Legal Operations

The Time For Legal Operations May Be Now

You know you need legal ops when you’re struggling, so pay attention to the struggles outlined here.

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“Legal operations as its own discipline is increasingly common,” says Stephanie Corey, the co-founder of UpLevel Ops, which provides a range of legal operations support to companies. There are a number of “triggers” for when general counsel and legal leaders should realize it’s time for legal operations. According to Corey, “You know you need legal ops when you’re struggling.” She recommends paying attention to the following struggles:

  • Developing a document and information management strategy. A legal operations professional can help develop a document and information management strategy, as well as streamline and automate contracting. “Finding documents and contracts which are stored in multiple locations, or not at all. Proper document management is a common problem in legal departments. Documents are often stored in multiple cloud locations, different systems, hard drives, and even the storage of executed contracts is often uncentralized.” says Corey. She explains, “Studies show that attorneys typically spend at least 6 hours a week just looking for documents, and that estimate may be low. The productivity costs alone are exorbitant.”  
  • Understanding outside counsel spend. Corey explains, “This is where I usually start with clients. Outside counsel spend can be anywhere from 20-70 percent of a legal department’s budget, but often times, there is a lack of understanding on how the money is being spent and what the company is actually getting for the cost.” Corey recommends that once outside counsel becomes financially significant to a department, a program should be developed. She explains, “It’s time to consider a convergence program, RFPs, panels, use of lower-cost and alternative firms, tiered matters, and value based pricing. Further, much work can be unbundled from firms and outsourced such as eDiscovery, translation services, and court reporting.” She also explains that in addition to developing and managing this program, an operations professional can create metrics and dashboards to report on progress, as well as streamline the budgeting process.  
  • Reducing costs. This is often directed by CEO or CFO. According to Corey, “Many legal departments have been in the unpleasant situation of having to reduce their spending by executive mandate.”  By streamlining processes, implementing time-saving technology, and by having a robust outside counsel management program in place, legal departments will be able to meet these goals.
  • Gaining a holistic view of the work being done in the department. By assessing what work is being done in-house and what work is being done by outside counsel, GCs may find that there is a disconnect between their vision for the department and reality.  Working with clients, we often find that the team spends too much time on low value/high volume work while pushing the higher value work to outside counsel. Alternative Legal Service Providers (ALSPs) are getting better and better, and much of the high volume work can and should be moved to them.  
  • Effectively using technology. Corey explains, “Most legal departments struggle to understand what systems are available to them on an enterprise-wide basis, much less the legal-specific tools available on the market. A good operations professional will take inventory of what is available internally, what systems are underutilized and what internal resources are available to help optimize system usage. He or she will then determine what systems need to be replaced, enhanced, or retired.” According to Corey, this could include eBilling, matter management, contracting, document management, collaboration and knowledge management, data analytics, dashboards and business intelligence, and artificial intelligence.  
  • Managing teams. As teams grow, face-to-face interactions become more and more difficult, making effective collaboration tools even more important. It’s also at this time when knowledge management becomes critical. Corey explains, “With the right collaboration tools, legal departments can share expertise and technical legal knowledge through the right channels with each other and with their clients. If done properly, these tools reduce email noise and create spaces for teams to share and collaborate.” “After all,” she says, “good collaboration and knowledge management tools can help clients get the right information they need, and can help teams share and reuse information they get from outside counsel as well.”
  • Communication in and out of the legal department. A communication plan is pivotal for any legal department. According to Corey, “The GC needs to communicate to the company on her or his vision, goals and accomplishments showing what was done to support the business. An internal plan is equally as important. Teams who communicate have increased overall employee engagement and a deeper sense of community, as well as an increased understanding of the business and Legal’s role as a strategic partner.” She explains that the GC’s direct reports usually understand the vision, but how far does that trickle down? Having regular communications after staff meetings, all-hands, and annual meetings result in a better-functioning organization.   

Olga V. Mack is an award-winning general counsel, operations professional, startup advisor, public speaker, adjunct professor at Berkeley Law, and entrepreneur. Olga founded the Women Serve on Boards movement that advocates for women to serve on corporate boards of Fortune 500 companies. Olga also co-founded SunLaw to prepare women in-house attorneys become general counsel and legal leaders and WISE to help women law firm partners become rainmakers. She embraces the current disruption to the legal profession. Olga loves this change and is dedicated to improving and shaping the future of law. She is convinced that the legal profession will emerge even stronger, more resilient, and inclusive than before. You can email Olga at olga@olgamack.com or follow her on Twitter @olgavmack.

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