Today we’re discussing Practice Operations in the latest episode of our CLOC CORE series. Jenn sits down with Kelli Brooks, a Senior Solutions Architect at Coinbase, and Kyle Kelly, founder and CEO of Zubu AI, and formerly an in-house litigation tech program manager at companies like Coinbase and Salesforce.

We go inside how to operationalize a legal practice area like litigation. We explore the critical balance between core and context work, the challenges of managing tech implementations, and the pivotal role of legal operations in optimizing workflows.

We’ll also get into the strategic deployment of legal tech solutions and the importance of clearly defined roles and responsibilities within projects using RACI tools.

Join us for this fascinating conversation as we uncover strategies for managing legal practice operations, especially in the fast-paced tech industry. You won’t want to miss it!

Special thanks to Sirion for sponsoring this episode!

Join your CLOC Washington D.C. peers for their next regional roundtable session.

Discussion topics will include:

1. Running Legal Like a Business recap 
2. Budget planning
3. Engaging Alternate Service Legal Providers
4. Open discussion & networking 

This is a hybrid community event. Participants may join us via Zoom, or join us in person at Orrick (2100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20037).

Strategies and insights from our white paper, “Turning Legal Into a Value Center” 

Controlling costs is an evergreen concern for corporate legal departments. One incredibly important aspect of cost-saving projects is change management. In fact, a December 2023 survey showed that after cost containment, implementing business process improvements was the second highest priority for legal departments, with 46.7% of legal departments ranking it among the top three challenges they’re facing. 

Priori and CLOC recently partnered on a white paper, “Turning Legal Into a Value Center,” which looks at different strategies that legal departments use to achieve cost savings. Unsurprisingly, change management was a key concept that underpinned many of the strategies discussed. 

Below you’ll find some tips for handling change management—a key component of executing successful projects that optimize legal spend. To learn more, download the full white paper. 

Packaging the Value Story – Change Management & Communication 

Whether you’re launching a new internal initiative, implementing new legal technology or having conversations about spend with your outside counsel, clearly communicating your goals and expectations is necessary for success. Just about every task your legal department undertakes to drive business value and optimize legal spend contains elements of change management, and implementing change management well starts with communication.  

There wasn’t one legal operations professional who we talked to that didn’t emphasize the role of communication. Here is some advice for approaching conversations and getting buy-in from stakeholders for your next project. 

Start From the Top Down 

When you’re launching a new initiative, it is important to get the top-level stakeholders on board from the beginning. If you don’t have the support of the people at the top, it can be hard to get other stakeholders and the teams that will help you execute to come on board and follow through with the vision.  

Build Relationships 

Starting with buy-in from the top sounds great, but how do you get there? Often, successful project management (in the legal operations space and elsewhere) is a long game. You want to show the stakeholders in your company that you understand where they’re coming from and what motivates their decision-making. Communicate throughout the year so you’re not just talking when something has reached a boiling point. The more you can empathize with and show respect for the work they do, the more they will be willing to trust you when the time comes to make a change.  

Know Your Audience 

Getting to the point where stakeholders trust you means learning about their roles: What their priorities are, the type of work they do, the pain points they experience related to legal, etc. Interview your business partners and get their perspective. When combined with metrics like projected cost or time savings, anecdotes about how a given project will help team members do their job better bring the narrative you’re trying to sell together. 

Make the Business Case 

Come into discussions with an inventory of what the situation is now, where you hope to get to upon completion of the project and recommendations for how to get there. This likely includes current data and projections about the project will affect those metrics (e.g., How much time does a task take now? How and why will this initiative reduce that time spent?). Show how the solution you’re recommending brings you from the current state to that desired end state. 

Ultimately, getting buy-in for a project is about telling your value story. You want to bring your stakeholders along with you on this journey. The more you can get them involved and make them feel like they are a part of it, the more likely it is you’ll get approval and find success. Nobody should feel blindsided by the change you’re recommending, they should feel the opposite—that they had a say in how the project came together and are as much responsible for its success as you are. 

For more cost-savings best practices, strategies and insights, download the white paper, “Turning Legal Into a Value Center.”