But is the legal operations movement broad and affects the majority of corporate legal teams, or is it focused on the most demanding organizations? In other words, what percentage of companies have at least one Legal Ops FTE? To answer this question, we looked at our inside sales data. Globally, 42% of organizations Brightflag spoke to in 2020 and 2021 have at least one Legal Ops FTE. The percentage is similar in the United States, where 45% of legal teams have at least one FTE, but lower in Europe (36%) and Australia (35%). This reflects the origins of in-house legal transactions, but also the steady increase in practice worldwide. As an integral part of a legal advisor`s career, training should be tailor-made and aimed at strengthening all other legal operations and skills. For this reason, Legal Operations also supports the training and development of in-house lawyers, from hiring to capacity building in emerging areas. Reading the data will be just as important as reading the legal terms. Combining a strategic business approach and legal expertise, legal operations covers everything from financial management, knowledge and contracts to information governance, organizational design and technology support. The pressure to cut costs and the increasing convenience of automated solutions will likely lead to shifting routine legal work from the hands of the legal team to the company. All legal processes that are not tailor-made become automated and self-service. This will permanently change the scope of legal services provided by legal departments, streamline risk management and achieve efficiencies, while allowing lean legal teams to focus on higher-value work.
Whether you have a single team member who devotes some of their time to legal operations or an entire department with several dedicated legal practitioners, the basic facts are the same. Throughout the continuum, legal operations thrive when the right tools are in place. As legal operations teams evolve, they will play an increasingly important role within the legal department. With legal leaders demanding greater efficiency, organizations need more legal operations staff to help them adopt technology, improve processes and workflows, and control costs. With Legal Operations managing Legal Tech, the entire legal team works under the banner of a shared team technology vision with streamlined workflows that meet business needs. Legal operations help evaluate and select technology providers, anticipate technology stack requirements, and work with a legal engineer to automate repetitive manual tasks and integrate powerful self-service tools for everything from contract management and e-invoicing to intellectual property or e-signature. Too many lawyers still spend time on repetitive manual work. As in-house counsel continue to report feeling overwhelmed by their workload, legal departments must look for new ways to reduce or eliminate time spent on manual and time-consuming tasks by automating processes and streamlining workflows with artificial intelligence (AI) and other legal operating technologies. The information contained herein is of a general nature and is not intended to address the circumstances of any particular person or entity. While we strive to provide accurate and timely information, there can be no assurance that such information is accurate at the time it is received or will continue to be accurate in the future. No one should respond to such information without adequate professional advice after a thorough review of the situation.
As more legal departments demand diversity from their law firms and other third-party providers, legal professionals will feel increased pressure to turn the lens inward and think about how they can improve their leadership diversity through new hiring and training initiatives. According to the 2021 CLOC State of the Industry Survey, implementing a DE&I program was a top priority for six out of 10 respondents. To better manage DE&I, companies need to start tracking metrics that allow them to analyze hiring and retention, development, and compensation within their team. In-house legal departments are struggling to keep up with the volume of data. Different information silos lead to a lack of comprehensive data insights, and ultimately, companies miss out on data-driven business opportunities. That`s where Legal Ops comes in. By creating information management best practices, In-House Legal Operations helps legal departments adopt and implement robust data information policies across departments and offices. Almost instantly, Covid-19 highlighted the legal profession`s need for technological advancement. While the immediate focus of legal technology during the pandemic was to implement remote work functions, CLOC highlighted some of the pandemic`s long-term impacts on legal technology, such as the new, higher priority for process digitization, data management, and contract lifecycle management. Legal operations also assist in-house legal teams, compatible suppliers, and partner firms. Looking beyond traditional pricing models with a clear, data-driven vendor relationship strategy, Legal Ops provides transparent, efficiency-based vendor offerings to in-house legal departments. In this way, legal departments have strategic partners who respond to the needs of the company at all times.
As 2025 approaches and the digitalization of legal functions, companies may increasingly abandon expensive and autonomous technologies that serve certain legal niches. Instead, they will look to larger vendors for solutions that integrate holistically into their broader technology ecosystem. Legal operations effectively help overcome the biggest obstacles facing legal services. According to the 2020 Legal Department Annual Survey, the biggest challenges in managing legal services are: Originally a reactive discipline focused on controlling expenses and reducing risk, legal operations today strives to add value to the legal department. Legal operations professionals drive innovation and emphasize the value of repeatable and consistent processes.