When it comes to protecting and growing a company, it is important to think of the smartest – most efficient – ways of doing things in order to drive productivity and profits.
Legal operations are business activities and processes that help in-house legal counsels and companies do all of the above. Creating a legal operations team or implementing a system is a great start. By getting insight into best practices from others and leveraging solutions, your company’s legal ops will start on the right track.
However, legal teams need a solution that will relieve the pressure of trying to achieve “more for less” in the workplace while lowering overall costs. This blog post highlights the importance of legal operations and legal services, as well as the steps that you can take for your own in-house counsel and company.
Goals of Legal Operations
In order for legal operations to run smoothly and have the positive impact that a company expects, it is important to set goals and get everyone on the same page. A couple of priorities for companies looking to get into legal operations are:
- Changing the way legal operates on a daily basis by moving to an efficient, profit-driven cycle
- Achieving “more for less” with a proper legal operations function
Legal teams need legal operations in order to work more efficiently and focus on strategy and more crucial legal work. When in-house lawyers have time to focus on these particular tasks – instead of administration and operational issues – work performance and the quality of work, itself, will only improve. According to a recent ACC report, 73 percent of the most mature legal departments have at least one legal operations professional. Driving efficiency in the legal department and the legal industry is imperative, and that’s where legal ops come in.
How Legal Teams Can Become More Efficient – Or Achieve ‘More for Less’
Work Alongside General Counsel to Achieve Goals and Gain Insight
Together, legal teams and the general counsel can work together to make their vision of legal operations come true.
It is rather vital for general counsels or the heads of legal to be involved in decisions like this. Just look at how IPsoft changed the way its legal team operates. The general counsel needs to be a part of the process – at least at the beginning – in order to move forward with full legal operations, whatever your solution may end up being.
Adopt and Implement Legal Technology That Aids In Administrative Tasks
Legal tech like contract management systems (CMS) can do wonders for legal operations by getting rid of manual contract review and significantly improving the organization of documents. More specifically, automated workflows assist with those tedious tasks, allowing the legal team to focus on more important legal work.
This increases organizational speed, too. According to a survey by Gartner, about one-quarter of respondents said that they increased their speed by over 50 percent after automating some aspects of their legal practices. So clearly, legal digital transformation is extremely beneficial for companies that want to improve productivity in the workplace and have a competitive advantage over others. A contract management system for your legal ops can increase speed and productivity.
A CMS for your legal operations can:
Save legal teams from having to manually review contracts and related documents
Increase the speed and efficiency of your company’s everyday work functions
Reduce costs and prevent annual revenue loss by indicating when contracts end and flagging renewal dates
Strategic Planning For Future Goals and KPIs
Creating KPIs at the beginning of each quarter or year ensures that your team is on the same page and does its best to achieve these goals. So plan and draw up a roadmap for a specific period of time. This encourages your legal team to work smarter and leads to positive growth and profits for your company. Also, incorporate technology with data analytics to monitor company growth and revenues.
Get In Touch With Your Legal Ops Today
Want to put your legal operations on the right track?
ContractPodAi’s team of legal experts can help you to adopt and implement legal tech, such as a contract lifecycle management (CLM) system, and improve your contract management process. Contact us today to find out more.
