In 2020, the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC), updated its Core Competencies to reflect the increased scope and priorities for which today’s legal operations are responsible. CLOC also included language indicating that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) should be an essential element of the business processes and activities of legal operations professionals. 

By defining the functional areas that most legal teams oversee, CLOC CORE 12 provides vital guidelines on how a legal organization’s operations department can mature and grow across specific functional areas, depending on its priorities, objectives, opportunities, and resources. 

DEI plays an increasingly prominent role in each of the 12 CLOC Core Competencies. While corporate counsel have always had multiple expectations of their vendors, today we find DEI is being communicated and measured more frequently as a key part of vendor management programs. Furthermore, corporate legal departments are now far more likely to select firms that embrace DEI, push for more diverse staff to be assigned to their matters and have a formalized set of requirements for working with individuals and organizations that embrace DEI principles. 

This focus on DEI may seem like a recent trend, but, in fact, efforts to incorporate DEI have been ongoing across legal entities for many years.  For example, for more than a decade the enterprise legal management (ELM) software LexisNexis CounselLink® has included detailed demographics capabilities in their analytical tools to help firms and vendors measure their progress in meeting legal department DEI criteria.  

Nevertheless, the legal industry overall has been slower to adopt DEI practices and tracking than other industries. There are many reasons for this lag, ranging from professional culture and societal issues to technology aversion. The good news is that today DEI is increasingly more likely to be a central element of a legal department’s overall strategy.  

Beyond societal benefits, there are distinct business advantages to improving the diversity of a legal organization. According to research by Deloitte, highly inclusive teams outperform their peers by as much as 80%. Inclusive companies generate higher cash flow per employee, are more change-ready and innovative, and are more likely to be able to coach employees for improved performance and build leaders. McKinsey research shows that gender-diverse companies are 15% more likely to outperform their peers and ethnically diverse companies are 35% more likely to do the same. 

Nevertheless, for those organizations in the early stages of creating a DEI program, the task can seem daunting. The challenge is to determine where among the CLOC CORE 12 functions the change should begin. 

Rather than address all 12 areas at once, start with strategic planning to define concepts and goals and lock down executive support. Without executive attention and planning, DEI initiatives are unlikely to succeed. 

Start by identifying the department’s objectives for launching a DEI program, which will serve as a reference point to help keep the program launch on track and can be used to set initial benchmarks and measurable goals. Initial action items might include brainstorming to define the most relevant aspects of DEI to the department, hiring more diverse talent, and choosing to work with outside counsel who employ a minimum percentage of minority partners and meet other specified diversity standards. Ask stakeholders for their input on the benefits DEI might deliver, how DEI practices might impact legal operations, and the desired end result. 

After reviewing objectives to ensure that they align with departmental DEI priorities, the next step is to make a plan. To effectively track, manage, capture, store, and report on DEI data to evaluate the progress of your program, it will be necessary to leverage an enterprise legal management (ELM) solution with built-in DEI tools. Such software provides valuable measurement capabilities and features, including vendor profiles, vendor score cards, and diversity surveys that provide a holistic view of vendors and how they perform against the department’s DEI standards. These tools can also be used to measure the internal legal department’s progress. 

Business intelligence, one of the CLOC core competences, is another essential element of the DEI toolkit. The appropriate software will provide management dashboards that clearly convey comparisons and trends in vendor diversity. During a recent Buying Legal® webinar on DEI benchmarks for buyers of corporate legal services, speakers underscored the importance of producing data to support the organization’s DEI posture, noting that corporate law departments now regularly request diversity demographic information from their law firms, including information on gender, race, LGBTQ+, veteran status, and disability.  

Many corporate clients now set minimum standards for the in-house legal team to promote working in a diverse environment. They typically request granular detail, including metrics like the number of outside counsel hours worked by diverse timekeepers. They also monitor diversity trends of their law firms and require diverse timekeepers to be assigned mission-critical legal tasks and, if necessary, be given opportunities to develop necessary skills. Some clients offer bonuses to firms that increase diversity, while others have started to withhold a portion of their invoices if the firms do not meet their diversity requirements. 

A recent ABA article highlighted the fact that, while corporate clients now increasingly include DEI metrics during the RFP process, law firms have not yet lost significant existing business due to weak DEI results. However, at CounselLink we have witnessed a continuous movement toward DEI metrics as a deciding factor for new legal work when all other factors, such as skill sets, results, and expertise, are equal. 

In other words, diversity benchmarks will become increasingly important to legal departments’ success – and this is why a commitment to DEI must be woven throughout each of the 12 CLOC Core Competencies. 

The legal profession has historically seen itself as unique and exempt from the constraints and concerns that have dominated the business sphere. With the rise of technology and its role increasing in power and influence over how businesses run, the legal profession now is coming around to the idea of not being a cost center and the department of no to a value creator and the department of can do. 

