consuming tasks manually, the legal operations manager should find solutions to streamline and/or automate these processes by using existing enterprise tech or evaluating legal-specific vendors. An excellent legal operations head will know how to map out current processes and decide which can be improved by changing processes vs. those which require technology to solve and then prioritize accordingly.

4. FIRM AND VENDOR MANAGEMENT

In some organizations, the legal operations team manages the procurement of external legal services from law firms and vendors. In many companies, firms and vendors are traditionally selected through personal contacts or loyalty, though this status quo is being challenged more frequently now. A good legal operations manager has to turn this thinking around and focus on more effective and transparent solutions for the department. Instead of agreeing on standard pricing and staffing models, the head of legal operations should facilitate the negotiation of more flexible and transparent pricing models to create positive incentives. This can be a win-win for clients and firms, incentives such as ‘volume discounts’ encourage counsel to drive more work towards a single firm to reach the threshold that triggers a discount. Legal operations professionals not from a legal background need to familiarize themselves with how legal services are billed; rates, AFAs, LEDES, etc. They also need to approach vendor management with sensitivity to influence in-house counsel to the new way of thinking.

Legal services aren’t a commodity, and it can be challenging to quantify added value, so it is about more than “lowest cost wins.” By setting up a structured bidding request, as one example, the legal operations manager can force competitive rates from the firms while requiring counsel to objectively decide which proposal generates the most value for the cost. Another part of the work in this area is the administration of efficient onboarding for new vendors or firms. After choosing the right vendor/firm, clear rules (such as billing guidelines) must be introduced to measure the performance of the collaboration and get maximum value for money. The head of legal operations also needs to facilitate fair, transparent, and data-driven performance reviews with vendors and firms.

5. DATA LITERACY

Data literacy is vital for the work of a legal operations director. Many legal departments are making decisions inefficiently, using outdated processes such as spreadsheet reporting, anecdotal feedback, or simply “gut feel.” A legal operations professional is unlikely to start their job with sophisticated reporting tools and must be confident in navigating the existing paper or spreadsheet reports to find the needed data. While there is no need for a legal operations manager to be a data scientist, data literacy goes beyond compiling reports. Many legal departments waste time compiling frequent reports in which most data goes unused. The director of legal operations needs to avoid data tracking for the sake of it and understand how to use the information to develop the department and the organization as a whole. They should identify the goals (using existing data to help, if appropriate), work backward to identify key performance indicators (KPIs) and important metrics, and then ensure the department can capture the data points needed to measure KPIs. This consistent data lays the foundations for analytical capabilities to enable strategic decision-making and solve problems.

An excellent legal operations head needs to know how to structure, gather and analyze the relevant legal data. This can help in practical ways, such as maximizing value when negotiating external contracts or making a business case for increased headcount and budgets. Data literacy will also help the legal operations head to balance the needs of the department in an objective manner and decide where to focus their efforts.

Learn more about BusyLamp from Onit, our end-to-end legal spend management solution built for European corporate legal departments. 

Legal Operations entwickelt sich allmählich zu einer der wichtigsten Disziplinen für Rechtsabteilungen weltweit. Vereinfacht ausgedrückt, umfasst der Begriff „Legal Operations“ alle Aufgaben einer Rechtsabteilung, die nicht das Recht selbst betreffen. Es handelt sich also um einen facettenreichen Bereich mit vielen Rollen und Verantwortlichkeiten, der es den Anwälten ermöglicht, sich auf eine möglichst wertvolle und produktive Rechtsberatung zu konzentrieren. 

Um die besten Ergebnisse zu erzielen, benötigt ein Legal Operations Team ein breites Spektrum an Fähigkeiten. Glücklicherweise muss der Leiter der Rechtsabteilung nicht in allen diesen Bereichen perfekt sein, da er mitunter ein vielfältiges Team um sich herum aufbauen kann. 

Nichtsdestotrotz sollte ein erfolgreicher Legal Operations Manager immer bestrebt sein, die Fähigkeiten eines Generalisten zu entwickeln, um die Spezialisten innerhalb des Teams anzuleiten und zu führen. Diejenigen, die über ein Team verfügen, können sich allerdings glücklich schätzen. Die meisten Rechtsabteilungen in Europa werden von einem einzelnen Legal Operations Manager geführt, und es ist umso wichtiger, dass diese Person die erforderlichen Kernkompetenzen entwickelt. 

Unabhängig davon, ob Sie bereits in diesem Beruf tätig sind oder einen Wechsel in die Rechtsabteilung anstreben, finden Sie hier fünf Kernkompetenzen, über die jeder Legal Operations Manager verfügen oder aktiv daran arbeiten sollte, sie zu verbessern. Insbesondere wenn er in einem „Ein-Mann-Team“ arbeitet. 

STAKEHOLDER-MANAGEMENT UND KOMMUNIKATION 

Ein Legal Operations Manager muss die relevanten Interessengruppen für Projekte definieren und identifizieren, um ihre Bedürfnisse zu verstehen und auf sie einzugehen und gleichzeitig konkurrierende Anforderungen und Prioritäten auszugleichen. Gelegentlich werden die endgültigen Budgetentscheidungen in anderen Abteilungen der Organisation getroffen, so dass eine gute Kommunikation und ein positives Verhältnis zu allen Beteiligten von entscheidender Bedeutung sind. 

