Legal ops professionals are gaining significant seats at in-house and even C-Suite tables. They come with management efficiencies, business principles, and a goal to change the practice for the better. But it sounds like outside counsel may be turning a deaf ear.
One of the more interesting and timely sessions at the CLOC conference this week was entitled, What Do Law Firms Still Not Understand about Legal Ops. It was facilitated by Emily Stedman, who herself is a commercial litigation partner in a well-known firm, Husch Blackwell.
But it was really an audience discussion session under CLOC’s heading “community conversations,” where the audience was invited to provide comments and insights. And the audience was primarily made up of in-house legal ops professionals.
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It was timely because more and more, in-house legal departments and the C-suite will be looking to apply business principles to how their outside lawyers handle and manage matters. Which of course is what legal ops is all about.
Does Outside Counsel Have an Attitude?
I wasn’t sure what I was going to hear. My instinct was that too many firms, and lawyers for that matter, seem to think it’s business as usual and that they can continue to do things without a working knowledge of what legal ops is and what legal ops professionals do.
One piece of evidence: like usual, very few practicing lawyers are at the CLOC conference. Which is funny since not only is the conference an opportunity to learn more about legal ops and what their clients are thinking, it would give outside counsel access to legal ops professionals in big companies who often play a role in counsel selection and management. Without that knowledge, you have to wonder how outside counsel can hope to be ready for what’s coming. Particularly as AI enables greater speed and efficiencies, the impact of legal ops will only increase.
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And of course, there were no outside lawyers in the session on what they should know about a discipline that is more and more prominent in the legal landscape.
Why was this my instinct? Traditionally outside lawyers have viewed in-house legal departments as frankly a pain. There was an air of arrogance and superiority about in-house legal teams: they can’t possibly know more than me about how to handle a matter. The thinking is, because of my skill and expertise, I’m running the show. And that attitude would go double for the “non-lawyer” legal ops professionals. I know. I’ve seen it.
On the other hand, I held out some hope that this attitude and lack of collaboration was a relic of a bygone era. Unfortunately, based on the comments I heard, it still prevails.
And the Audience Says
The discussion was started with a story by an audience member about telling a partner in her outside law firm she was coming to a legal ops conference. His response: “What does legal ops entail?” That lack of knowledge both about legal ops and what in-house legal wants of outside counsel permeated the discussion.
An opening question to the audience revealed this in spades: What do outside counsel know or not know about legal ops? The first hand went up and shouted out: that it exists!
But it went beyond that: audience members offered that outside counsel need to understand that legal ops can and do help with the delivery of legal service. They need to understand the scope of what they are being asked to do, the budget constraints in-house legal face, and the timelines in-house is dealing with. All of these are pressures in-house counsel the legal ops team deal with daily.
And: outside counsel never even ask about the in-house legal ops team and how they can help them navigate the matter to conclusion. Audience members pointed out that outside counsel still do not try to efficiently use their resources to provide service at a lower cost. They don’t make use of alternative resources among those who may not be lawyers. They don’t follow outside counsel guidelines. They don’t involve their internal pricing teams. There is a lack of transparency. They don’t get bills and budgets in on time and be sure they are right.
One audience member said she was just emailing her outside counsel during the session about something and he immediately tried to upsell her on something else. Her response: I just ran the “something else” through AI and already have the answer. Which of course the outside lawyer could have done. Heads nodded and eyes rolled.
When it comes to RFPs, simple things like providing representative experience when responding are ignored. Instead, firms provide 300 pages glorifying what the firm and its members had done that has little relevance and is self-serving. Respond in the way the RFP asks for: if it wants stuff in Excel, do it. Follow instructions.
One other thing that was telling: the audience was asked, what do outside counsel do right? Silence. Then the answers jumped right back to what the audience wished their outside lawyers would do better.
All this from a 30-minute program. But it pretty well paints the picture of still existing great divide between in-house legal and outside counsel. It was like stepping back in time 20 years.
Granted, the discussion implicitly encouraged a gripe session. And it’s easy to focus on the negative in a discussion like this. But even so, what I heard was true frustration by those who have a big say in how things are handled and who gets hired.
Want To Succeed in the Future? Embrace Legal Ops
Sadly, lots of lawyers will read all this and conclude big deal, no one’s making me change. I’m pretty indispensable. I got news for you: you’re not. Not when over 2,000 legal ops professionals gather every year with the sole goal to expand their influence and the services they provide. All to better enable in-house legal and the C-suite to manage legal expenses and get better results.
It’s gotten trite to say that future successful firms will harness the AI tools and use them to serve clients. But that’s only a portion of the overall key to success. AI is only one part of what legal ops will use to better serve their clients, the businesses they serve.
What we really should be saying is that the future successful firms will embrace legal ops, will hire legal ops professionals, and show up at conferences like CLOC to hear what’s really going on with your clients and where they are going.
Stephen Embry is a lawyer, speaker, blogger, and writer. He publishes TechLaw Crossroads, a blog devoted to the examination of the tension between technology, the law, and the practice of law.