What has aided the legal department in transforming into a business partner and value creator, in part, has been the legal operations role. Yet, many persistent myths surround legal operations, the purpose it serves, and how best to develop such a function. Like most things, a legal operations function needs a solid foundation to grow.  

It Starts with Hiring 

The foundation begins by recruiting and hiring people who can speak both the “traditional” language of legal (words) and the “traditional” language of business (numbers and data). Legal operations individuals also possess both process improvement acumen and technological know-how that they can use to evaluate and improve existing processes and assess potential new tools to put in place to facilitate better productivity and efficiency. As for the specific backgrounds of legal operations professionals, they have diverse backgrounds. Some are former consultants or finance professionals. Others may be former attorneys or paralegals. All bring a wealth of experience working with legal professionals and the ability to bridge the gap between the legal, finance, and technology worlds.  

Bridging the Business and Legal Gap 

Although not a legal operations professional myself, I have often functioned in this role in the various legal departments that I have been a part of. Given their small size and the need for me to be a cross-functional business partner and enable business growth while also protecting the company against excessive levels of risk, this meant I needed to take on a variety of CLOC’s 12 Competencies outlined in its 12 Competencies Reference Model. Of these 12 competencies, two that I took on and developed for myself were knowledge management, managing outside legal spending, and technology management and support.  

The Contract Management Conundrum 

Contract lifecycle management is one area that illustrates these two competencies coming into play. As someone who has long lived in the world of contracts, managing a small number of them doesn’t seem to be an insurmountable task. Yet, that small number can and often does increase exponentially when working for a fast-growing company. As the number of contacts grows, so does the challenge of managing them (and so does the complexity of the contracts themselves)! Practically, this means that your manual management process may require something that is less time-consuming and more efficient.  

Contract Complexities Pre and Post Award 

Legal operations individuals know that drafting and negotiating contracts is one thing and that managing them is quite another. Managing them requires the input and support of several business functions since contract obligations have far-reaching impacts. This is where having the proper processes and tools in place can make a world of difference and allow for better and more strategic contracting. Managing contracts includes not just ensuring that the right people review the agreement and its terms but also tracking key milestones and deadlines and gathering data regarding common contracting pain points and preferred fallback clauses. 

Choosing the Right Tech 

Technology can help here but finding the right technological tool can often be an overwhelming, time-consuming task in itself. This is where having a legal operations professional, or simply someone who can take on some of the duties of a legal operations role, can be immensely helpful. That person will have the experience and knowledge to navigate the contract management space and, ideally, after doing an audit of your company’s existing processes, be able to suggest ways to improve the processes and potentially integrate a new technological tool or service to help automate and expedite contract lifecycle management.  

The importance of having individuals who can bridge the knowledge and skills gap between the legal, finance, and technology worlds cannot be overstated. Businesses do not operate in a vacuum, and neither should their individual departments. Legal operations effectively serves as the glue that brings these different teams together, especially when it comes to developing the right processes and selecting the best tools to be used by the right people. 

If you are eager to learn more about this fast-growing and exciting space, please consider attending Agents of Change: Leveling up Legal Operations to Maximize Business Growth where Matt Patel, Co-Founder and COO of Malbek and two legal operations leaders will discuss legal operations best practices! 

By Jeffrey Solomon, Senior Director of Product Management, Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions 

Corporate legal departments (CLDs) are becoming increasingly technology-driven, and yet most CLDs would probably not consider themselves full of technology experts. After all, who gets into the business of law to become the next Elon Musk?  

Still, there’s no doubt technology is an essential component of a successful, well-run CLD. That’s why, according to Gartner, legal departments are expected to increase their spending on legal technology threefold by 2025. Indeed, if you’re reading this blog, there’s a good chance you probably have some form of legal bill review software or another type of legal operations application a click or two away.  

And while it’s great that you’re likely already using some form of technology to accomplish everyday tasks and (hopefully) make your department more efficient, there are bigger questions at hand beyond just “How can I save time on bill review?” Questions like:  

• Which technology investments will help me achieve my departmental and corporate goals? 
• Will AI or similar kinds of modern technologies help me reach my goals more quickly or more strategically? 
• If so, which solutions are most appropriate for my department today, and which should I plan for in the future? 

A technology roadmap is essential to successful legal operations 

To answer these and other questions–and to make sure you end up investing in the right technologies– you need to develop a roadmap that will help you get from whatever technology maturity stage you’re in right now to where you want to be. A technology roadmap is a long-term, multi-year plan that allows you to assess your current technology resources and align existing and future investments to both your CLD’s and the company’s goals. 

