Legal Operations & COVID-19: How Law Departments are Adjusting for the Future

This week, Bodhala participated in Consero’s virtual conference – Legal Operations & COVID-19: How Law Departments are Adjusting for the Future.

Bodhala CEO, Raj Goyle led legal operations leaders from Fortune 500 companies through dynamic conversations on how to leverage data to make more informed decisions on spend management and pressing diversity initiatives during these challenging times.

Here are some of the key themes from the sessions:

Data is the key to driving real change.

• From cost optimization to compliance to diversity and inclusion, legal operations professionals are looking to leverage data to drive actionable change within their legal departments. One attendee, a legal operations business analyst, noted that her company is relying heavily on data to understand the diversity of the law firms they utilize and the timekeepers staffing their matters. Numerous attendees shared that although data is the key to driving change, it is difficult to rely on data from e-billers as it is both messy and inaccurate. Check out our infographic, 7 Reasons Why You Need More Than an E-biller to Create a Winning Legal Department, to learn more.

The pressure to cut costs is on.

• Attendees noted the increased pressure to cut costs, as their CFOs have started to examine legal bills with heightened scrutiny since the start of COVID. Outside counsel rate cards were identified as the “low hanging fruit” that can offer immediate savings. Most companies approved their 2020 rate cards ahead of the global pandemic outbreak in March, meaning that the majority of companies are being charged inflated rates that do not reflect the current economic climate. One attendee, a legal operations specialist, noted that she, in tandem with the company’s general counsel, would be evaluating the legal department’s spend line by line to identify cost efficiencies in response to pressure from the CFO. To learn more about how legal operations professionals are championing their roles in response to COVID, check out our most recent whitepaper.

There is a magnifying glass on diversity.

• Given the current climate, diversity initiatives have accelerated as companies are carefully evaluating their efforts to promote a diverse and inclusive environment, both internally and externally. Legal departments are implementing various measures to hold themselves and their law firms accountable. But, the bottom line is that data needs to drive these changes. One attendee, a legal operations business analyst, shared that her team is relying on data to examine the diversity of timekeepers staffed to her company’s matters after noticing an extreme lack of gender and racial diversity within her panel firms. Read our blog post to understand how Bodhala is helping teams make data-driven decisions on diversity and inclusion.

Ways to Act on Diversity Now

Understanding the diversity of timekeepers staffing your matters and tracking origination credit is the quiet revolution that will lead to diversity in the legal profession. 

If there was ever a moment for legal operations professionals to take the bull by the horns, the time is now.

Ask your GC if this information is currently being tracked, and if it’s not, ask why.

Are you armed with the data you need to drive change within your organization?

Bodhala’s Insights

Bodhala is passionate about empowering legal operations professionals with actionable insights that can drive meaningful change within their organizations.

From top timekeepers to average hourly rates, and everything in between, all you need to know about your outside counsel spend and law firm staffing is housed in your data. 

Bodhala arms you with the data you need to hire the right lawyer at the right law firm at the right price.

Hercules, “the god of analytics” is Bodhala’s trailblazing proprietary database that operates as a single source of truth for legal data, and provides our clients with a 360° view of the legal market.

Running on Hercules, the Bodhala platform has an intuitive dashboard that analyzes:

• Rates
• Observed discount percentages at relationship and practice area/work type level (anonymized)
• Matter types
• Factors that create peer sets, providing accurate apples-to-apples comparisons of cost and staffing
• Timekeeper diversity

With our platform, Bodhala clients have utilized data and metrics to review invoices with heightened scrutiny, implemented scorecards to create true side-by-side comparisons of law firm rates and performance, evaluated firms’ diversity based on data-backed insights, and more. 

Bodhala’s Resources

We’re here to help you find efficiencies in your company’s legal spend – connect with us to learn more about how we can help.