Der Leiter der Rechtsabteilung fungiert als Bindeglied zwischen der Rechtsabteilung und dem Rest des Unternehmens und sorgt dafür, dass die Beteiligten einbezogen und auf dem Laufenden gehalten werden. Dies kann auch bedeuten, dass er die Beteiligten dazu bringt, ein Projekt zu unterstützen, indem er aufzeigt, welchen Nutzen das Projekt für das gesamte Unternehmen hat. Da andere Abteilungen mit den Arbeitsabläufen in der Rechtsabteilung und den sich daraus ergebenden Hindernissen möglicherweise nicht vertraut sind, muss ein Legal Operations Manager in der Lage sein, Projekte und Vorteile so zu erklären, dass sie auch außerhalb des juristischen Silos Sinn machen. Er sollte in der Lage sein, Netzwerke zu knüpfen und mit Personen auf verschiedenen Ebenen des Unternehmens zu kommunizieren. 

Ben Eason, Leiter der Abteilung Legal Transformation bei Barclays, sagt: „Flexibilität, Austauschbarkeit, Verhandlungsgeschick und der Umgang mit Interessengruppen sind entscheidend. Diese Fähigkeiten sind wohl die wichtigsten für den Erfolg der Rechtsabteilung“. 

BUDGETIERUNG DER RECHTSABTEILUNG 

Ein Leiter der Rechtsabteilung sollte in der Lage sein, das Budget der Rechtsabteilung zu verwalten und zu kalkulieren, auch wenn dies nicht in seinen Zuständigkeitsbereich fällt. Eine verlässliche und stabile Finanzplanung wird der Rechtsabteilung helfen, sich kontinuierlich weiterzuentwickeln. 

Es sollte sichergestellt werden, dass vergangene und gegenwärtige Budgets bekannt sind, da dies beim Forecasting hilft. Die tatsächliche Vorausplanung ist jedoch am wichtigsten. Die Rechtsabteilung wird immer unter dem Druck stehen, effizienter zu werden, und die Optimierung der Ressourcen ist der Schlüssel zum Erfolg. Ein Teil der Aufgabe wird darin bestehen, neue Kosteneinsparungsmöglichkeiten zu identifizieren. Legal Spend Management Tools können den Überblick über diese Kennzahlen und damit die Entscheidungsfindung erheblich erleichtern. 

Der Leiter der Rechtsabteilung sollte den Weitblick haben, Budget für ein Projekt zu beschaffen, indem er mit dem/den Budgetinhaber(n) kommuniziert und einen Business Case erstellt, der nicht nur das Beste für die Rechtsabteilung, sondern für die gesamte Organisation darstellt. Dies steht im Zusammenhang mit den Fähigkeiten des Stakeholder-Managements, da der Business Case mit den Zielen des Budgetinhabers abgestimmt werden muss, nicht nur mit denen der Rechtsabteilung. 

LEGAL TECH KENNTNISSE 

Legal Tech spielt eine immer wichtigere Rolle in der Funktion eines Legal Operations Managers, da die Rechtsabteilungen bestrebt sind, agiler, kooperativer und effizienter zu werden. 

Ein Leiter der Rechtsabteilung muss einen innovativen Ansatz zur Problemlösung haben. Er sollte selbstbewusst bei der Einführung von Technologien sein (oder wissen, wo er sich Hilfe holen kann) und die Fähigkeit besitzen, einen langfristigen Prozess- und Technologieplan zu erstellen und umzusetzen. Die sich schnell entwickelnde Legal Tech Landschaft kann schnell zu Verwirrung führen. Daher ist es wichtig, über die aktuellen Legal Tech Trends und die neuen Marktteilnehmer auf dem Laufenden zu bleiben, um ein Gefühl der Überforderung zu vermeiden. Auf diese Weise kann der Legal Operations Manager auch sicherstellen, dass die Projekte und Pläne den Zielen der Rechtsabteilung entsprechen. Die Fähigkeit, die Relevanz des aktuellen Plans kritisch zu bewerten und bei Bedarf schnell zu reagieren, ist entscheidend. 

Da viele Anwälte sich wiederholende und zeitraubende Aufgaben immer noch manuell erledigen, sollte der Legal Operations Manager Lösungen finden, um diese Prozesse zu rationalisieren und/oder zu automatisieren, indem er vorhandene Unternehmenstechnologien nutzt oder spezialisierte Anbieter evaluiert. Ein erfahrener Leiter der Rechtsabteilung weiß, wie er die aktuellen Prozesse abbilden und entscheiden kann, welche Prozesse durch Änderungen verbessert werden können und welche eine technologische Lösung erfordern, und setzt dann entsprechende Prioritäten. 

DIENSTLEISTERMANAGEMENT 

In einigen Unternehmen verwaltet das Legal Operations Team die Beschaffung externer Rechtsdienstleistungen von Anwaltskanzleien und Anbietern. In vielen Unternehmen werden Kanzleien und Anbieter traditionell durch persönliche Kontakte oder Loyalität ausgewählt, obwohl dieser Status quo jetzt immer häufiger in Frage gestellt wird. Ein erfolgreicher Legal Operations Manager muss diese Denkweise umkehren und sich auf effektivere und transparentere Lösungen für die Abteilung konzentrieren. Anstatt sich auf traditionelle Preis- und Personalmodelle zu einigen, sollte der Leiter der Rechtsabteilung die Aushandlung flexiblerer und transparenterer Preismodelle erleichtern, um positive Anreize zu schaffen. Anreize wie „Mengenrabatte“ ermutigen die Anwälte, mehr Aufträge an eine einzige Kanzlei zu vergeben, um den Rabatt auslösenden Schwellenwert zu erreichen. 

