Legal Operations

I’m Going Down To Lucky Town

A wishlist for this year’s CLOC Institute.

By Brad Blickstein  
on

The CLOC 2019 Vegas Institute is coming up in a few weeks, so I thought I would take a few minutes and share my “CLOC Wishlist” for this year’s event. In addition to a nice run at the craps table and maybe a few minutes by the pool, this is what I’m hoping to find in Sin City.

  1. Less focus on contract management. Last year’s event had no less than a dozen contract management providers in the exhibit hall and seemingly just as many educational sessions on the topic. There’s value in better management of contracts, of course — both pre-execution and post-execution — but this value can be difficult to extract. According to the 11th Annual Law Department Operations Survey, published by Blickstein Group in cooperation with Consilio, the effectiveness of contact management technology is only rated at 5.8 on a 10-point scale. We should be careful about conflating value from contract management with the value proposition of legal operations itself. I am hoping we can talk about other technology-powered solutions this time around.
  2. AI-powered use cases. Artificial intelligence is red hot, but are we asking the right questions? There’s been too much focus on “What can AI do?” when we should be asking “What are my biggest problems and how can I solve them?” While legal has often been slow to adopt technology, the industry has been better than most at not being attracted by every shiny new object and cool tool. I am hoping we can get back to that, with both tech providers and buyers talking more about use cases and less about the technology itself.
  3. Meet more #newlaw innovators. Many of the leading minds in legal technology, innovation and operations attend CLOC, and I look forward to connecting with them. I am concerned, however, that many of the new, young companies that are starting to really change the industry are being priced out of sponsorship or attendance — which means a whole bunch of smart, young entrepreneurs will not be there. Nevertheless, I expect great ideas to arise at the late-night bars, some of which may even materialize.
  4. More interactions with law firms. Legal operations used to be mostly the domain of legal technology and service providers, but more law firms are feeling their impact. More law departments seek new legal service delivery models and law firms realize that LDOs can be an opportunity rather than just a threat. More than a dozen law firms are sponsoring CLOC this year, and I look forward to hearing their plans for innovative service models.
  5. Learn more from alternative legal service trailblazers. Too many people believe that the legal ops movement started with the first CLOC Institute in 2016. But companies have been providing law departments with specialized people, process, and technology in order to increase efficiency and performance for more than a decade. QuisLex has been serving law departments for 15 years now; the founders of Morae Global have been doing it for even longer; and even Axiom, while still thought of as a startup, is almost 20 years old. Again, according to the 11th Annual Law Department Operations Survey, published by Blickstein Group in cooperation with Consilio, almost 78 percent of law departments now use ALSPs at least some of the time; it is always worthwhile to catch up with the pioneers and learn from their wealth of experience.
  6. Better understand the impact of the Big 4. Like most of us in the industry, I’m trying to get my arms around the impact of the Big 4 accounting firms. They have the process expertise, experience with technology and understanding of creative billing models to make a major impact. On the one hand, Ernst & Young’s purchase of Pangea3 should be treated as a shot across the bow of the entire marketplace. On the other hand, it does have me wondering how quickly the Big 4 are capable of growing their legal service organizations organically. These are good questions to ask both LDOs and the two Big 4 firms who are top-level sponsors.
  7. Gain a better understanding of CLOC’s roadmap. It’s no secret that CLOC itself has seen substantial changes over the past year. Three members, including President & CEO Connie Brenton, left the board; only four of the nine people who were listed as CLOC leadership team members at the time of the first CLOC Institute three years ago are still officially with the organization. CLOC’s mission is to provide “a seamless legal ecosystem that delivers corp legal support to small, medium and large businesses with peak efficiency.” I look forward to hearing more about how they plan to do that.

Brad Blickstein is principal of the Blickstein Group, which has two missions: to help legal service providers better understand and serve their clients and to provide information about law departments and legal operations. He is the publisher of the Annual Law Department Operations Survey, which for 11 years has provided the most comprehensive data and analysis on the Legal Operations function.

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