Legal Operations or Legal Ops is when you start running your legal like a business.
Just like legal design, it is the application of design thinking and user-centric design (and other design methodologies), just in a different, process-driven context.
Read on to find out about the biggest upcoming trend in legal.
What are Legal Operations
Legal Operations represent proactive management of everything in the legal services that is not directly practice of law.
So it encompasses everything that lawyers in corporations typically do – except practicing law.
It is, long story short, all that admin you do between drafting, reviewing, assessing risks, and talking to your stakeholders.
From budgeting, KPIs, managing external lawyers, to legal tech tools and optimizing your internal processes.
If you want a more formal definition according to the Corporate Legal Operations Consorcium (the CLOC a.k.a. the most influential group in this sphere), legal operations are set of business processes, activities, and the professionals who enable legal departments to serve their clients more effectively by applying business and technical practices to the delivery of legal services.
I also like the way Mary O’Caroll puts it: “legal ops optimizes the balance of quality, speed and cost in the delivery of legal services“.
Are you hearing about Legal Ops for the first time?
You’re not alone, especially if you live in the Old Continent – despite already being a strong and thriving industry in the US, it is only slowly but very surely coming to Europe.
Why are Legal Ops awesome?
- Efficiency – cover the same amount of ground in less time
- More directed use of talent – does it really make sense to have a General Counsel with 15 years of experience handle Requests for Proposals and invoicing with external counsels? (No.)
- Happier people – let people focus on what they want to focus on and breathe a little
- Frugality – better use of budgets that you have
- Precision – by using tools and processes, you can deliver even more value better and quicker
- Data – with proper data management, you can drive many valuable insights
- Less chaos – it is easier to feel like you’re on top of things if you have clarity on processes and protocols
At the same time, another big benefit is that this industry is great for those of us who have processes sort of instinctively under our skin and are basically working on process optimization night after night alongside our legal practice. If you’re nodding your head and thinking – that’s me! – watch out, because legal ops is going to grow very attractively over the next few years.
More reading: CLOC on Why Your Next Hire Should Be Legal Ops
What are some examples of successful Legal Ops driven solutions?
- Deployment of project managers on legal matters
- Integrated pricing insights and invoicing management, including billing guidelines to bring clarity to relationships with external counsels
- Outsourcing some of the functions to third party providers
- Contracting system that enables salespeople to generate, service, and eSign commercial contracts
- Negotiation playbooks to optimise decision making
- and so much more
These are, however, anecdotal – instead of slamming ready made solutions, make sure first what is the key thing for your organisation, what is the key value you can deliver.
For deeper intro and more conceptualised delineation check the 12 Core Competencies: CLOC’s eBook on What is legal ops
How to get started with legal ops?
The best way how to start any transformation is to figure out what everybody is doing in the first place.
Then you can define your problem and how it relates to the value and use design thinking or other framework to come up with solutions.
As with any change management: do not do a massive overhaul just yet. Start little by little, get stakeholder buy-in, and champions on your side.
If you already have more than about 5 people, it might make sense to think about having a dedicated team member. The consensus on this number is not strict, so you do you.
More reading: Mary O’Caroll, former Head of Legal Ops at Google on how to start
Where can you learn more?
The wonderful thing is that Legal Ops is, among other things, a truly open and collaborative platform. You can therefore find an incredible amount of resources and “battle stories” on the internet.
I would start with CLOC website, they have many, many guides and templates and blog posts to get you started.
If you can get your hands on a ticket to Vegas to one of their meetings, do so, their reunions are legendary. There is also one coming up in London.
On LinkedIn I follow (and if you have any tips, I’m always happy to learn more):
Closing Remarks
Legal Operations is a business-oriented approach to lawyering, especially in contexts of legal departments.
It’s a wave that’s coming at us unstoppably.
Do you find legal ops interesting?
Check out my introduction to project management or legal design, you might find something useful there.
In the meantime, feel free to let me know if you have anything to add or if you have any questions – down below in the comments, on my LinkedIn, or send me an email to baru@attorneyatcode.com
Are you ready for the rise of Legal Ops?
Attorney@Code
This post would not be possible without fascinating lectures of Steve Harmon and David Cambria at the Bucerius Summer Programme on Legal Technology and Operations.