Personen, die im Bereich Legal Ops tätig sind, aber keinen juristischen Hintergrund haben, müssen sich mit der Art und Weise vertraut machen, wie juristische Dienstleistungen abgerechnet werden: Tarife, AFAs, LEDES usw. Sie müssen auch mit einem gewissen Maß an Sensibilität an das Dienstleistungsmanagement herantreten, um die internen Rechtsberater zum Umdenken zu bewegen. Rechtsdienstleistungen sind keine Massenware, und es kann schwierig sein, den Mehrwert zu quantifizieren, so dass es nicht nur darum geht, dass der günstigste Anbieter gewinnt. Mit einer strukturierten Ausschreibung kann der Legal Operations Manager beispielsweise wettbewerbsfähige Preise von den Firmen einfordern und gleichzeitig von den Rechtsberatern verlangen, objektiv zu entscheiden, welcher Vorschlag das beste Kosten-Nutzen-Verhältnis aufweist. Ein weiterer Teil der Arbeit in diesem Bereich ist die Verwaltung eines effizienten Onboardings für neue Anbieter oder Firmen. Nach der Auswahl des richtigen Anbieters/der richtigen Firma müssen klare Regeln (z. B. Abrechnungsrichtlinien/ Billing Guidelines) eingeführt werden, um die Leistung der Zusammenarbeit zu messen und ein optimales Preis-Leistungs-Verhältnis zu erzielen. Der Leiter der Rechtsabteilung muss außerdem faire, transparente und datengestützte Leistungsüberprüfungen mit den Anbietern und Firmen ermöglichen. 

DATENKOMPETENZ 

Datenkompetenz ist für die Arbeit eines Leiters der Rechtsabteilung von entscheidender Bedeutung. Viele Rechtsabteilungen treffen Entscheidungen auf ineffiziente Weise, indem sie veraltete Verfahren wie Tabellenkalkulationen, anekdotisches Feedback oder einfach ein „Bauchgefühl“ verwenden. Es ist unwahrscheinlich, dass ein Rechtsabteilungsleiter seine Arbeit mit ausgefeilten Berichterstattungsinstrumenten beginnt, und er muss sich sicher in den vorhandenen Papier- oder Tabellenkalkulationsberichten bewegen können, um die benötigten Daten zu finden. 

Ein Rechtsabteilungsleiter muss zwar kein Datenwissenschaftler sein, aber Datenkompetenz geht über die Erstellung von Berichten hinaus. Tatsächlich verschwenden viele Rechtsabteilungen ihre Zeit mit der Erstellung häufiger Berichte, bei denen die meisten Daten ungenutzt bleiben. Der Leiter der Rechtsabteilung muss die Datenverfolgung um ihrer selbst willen vermeiden und verstehen, wie die Informationen für die Entwicklung der Abteilung und der Organisation als Ganzes genutzt werden können. Er sollte die Ziele festlegen (gegebenenfalls mit Hilfe vorhandener Daten), rückwärts arbeiten, um wichtige Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) und Messgrößen zu ermitteln, und dann sicherstellen, dass die Abteilung die zur Messung der KPIs erforderlichen Datenpunkte erfassen kann. Diese konsistenten Daten bilden die Grundlage für analytische Fähigkeiten zur Entscheidungsfindung und Problemlösung.  

Ein erfolgreicher Legal Operations Manager muss wissen, wie man die relevanten juristischen Daten strukturiert, sammelt und analysiert. Dies kann in der Praxis hilfreich sein, z. B. bei der Maximierung des Nutzens bei der Aushandlung externer Verträge oder bei der Erstellung eines Business Case für eine Aufstockung des Personalbestands und der Budgets. Datenkompetenz hilft dem Leiter der Rechtsabteilung auch dabei, die Bedürfnisse der Abteilung objektiv abzuwägen und zu entscheiden, worauf er seine Bemühungen konzentrieren sollte. 

As we find ourselves nearing the end of another year, how confident do you feel in the rates you’ve negotiated for 2023?

C-suite executives are increasingly holding their corporate legal departments accountable for their spend. The Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report found that 37% of corporate legal departments feel this pressure from their CFO, while 30% feel it from their CEO, and 10% from their Board of Directors.

With mounting pressure to contain costs, your law firm rates are a great place to identify quick savings opportunities. That’s why we launched Rate Proposal Analyzer, the easiest way to collect, compare, and analyze your annual rate proposals. 

With a centralized view of your law firms’ rate proposals, you can finally say goodbye to the days of accepting above-market rate increases due to a storied law firm relationship or increasing caseloads. Rate Proposal Analyzer makes identifying savings opportunities quick and easy!

One Centralized Dashboard

Consolidating law firm rate proposals hasn’t been easy for corporate legal departments. 

Rates from one firm are submitted via email, while another is submitted via snail mail. And to make matters worse, you’re drowning in spreadsheets trying to keep track of everything.

From rate request to approval, our Rate Proposal Analyzer centralizes and streamlines your 

entire rate proposal process. 
Law firms can upload their rate proposals directly to the dashboard through manual submission or a spreadsheet.

Unprecedented Analysis & Internal Benchmarking

Collecting rate proposals is only half the battle–now, you have to determine which rates will or will not get approved.

Historically, this has been a headache for corporate legal departments. But the good news is rate proposal comparison and analysis just got significantly easier. 

With Rate Proposal Analyzer, corporate legal departments can now:

• Simplify rate proposal requests, including simultaneous submissions from multiple law firms
• Aggregate completed proposals in one place for easy review and comparison
• Request diversity information on timekeepers for specific projects

No more wondering where you’re overpaying–Rate Proposal Analyzer puts these insights at your fingertips.

