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30 P E E R T O P E E R : I L T A ' S Q U A R T E R L Y M A G A Z I N E | W I N T E R 2 0 2 2 of uncommon sense that can act as a beacon to support business improvement. Not all businesses are equal, therefore not all law departments are equal and not all law department issues are equal. Legal Operations Teams must embrace the differences and lean into the uncommon sense. In this article we pick apart this framework and make it relevant to the challenges facing all types of legal operations teams: from those working within law firms, to in-house law departments, to those working for other law companies and market vendors. The Need for Transformation in Internal Law Departments In challenging times, internal functions are under more pressure to add value. In-house law departments are near the top of that list as they are considered an expensive cost center. However, many in-house legal teams look to spend management as a strategy instead of innovating around process, people, technology, or data. The in-house law department is the last function to face the need for transformation. Other major functions such as IT, Finance and Marketing have undergone their own transformation journeys in recent decades. While several notable in-house law departments have undergone major transformations of their own, they remain outliers when we look at typical law departments globally. The market for Legal Operations has been formed over the last decade. While it is still in its infancy, it is evolving rapidly. More and more organizations and law firms are seeing the benefits of legal operations teams. Some key benefits include (1) cost reduction; (2) risk reduction; (3) obligations management; (4) contract business efficiencies and much more. Legal Operations is tackled in many ways. For some, legal operations is not new and reflects the administrative and process-oriented activities that business professionals within in-house law departments and law firms have been doing for decades. For others, legal operations is a specialist area where business professionals combine knowledge of lawyer's needs, with technology, process, and data skills. If you dig into the critical focus areas for most legal operations teams you will see the need to reconcile cost, innovation, revenue, risk, time, efficiency, and productivity metrics. Additionally, in today's hybrid word, all companies must deal with the right work-life balance challenges and how legal operations can free lawyers up to do what they do best while acknowledging that they cannot excel at all specialisms alone. Some common pitfalls many teams make are (1) using spend management as the sole strategy; (2) focusing too much on technology to solve the problems; (3) looking too much at competitors for direction and (4) not using contemporary change management techniques with people who do not like change. Let's look at few of those pitfalls a little closer: • Cost Management as a Strategy: Focusing on cost alone will not always lead to the most desired result. For example, cutting the use of outside counsel on litigation may create higher risks. This might lead to a lengthy litigation process, a trial over settlement, the wrong use of discovery tools, and many more issues. Cost, risk, and efficiency must all be determined in balance. • Technology to Solve all Problems: Many times, teams will look to a piece of technology to solve the problem. This can lead to an organization that implements multiple technology solutions for the same problem such as contract management only to have each one only performs a small piece of F E A T U R E S

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