In-House Counsel

When It Comes To In-House Work, It's A Legal Operations World And We're All Just Living In It

Data privacy doesn't excite businesses the way it should.

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Corporate Business Office“Do more, with less, except for legal operations.”

That summed up the plight of chief legal officers in 2022, and it’s unlikely to change in 2023. The Association of Corporate Counsel and Exterro released the results of the 2023 Chief Legal Officers Survey this morning, reflecting the mood of nearly 900 general counsel from 35 countries and 20 industry sectors. Across the board, legal departments report increasingly complex challenges involving cybersecurity, privacy, and government regulation… and companies don’t seem interested in lending a hand.

“Sixty-seven percent of CLOs believe the volume of privacy-related regulatory enforcement will increase in 2023, up from 60 percent who thought so last year,” according to the report. Data privacy joins cybersecurity and general industry-specific regulations as the top concerns for legal departments. The slow, but steady increase in investor-driven ESG demands looms as another challenge to navigate for lawyers.

And yet…

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Less work outsourced… and less hiring? There’s only one way that works and it’s an infusion of technology. Solving in-house problems should be a hot sector for legal technology providers over the coming years, because budgets always seem more open to software than another set of hands.

Though there is one segment of the legal department where companies feel welcome to splurge on hiring.

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“Legal operations was listed as the top strategic initiative in legal departments from 70 percent of CLOs.” The guild of operations professionals continues to defy in-house budget pressure by avoiding the cost center stigma. Operations gets the company paid. In fact, of the respondents who reported pending tech investment, 67 percent say that contract management is the top investment priority.

And as long as operations continues to thrill executives, that’s going to be the priority for vendors too. But as the responsibilities keep mounting as budgets keep shrinking, there’s going to be a big opening to whoever succeeds in delivering reliable tech solutions to less sexy in-house duties.

2023 Chief Legal Officers Survey [ACC]

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HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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