Align Negotiations to Budget Goals

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again–rates cannot be accepted blindly. 

And we don’t just mean reviewing your rates before approving them. You have to go one step further and consider the impact these rates will have on your budget. 

Your budget is your North Star, so the rates you approve should align with your budget goals for the year. 

Rate Proposal Analyzer enables corporate legal departments to analyze cost impact with scenario forecasting. 

Now, you can easily assess the impact of your proposed rate increases with clear cost projections based on your historical spend from the previous year. 

Rate Proposal Analyzer offers unparalleled forecasting capabilities that you won’t find anywhere else in the market. 

Strategic Spend Decisions Await…

As organizations continue to prioritize cost optimization, you can’t afford to overpay on your law firm rates.

Our Rate Proposal Analyzer provides a holistic, centralized view of your law firm rate proposals, empowering your corporate legal department to budget smarter, negotiate harder, and make more strategic spend decisions.

Ready to take the next step in your spend optimization journey? Get in touch with a member of our team to get started.

Law firm relationships have long been measured with gut rather than metrics.

But should you really work with a certain firm just because a partner is your GC’s law school buddy? (Hint: the answer is no!)

While your law firms are trusted business partners to your organization, C-suite executives are holding legal departments accountable for understanding the value law firms deliver. To ensure you partner with the right firms on your matters, you must leverage a mixture of qualitative and quantitative metrics. 

But how can you determine if your law firms are making the grade without poring over spreadsheets for hours?

Introducing Bodhala’s new and improved Firm Report Cards, the best, most holistic view of how your law firms stack up against one another.

Now, you can get a detailed look at your firm’s rates and key performance indicators in one concise report–all in just one click. 

Let’s take a look at what’s new!

Unprecedented Analysis & Internal Benchmarking

Firm Report Cards leverages Bodhala’s reporting and analytics capabilities and presents it in a concise and easy-to-digest view for each firm. 

Customizable cohorts of firms are selected for comparison against one another to aid in panel management and potential consolidation.  

Full Transparency

Effective relationship management requires transparency and full transparency requires data. 

Firm Report Cards empower you to manage with metrics, not gut.

Flexible, customizable reporting can be shared directly with your firms, dramatically simplifying vendor management and increasing transparency.

Sharing Firm Report Cards with key internal and external stakeholders lets them know you’re paying attention and makes it easier to justify your spend decisions and display where you’re getting value. 

Instant Comparisons 

The Comparison Report shows how a firm stacks up against the rest of your panel across key metrics–such as overall spend, average partner and associate rate, average matter cost, and more. 

Need different metrics? No problem. Customize the Comparison Report to fit even the most unique needs.

Historical Trend Analysis 

The Trend Analysis Report shows how a firm has been trending over time, making it easy to see how well your law firms are managing your business. 

With this information under your belt, you can instantly prioritize your areas of focus in your next QBR or conversation with your law firm. 

Customizable & Shareable Scorecards

The KPIs included in Firm Report Cards are completely customizable to ensure that your legal department can score your firms on metrics you care about. 

The Report Cards can also be exported to PDF and shared directly with the firm for a line of sight into how you are monitoring firm performance. 

Repetitive Value Over Time

Firms are aware of the metrics they are being monitored on and where they sit relative to the other firms your corporate legal department is using. 

With the help of a dedicated Bodhala Client Success representative, you’re can monitor trends in firm behavior and leverage data to increase firm efficiency and drive continuous value over time. 

The Key to Successful Law Firm Relationships

Data sets the foundation for successful law firm relationships. After all, you can’t manage what you don’t measure.

Firm Report Cards put data-driven insights at your fingertips, making law firm relationship management that much easier. 

So, what are you waiting for? Get in touch with our team to learn how you can simplify your vendor management with Firm Report Cards. 

Data analysis is crucial to understanding market trends and your business. Here are the keys to why legal leaders must capitalize on critical data to increase visibility, improve forecasting, and create continuous competitive advantage — ultimately transforming Legal from a cost center to a strategic, materially impactful powerhouse.

Data, it has often been said, is the new oil as it is a commodity of immense worth. It is a resource that must be protected, and if left unrefined, it holds no true value. But when mined, data can illuminate our lives, our businesses, and our world.

In the third and final chapter of the Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report, the multinational study* showcases the untapped potential of legal operations to be a change agent in driving meaningful business results. While the report determined that eight in ten (79%) enterprise employees do not see Legal as a modern operation, it also uncovered that technology acts as a catalyst for evolution for businesses and practitioners who wish to differentiate and grow.

Data can be like oil. Yet unlike oil, data has the potential to be infinite, shared to every corner of the planet literally at the speed of light. And, far from crude, data is a sophisticated tool available to everyone in the form of transformative digitalized technology, like artificial intelligence (AI), predictive analytics solutions, and business process automation (BPA).

Why data matters for Legal

Traditionally, Legal has not been required to quantify key performance indicators (KPIs) and return on investment (ROI) with the same rigor as other functional groups. However, the ELR Report revealed that two in three (64%) legal respondents are unable to track all outside counsel spend — and one in 25 (4%) cannot track it at all. In fact, the average department can track just three-fifths (60%) of outside spend at most; in Germany, this figure rises to two-thirds (66%), and in the United States and United Kingdom, it drops to less than half (53%).

Now is the time for Legal to become a true business driver. But to create greater operational wins, accelerate revenue acquisition, and function in an efficient and modern capacity that demonstrates market intelligence, Legal must develop transparent quantitative metrics and report regularly, just like Sales may conduct weekly pipeline calls or Finance faces quarterly reviews. Legal must quantify its performance – and that requires its own systems of record that capitalize on critical data to increase visibility, improve forecasting, and assist in decision-making.

