In-House Counsel

alt.legal: A 2 x 3 To Review CLOC 2018

Why is legal ops so important for the future of the legal industry?

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CLOC is the conference with all the mojo right now. Legaltech is somewhat vendor-heavy, with a focus on expanding the audience from tech buyers to wider legal business professionals. ILTA has traditionally been very CTO/CIO-heavy from law firms. ACC and other forums like that will focus on corporate counsel. But CLOC focuses on the rise of the legal operations office, a new class of professionals emerging to drive efficiency, more strategic legal department focus, practice support and metrics, among much more. Legal operations has incredible power to transform the practice. Law firms, service providers, technology vendors… at the end of the day, we are all trying to craft more interesting hammers looking for nails. But legal operations pros begin at the source, transforming and innovating the solutions for corporate legal needs. They manage and influence the spend, and they institute measures for identifying success.

This is, at the core, why CLOC is special. It is focused on a potentially powerful group of people that can absolutely drive change.

I got three smart people to give me a little insight on what was good about CLOC and what more there is to come. Casey Flaherty, Founder and Principal at Procertas; Carlos Gamez, Senior Director of Innovation at Thomson Reuters; and Basha Rubin, CEO and Co-Founder at Priori Legal.

Two simple questions, three voices. Here it is:

What was the most interesting thing you saw or heard at CLOC 2018?  Could be from a session, panel, meeting, hallway conversation, anything.

Casey Flaherty: Anything that suggests business model changes. The Elevate-Valorem deal is just interesting because it’s a different business model. Also, the fact that Reed Smith wants to get software that they developed into the market, that’s a business model change. Because business model changes are real change. Who knows if it will take hold? But I’d rather see it then not see it; I’d rather see people try than not try.

Basha Rubin: Two panels “Women GC’s Taking Outside Counsel Management to a Whole New Level” and “Women in Legal Leadership Roles” exceeded my expectations in their honest and nuanced view of the range and shape of the landmines women are forced to navigate in the legal industry. In particular, Janet McCarthy (Santa Fe Group) and Jennifer Warner (Columbia Sportswear) were able to give voice to the subtle structural bias that edges women out of leadership tracks across the profession and the overt sexism that often goes unchallenged.

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The subsequent discussion of women leaders using their purchasing power to intentionally effect change in the types of outside counsel hired using data is a concrete and actionable suggestion — and that it was so clearly articulated in rooms with so much purchasing power gives me hope. And here, I concede my bias is in full effect, but Olga Rodstein’s (Electric Imp) point about knowing with greater certainty that your spend is actually going where you intend with small firms is an important one. This, as well as the excellent services that it’s possible to receive with small firms and diverse pool available, is precisely why I think the market is going that direction.

Carlos Gamez: Stephen Poor’s presentation on using advanced technologies to achieve results was a master class. The Chairman Emeritus of Seyfarth Shaw laid out a very clear method for how to set and enable a strategy that leverages technology instead of having technology as a strategy. Most importantly, I’ve never seen a Managing Director or Law Firm Chair demoing applications live or hitting on the interoperability of different systems –expert systems, RPAs, AI, data visualizations– in the context of a task-based automated workflow. It was actually pretty refreshing and cool. Bonus awesome thing, generally: meeting new people and finding opportunities to work on something together!

What is the most interesting thing that you haven’t heard about at CLOC but you think should be talked about more?

Basha: While many larger firms are represented at CLOC, I’ve met very few small firm practitioners. In my view, technology will facilitate more work being moved to small firms, and I think it’s important that their perspectives be heard at CLOC.

Carlos: The future of Legal Operations as a profession or career requires some level of skill specialization. Legal Operations can mean different things, depending on the priorities of each legal department, company and industry vertical. Some professionals are becoming experts in vendor management, process outsourcing, generating efficiencies; others are more adept at tech-based systems integrations, workflows, knowledge management, etc. I think attendees can benefit from having different tracks at the conference so that they can learn about things that matter most in their context. A focus on skills, areas of expertise, and career paths for different specializations within legal ops is definitely something I didn’t hear enough.

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Casey:  Agreed that the role needs more definition.  I have concerns about the legal ops role reinforcing the status quo. There’s new people coming into the space, and there should be. We have some e-billing people getting promoted, and there’s nothing wrong with that—they may be very talented and have potential to do a great job. But what an organization can’t do is continue to treat them like e-billing admins.

You don’t have change without the exercise of authority.  These people need to be fully empowered.

Ed Sohn is VP, Product Management and Partnerships, for Thomson Reuters Legal Managed Services. After more than five years as a Biglaw litigation associate, Ed spent two years in New Delhi, India, overseeing and innovating legal process outsourcing services in litigation. Ed now focuses on delivering new e-discovery solutions with technology managed services. You can contact Ed about ediscovery, legal managed services, expat living in India, theology, chess, ST:TNG, or the Chicago Bulls at edward.sohn@thomsonreuters.com or via Twitter (@edsohn80). (The views expressed in his columns are his own and do not reflect those of his employer, Thomson Reuters.)

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