Biglaw, In-House Counsel, Legal Operations

Stat Of The Week: Law Departments Feel The Squeeze

And they’re increasingly focused on legal ops.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has had a pernicious effect on law departments, whose organizations have seen shrinking revenue as new legal challenges have continued to arise, according to a new survey.  

The Altman Weil Chief Legal Officer Survey notes that, in the fall of 2020, 66% of respondents said their organization’s revenue fell, while 77% said their law department’s workload increased. Employee layoffs occurred at 11% of the law departments surveyed. 

The report also reveals that more departments now have legal operations managers — 50% of respondents said they had a professional administrator in 2020, and 46% said they had one in 2019.

In an interview with Law360, Altman Weil’s James Wilber said that there were no reported layoffs in legal operations positions that focus on cost savings: 

So, to me, that shows wisdom on behalf of the chief legal officers who realized that these people are more than paying for themselves, and they can help us find ways to remove waste, maybe get better value or more cost reduction out of outside counsel, better leverage of technology.”

While legal operations may be playing an increasing role in law departments, the field’s signature benchmarking study is set to be published in the coming weeks. 

The Blickstein Group’s 2020 Law Department Operations Survey will be introduced Dec. 8 in a “virtual summit” that provides a sneak peek at its results.

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Featuring Brad Blickstein and “godfather of legal ops” David Cambria, the event will explore challenges related to the pandemic, compensation and KPIs, artificial intelligence, the impact of the Big 4, and other areas. 

Click here for more.

2020 Chief Legal Officer Survey [Altman Weil]
CLOs See Less Revenue, More Work As Virus Persists [Law360]
2020 Law Department Operations Survey Summit [Above the Law] 

Jeremy Barker is the director of content marketing for Breaking Media. Feel free to email him with questions or comments and to connect on LinkedIn.

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