Here are three essential ways harnessing data can assist in your legal department’s evolution:

1. Data optimizes wiser cost containment.

The ability to maintain and monitor total visibility of your legal spend data in real time — and to make changes instantly and agilely, based on ever-changing industry trends — is vital, principally in our current macroeconomic climate.

Benchmarking cannot reel in inflation, but integrating state-of-the-art matter and rate benchmarking solutions can identify waste and streamline budgeting and rate reviews. Although less than one in two (48%) legal professionals use e-billing and spend optimization solutions at this time, data solutions that track specific, high-level metrics can calculate projected savings automatically — and the insights gleaned can provide not only a complete overview of financial data now, but also ensure upcoming hiring decisions and forecast spend are cost-efficient.

2. Data solidifies partnerships, today and tomorrow.

Every business is, first and foremost, a collection of people. Without inherently human vision, ingenuity, and expertise, there could be no corporate success.

The ELR Report showed that four in five (80%) of employees believe Legal excels at procuring vendors and services. Analyzing data via business intelligence software takes this to the next level, creating “big picture” awareness for comparison of partners — juxtaposed against each other, as well as collated with wider legal industry data — in order to establish performance evaluation standards and highlight areas requiring change. That way, Legal can initiate more honest, fact-based conversations about what it needs to strengthen collaboration, productivity, and growth moving forward.

3. Data can uncover a gold mine of revenue leakage.

Though critical for risk mitigation, contracts tend to be overwhelmingly time-consuming. According to the ELR Report, most legal respondents spend at least half their time (4 to 5 hours each day!) reviewing and managing contracts. But AI-powered contract lifecycle management (CLM) can redline a contract in under two minutes, automatically escalating issues if needed.

While only half (54%) of legal professionals say their contract processes are currently automated, by exploring all data avenues — and molding data into actionable information — Legal will find themselves with more free time to do the type of high-level, client-based, and intellectual work that matters most to businesses: extracting novel opportunities for material growth via innovation and competitive differentiation.

Legal in the spotlight

Simply put, one cannot effectively manage what one does not measure. Data might be perceived as “the new oil” in various ways, but one vast difference emerges in particular: Oil is a limited asset, whereas the more data is utilized, the more advantageous it can become.

Knowing how to harness data can elevate Legal’s value throughout the enterprise, bolstering the department’s brand image as a business partner and corporate rainmaker. Unleashing insights and actions derived from that data builds a lasting foundation, predicting paths for what lies ahead: Legal making its mark materially across every aspect of business, from topline revenue generation to bottom-line cost and operational efficiencies, with an eye firmly on the future.

Read the ELR Report to learn more about how legal professionals view their relationships with internal clients in comparison to the image enterprise employees have of their legal departments and how Legal can evolve to prove material impact and improve efficiencies across the business.

*The ELR Report is a third-party, multinational study of 4,000 enterprise employees and 500 corporate legal professionals across the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany intended to showcase relationship dynamics and perceived image between corporate legal teams and enterprise organizations.

The potential for legal departments to positively impact every aspect of business, from revenue growth to operational efficiency to corporate innovation, has been uncovered – and artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are proving to be Legal’s catalysts for evolution.

“Siri, remind me to make that call at 3 pm.”

“Alexa, play ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’”

From the fingerprint and facial recognition that unlocks your phone to the live chat inquiring when your latest online order or rideshare will arrive, automation and artificial intelligence (AI) have become sidekicks in the beautiful chaos of modern life – even in legal operations.

Corporate legal departments have, historically, been a little late to the digital transformation party. However, chapter two of the Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report, a multinational study spotlighting how legal professionals perceive their interactions with internal clients, reveals that half of legal respondents voice an urgent need for modernization, deeming their technology both insufficient (47%) and outdated (46%). This technology lag is particularly prevalent in France, where nearly three in five (58%) desire an upgrade.

Some global legal departments do have a running head start integrating AI to manage contracts (51%), matter management initiatives (51%), and eBilling and spend (48%). But what is holding back the rest of Legal from evolving into a more service-minded, modernized, “work smarter, not harder” function?

According to Legal respondents, the department admittedly can be averse to change (44%). One in four respondents (25%) says they simply do not have time to learn new technology. Other obstacles include a lack of budget (39%) and the disenfranchising belief among two in three legal practitioners (67%) who feel executives are unsupportive in endorsing modernization.

But for legal departments continually expected to do more with less, modern tech can define a new era of operational and cost efficiency, especially in a macroeconomic market featuring inflationary risk, rising interest rates, and geopolitical conflict. Bringing automation to legal operations minimizes risk while boosting productivity, streamlining workflows, and freeing up time for legal teams to focus on business-critical tasks of higher value, complexity, and billability.

Legal can leverage AI and automation to help drive efficiency and material growth by:

1. Improving invoice accuracy.One of the most effective ways to manage outside counsel is to develop and maintain billing guidelines. While only 48% of ELR respondents currently utilize eBilling, an AI-powered system can simplify the billing of productive invoiceable hours and improve accuracy, flagging common errors and enforcing guidelines that might otherwise disrupt budgets – and contributing to up to 10% savings in outside counsel spend.

2. Accelerating contract workflows. About half of legal departments (54%) use automation in their contract lifecycle management (CLM), but to wildly varying degrees: 79% in Germany do, while only 31% in the United Kingdom can say the same. (The U.S. and France fall in-between, with 55% and 49%, respectively.) But that means that many legal professionals are practically being buried beneath an avalanche of contracts, on which 58% spend four to five hours or more daily. Still, it doesn’t have to be this way: AI solutions can quickly sift through thousands of contracts, uncovering risks, replacing language, and redlining them in less than two minutes – and accelerating approval by up to 70%.

3. Creating documents faster. Document drafting and analysis are a major part of any legal process. Supervised machine learning (ML), a subfield of AI that mimics controlled intelligent human decision-making, allows document automation to populate form fields of AI-assisted templates to expeditiously produce contracts, agreements, and invoices. This not only saves time dramatically – often reducing legal document drafting to less than five minutes! – but also increases precision, as AI tools are more likely to pick up questionable details humans might have missed while repeatedly reading so many pages.

4. Harnessing the power of data. Sifting through piles of data can take weeks, even months. But AI-driven tools – which can review up to 500 data points organized by relevant criteria, then extract high-quality data in just seconds, even compiling and synthesizing data in storytelling mode – can identify precedents, confirm completeness of data, and keep track of ever-changing regulations while bringing vital clarity, slashing time and spend, and finding leakages that could otherwise affect business opportunities and materiality.

The future of AI  in Legal

This is real life, of course, not a sci-fi movie. Introducing and incorporating AI into legal operations will not unleash a wave of robot lawyers. What it will do is make legal ops’ work a little easier by giving lawyers and legal professionals back their time to map key investments, foster deeper partnerships, drive forward-thinking innovation, and influence meaningful business outcomes, from topline revenue generation to bottom-line cost and operational efficiency.

The future for Legal is more than just unlocking the latest in technology. But evolving to embrace that tech will provide the modern digitalization, optimized workflows, and requisite collaboration to prove Legal’s image moment of impact is here – to transform the department’s brand image, grow the enterprise materially, and elevate the future business of law.

Read the ELR Report to learn more about how legal professionals view their relationships with internal clients in comparison to the image enterprise employees have of their legal departments.

*The ELR Report is a third-party, multinational study of 4,000 enterprise employees and 500 corporate legal professionals across the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany intended to showcase relationship dynamics and perceived image between corporate legal teams and enterprise organizations.

Contracts play an essential role in the success of any business but guiding them to execution can be an uphill battle for many internal functions. Fortunately, the era of technology birthed solutions built for contract management – and implementing the right solution can cut spend, reduce review time, and positively impact material growth across the enterprise.

From the Magna Carta establishing control of royal power to a young America’s Louisiana Purchase from France to superstar athlete Lionel Messi’s colossal deals, contracts are everywhere in business.

In fact, the Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report* disclosed that nearly half (43%) of legal departments globally handle up to 1,000 contracts each year — a towering number that leaps even higher in the United Kingdom, where one in four (25%) legal professionals process at least 2,000 contracts yearly.

The main source of friction in contract lifecycles comes from balancing speed and control. Sales and procurement professionals get paid to close deals — and the faster, the better, so they can close more deals — whereas Legal must assess every deal for compliance and to mitigate risk. While legal professionals in the United Kingdom have the fastest contract execution with nearly two in five (38%) reporting an average of less than three months, the highest percentage of contracts (35%) in the United States are finalized in four to six months, and in Germany (49%) and France (45%), execution generally takes seven months or more.

It may be the norm, but slowly executed contracts can impact business adversely, negatively affecting everything from deal closure and revenue generation (44%) to mergers and acquisitions (23%). Contract lifecycle management (CLM) provides a major opportunity for every internal department to work together better and more expeditiously, to grow their influence on revenue generation and operational and cost efficiency, and to achieve greater material success for the business. 

Time is money… and too much of both are spent on contract review

According to the ELR Report, two in five legal respondents (40%) spend four to five hours — at least half of every business day — reviewing and managing contracts. That means half of their work weeks, quarters, and fiscal years are spent manually reviewing contracts. In Germany, as many as one in five (19%) spends six to eight hours daily. And in France, one in 10 (10%) spends more than eight hours each day reviewing and managing contracts leaving them with little time to dedicate to higher-value work.

Let’s take a moment to calculate this. Say a legal professional earns an annual salary of $150,000 USD. If half their hours are unavailable for anything but reviewing contracts, that equates to $75,000 each year going to contract management. If there are 10 members of the legal team, that’s three-quarters of a million dollars every year processing contracts.

The ELR Report also revealed that as many as one in 10 respondents (and as many as one in five in the United States and United Kingdom) is concerned that Legal lengthens the time to close and win deals. Now imagine if this study was a corporation of 4,000 employees, in which most engage Legal at some juncture — whether for hiring an employee, signing a partnership, or finalizing a deal. If 500 of those employees are salespeople, 10% equates to 50 salespeople experiencing delayed deal cycles. Consider that impact on the company’s forecast, stock ratings, and even its ability to retain salespeople and prevent churn.  

Automated contract management means more time for higher-value work

What’s more, throughout what tends to be a labor-intensive and non-cost-effective process for Legal, other functions — such as sales, procurement, HR, and IT — may be left wondering what stage their contracts are in, what the next steps are, and when they can expect to move forward.

The process of contracting doesn’t have to feel overwhelming and seemingly endless, however. Implementing state-of-the-art CLM technology can eliminate contracting roadblocks and skyrocket the efficiency and productivity of contract management by:

1. Facilitating collaboration. Every department creates and manages contracts. But not every internal function uses the same system for contract management. Global enterprises deal with the added challenges locations, time zones, and languages. CLM technology can automate workflows and unify processes, providing the same data on all web browsers and devices for every department. This can help Sales, Procurement, and other departments manage their contract tasks as well as hasten the process for Legal by breaking down silos, significantly shortening contact execution times across the enterprise.

2. Advancing visibility. Despite the benefits of CLM, only 54% of legal respondents globally acknowledge their contract processes are automated. But with CLM solutions, every function can have a comprehensive view of the entire contracting cycle. Legal will have a library of up-to-date contract-generation clauses that can lessen risk and ensure consistency, and Sales, Procurement, HR, and IT can be aware of the status of their contracts with full transparency. CLM tools have also been shown to boost productivity by more than 51%, so every team can spend less time working on contracts and focus more on higher-value work.

3. Accelerating revenue recognition. When it comes to contracts, artificial intelligence (AI) takes things to the next level. On average, 51% of legal professionals use AI in managing contract lifecycles. Germany (60%) and the United States (57%) are most likely to have integrated AI, whereas only 43% in France and 34% in the United Kingdom have. But CLM powered by AI can identify and escalate potential issues for every enterprise function. By extracting necessary data for commercial and regulatory changes and allowing Legal to redline in less than two minutes, Sales, Procurement, and other customer-facing roles can close cycles up to 24% faster — which also has been proven to save most companies at least nine percent annual revenue.

Every department hires people, negotiates with clients, and makes agreements that ultimately lead to contracts. By taking control of the contract management process with end-to-end automated CLM, your business will catapult its cost and operational efficiency as well as topline revenue generation and evolve into a truly connected, materially impactive, future-proof enterprise.

Read the ELR Report to learn more about how legal professionals view their relationships with internal clients in comparison to the image enterprise employees have of their legal departments.

*The ELR Report is a third-party, multinational study of 4,000 enterprise employees and 500 corporate legal professionals across the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany intended to showcase relationship dynamics and perceived image between corporate legal teams and enterprise organizations.

Legal operations already has a strong foothold as Sales’ hidden advantage. But there is even more the department can do to shorten sales cycles, close deals faster, and positively influence revenue generation and material growth. Here’s how.

Collaboration — the collision of diverse talents and instilled trust that inspires shared-goal achievement as a team — can elevate innovation and lead to immense success. When the legal department and sales teams are on the same, the outcome is more deals secured and quickly won.

Chapter two of the Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report, a multinational study spotlighting how legal professionals perceive their interactions with internal clients, reveals Legal has a remarkable foundation for supporting the sales team and the overall revenue acquisition process. Nearly three in four (74%) legal respondents believe they share positive collaborations with their sales team, and seven in 10 (68%) are confident they help effectively close deals; in Germany, those jump to an impressive 82% and 84%, respectively.

These are substantive figures when validating Legal as a meaningful contributor to leading topline revenue and business growth. But is being effective the same as being efficient?

Why the need for speed

Accelerating deal cycles carries a multitude of wins: uncovering best-in-class sales processes, enabling faster evaluation of new sales candidates’ performances, and hastening roadmap feedback for ongoing product improvement.

Sales velocity speaks most to establishing momentum for financial forecasting, better bookings, and a greater impact on materiality and revenue expansion across the enterprise. And to excel in today’s ever-evolving, increasingly competitive landscape, it is essential that a business moves quickly.

A look back at ELR chapter one shows that almost half (48%) of enterprise employees acknowledge Legal plays a part in accelerating deal cycles. To further drive that urgency, here are three ways Legal can work with and support Sales to speed up sales cycles:

1. Revving up the time to sign “on the dotted line”

Contracts are at the nucleus of any business. In fact, according to the ELR report, reviewing and signing contracts is the number-one interaction internal clients have with Legal. But the process of contracting can frequently create a division between legal and sales teams: 44% of global respondents – and 75% in Germany — say deal closures and revenue generation is the top area impacted by inefficient contract lifecycle management.

Sales wants to close deals ASAP to meet targets and generate revenue, while it is Legal’s inherent responsibility to carefully ensure every line in a contact is accurate. Determining exactly when and how Legal will join the “mission” and optimizing consistent workflows for both standardized and personalized contracts can cut back on bottlenecks while also improving Legal control, visibility, and markedly shortening the time necessary for contract drafting and delivery.

2. Encouraging clear, lightning-fast communication 

Although enterprise employees fully believe that Legal is a rockstar when it comes to the power of negotiation, that skill can lengthen sales cycles. Still, more than half of legal professionals feel they positively impact sales negotiations (58%), a sentiment that is similarly echoed by enterprise employees (56%).

Legal can up those numbers and closing times by conducting pipeline reviews with the sales team at regular intervals. Introducing a contract playbook with straightforward language outlining contracting terms, non-negotiable matters, and potential workarounds can also take the guesswork out of the process and lessen the need for Legal to get deeply detailed with every deal, significantly decreasing the length of the overall sales cycle.

3. Making tracks to drive CLM integration

By now it’s been thoroughly established: There can be no revenue recognition until contracts are signed. And the more time it takes for contracts to be reviewed and approved, the more time it takes to close a deal.

Two in five legal respondents (40%) say they spend four to five hours reviewing and managing contracts. And one in 10 (10%) in France spends more than eight hours daily reviewing and managing contracts!

However, automated contract lifecycle management (CLM) software has the ability to speed up every contracting phase end-to-end, from capture to document creation through redlining, e-signature, and execution. This can not only reduce Legal’s workload, giving the department back more time to focus on other matters, but pilot faster decision-making through review cycles, renewals, and negotiation; cut back on manual errors and overall risk; and shorten the average sales cycle by as much as 24%.

A surefire accelerant

What it ultimately comes down to is one simple truth: The fastest key to unlocking the “secret” of shorter sales cycles is collaboration.

When legal and sales teams view each other as partners and utilize effective and efficient contract management processes and tools, the time between initial lead and closing handshake will drop and sales velocity — and both your business’ top and bottom-lines — will have the opportunity to grow.

Read the ELR Report to learn more about how legal professionals view their relationships with internal clients in comparison to the image enterprise employees have of their legal departments.

*The ELR Report is a third-party, multinational study of 4,000 enterprise employees and 500 corporate legal professionals across the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany intended to showcase relationship dynamics and perceived image between corporate legal teams and enterprise organizations.

Although certain perceptions between Legal and enterprise employees may seem fathoms apart, that only speaks to the remarkable opportunities to deeply connect, materially grow, and further protect your business.

Tucked within an 18th-century ode to transformation penned by historian and scholar Thomas Gray is a familiar saying: “Ignorance is bliss.”

Many of us, however, are not aware of how that famous poem ends: “ …where ignorance is bliss / ‘tis folly to be wise.” Read in its entirety, this line is not so much an excuse to avoid the truth for the sake of happiness, but rather a reflection on embracing the unexpected. Because ready or not, change will come knocking.

Recently released, chapter two of the Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report, a multinational study spotlighting how legal professionals perceive their interactions with internal clients, revealed that while 73% of Legal cites positive relationships with its internal clients, only 60% of enterprise employees feel the same. Similarly, Legal reported greater connections with every department than employees did: IT (78%), Procurement (76%), Sales (74%), and Marketing (73%) for Legal as opposed to just 38% for IT, 37% for Procurement, 43% for Sales and 37% for Marketing for employee respondents. And though nearly every legal professional (95%) considered their department efficient in managing service requests, three in five employee respondents (59%) characterize Legal as “inefficient.”

What accounts for these incongruities? This perception predicament — where what one sees does not necessarily match what exists — presents an undeniable Iceberg Effect.

Sometimes, what we don’t know can hurt us. But while Legal may only be seeing part of the equation, the ELR report also uncovered untapped potential and opportunities glittering below the surface for legal operations to shine a beacon on everything from topline revenue and innovation to competitive differentiation, brand image, and corporate culture.

Here are three ways Legal can melt the Iceberg Effect and connect more deeply across the enterprise:

1. Spark faster sales cycles.

Nearly seven in 10 (68%) legal professionals feel they excel at helping Sales effectively close urgent deals, and more than half (56%) of enterprise employees acknowledge that Legal jumpstarts sales and revenue operations.

Legal, by its very nature and trade, is directed by precedents. Its main purpose is to provide risk mitigation and enterprise stability. However, as an authority figure and natural business protector, Legal also has the power to be an extraordinary change agent. Time, as they say, is money. And by examining processes and developing optimized, forward-thinking policies, Legal can accelerate business growth and revenue generation by securing deals faster so that more can be made.

2. Ignite an inclusive culture.

People are the heartbeat and lifeblood of an enterprise. Innovation and intelligent solutions require creativity, communication, and the collaboration that comes from clever and varied voices.

The right competencies on a team are also required for true and lasting accomplishment, but in this era of “the Great Resignation,” employee retention is proving a major issue. Half of all legal professionals (49%) believe recruitment and talent retention require improvement (49%), and more than one in three (35%) respondents point to a need for better workload planning for the sake of operational efficiency.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives have consistently been linked to stronger work quality and competitive differentiation, and three in 10 legal professionals (29%) believe their companies are making DEI a priority in 2022. More than half (52%) also say they are increasing diversity via vendor partnerships, and in the United Kingdom especially, hiring practices are beginning to show incredible diversity. A more connected, values-driven culture can thaw the Iceberg Effect in a truly meaningful way.

3. Navigate the latest in tech.

In addition to hiring and retaining talented people, another necessary transformation for Legal to melt the Iceberg Effect and achieve material success is the integration of innovative technology, including contract lifecycle management (CLM), eBilling, and matter management tools that embrace automation, machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI).

However, half of all legal teams globally deem their current technology insufficient (47%) and outdated (46%) – despite the desire to streamline inefficiencies and boost productivity.

So, what’s holding up Legal’s tech revolution? Nearly half (44%) of legal professionals admit their department is averse to change, 39% blame a lack of budget, and 25% say they simply do not have time to learn new technology. Perhaps most surprising, and simultaneously concerning, two-thirds (67%) feel executives are unsupportive of Legal’s modernization, even if it means providing better client service and customer experience.

Although finding and incorporating the right tech can be a challenge, identifying recurring pain points and wish lists, devising an enterprise-wide implementation plan, and working with an experienced partner — as well as ensuring data security, privacy compliance, and a best-practices cybersecurity response plan — can provide tremendous operational cost savings and efficiency.

Steering your enterprise towards greater success

Ignorance is rarely bliss. In the end, it is knowledge that is power.

By banking on collaborative partnerships and insights to accelerate sales cycles and generate topline revenue, procuring diverse service providers and vendors to build an inclusive culture, and dissipating the gap between “old school” legal practices with the introduction of modern digitalization, Legal can demonstrate a distinct impact on materiality and efficiency and further protect, promote, and elevate its brand.

Even more, Legal will melt the Iceberg Effect once and for all, extracting new opportunities to connect more deeply throughout the enterprise, delivering exceptional business acumen and innovation, and evolving into a true leader to support and inspire the next generation of law.

Read the ELR Report to learn more about how legal professionals view their relationships with internal clients in comparison to the image enterprise employees have of their legal departments.