Creating a well-considered and solidly planned roadmap is essential if you want your lawyers to work more productively, intelligently, and efficiently. It will allow you to achieve three things: 

• Plan for and invest in the technologies that will add the most value to your organization in the short term and long term 
• Keep you from wasting money on “shiny objects” that will not help you achieve your business objectives or simply won’t be adopted 
• Ultimately generate greater efficiencies, better business outcomes, and help your teams work smarter and faster 

Building your technology roadmap 

How can you generate your legal technology roadmap—one that’s unique to your business, is adaptable enough to evolve as your organization’s needs change, and sets you up for current and future success? 

That’s the question at the heart of our latest whitepaper, A Practical Guide to Creating a Legal Technology Roadmap. It is a step-by-step guide to creating a technology roadmap to ensure you’re aligning your technology investments with your corporate objectives and your current reality. You’ll learn: 

• How to get started 
• Which questions to ask 
• How to analyze your department’s legal technology maturity level 

• How to prioritize technology needs for the stage you are in and the next stage in your development 
• How to get buy-in from senior leadership and the day-to-day users in your core processes 
• And more 

Download the white paper today to learn how to build a roadmap that is aligned with your CLD’s vision for the future. 

Alex Su did everything right.

He went to the right law school. Northwestern. He worked hard and became an editor of law review.

He made sure he knew what was expected of him and kept at it to land his dream job, an associate position at a swanky firm like the ones he read about growing up in Brooklyn reading John Grisham novels.

Once he arrived at Big Law, it didn’t take long for Alex to realize that the path he had chosen was not what he expected.

He thought Small Law would be better, but not only did the work seem disconnected to real value to the client, someone else always determined Alex’s value.

By the hour.

What happens when someone else decides your value?

If you don’t like it, they’ll swap you out for someone willing to do the same work better than you.

And by better, they mean cheaper and more hours.

Without exception, this kind of puppet-string fate is not true for those who carve out a reputation for themselves.

Without exception, these same people are far from perfect.

They have been hired. And fired.

They’ve auditioned and been asked to leave the stage before they play the third note.

They’ve risked everything. And failed.

But there’s one thing they all have in common: they put themselves out there in hopes of finding a few others to connect with over a shared belief, leader, or idea.

Seth Godin calls them Tribes. A favorite writer of mine, CS Lewis, expressed the feeling of finding your tribe like this: “What? You too? I thought I was the only one!”

The moment you create a tribe? A brand is born.

The moment a brand is born? You’ve stopped following someone else’s map.

It’s a hard pill to swallow when you realize that your whole life you’ve been doing everything possible to follow a map or plan perfectly, only to realize that the least valued skill in our culture is exactly that.

Have I memorized perfectly exactly what is on the test?

Am I writing this exactly the way the professor wants me to do it?

Regardless of what your partners, professors, or even parents tell you with the best of intentions, the least valued skill in our culture is the ability to follow a map made by someone else.

Why does this matter?

It’s a great time to be a little brand with a powerful product in the legal world charting your own course.

A brief history lesson helps give context to why.

Since the end of World War II, legal has mimicked business in how it creates shareholder value. The fact that legal declared itself an industry and created a system that could turn out mass-produced products with interchangeable parts has to be the ultimate nod of servitude to the behemoth corporate clients that arose from the Industrial Revolution.

But this kind of gangster algorithm, as NYU Marketing Professor and CNN+ Commentator Scott Galloway would call it, no longer works.

Why not? Two reasons.

First, fast forward to March 2020 and Anthony Klotz. Klotz is the business school professor at Texas A&M who unleashed the phrase “The Great Resignation” now heard around the world and applied to any current business problem.

I wish I could put Anthony in the Wayback Machine and change the phrase he will undoubtedly be remembered for to “The Great Awakening” to better describe the deep hunger millions of people woke up to during COVID. A hunger for purpose, for meaningful work. Basically #whatthehellamidoinghere.

Second, this Great Awakening opened our eyes to the artificial constraints of our old systems:

Geography.

Hierarchy.

Size.

And on and on.

To sum it up, The Great Awakening means with today’s technology, a little brand and a powerful product can get from unknown to known faster than ever.

Just ask Keith Gill. AKA Roaring Kitty. (It doesn’t matter if you don’t recognize his brand. His tribe knows. Then so did the crashing stock market.)

Or Alex Su.

How did he land his position as Head of Community Development at Ironclad Digital Contracts?

He did the hard work, day in and day out, not unlike Keith Gill although I don’t think Alex was still in his mom’s basement.

Gradually, Alex’s tribe began to find him.

And then Ironclad began to pursue Alex not because of who he was on paper, but how he showed up in real life.

During The Great Awakening, Alex Su started to unwittingly build his brand day in and day out by caring enough to learn to speak in the new language he saw being birthed with The Great Awakening. A language that was raw, real, and human―and straight to our social feeds when we were hungry for it most.

Risky? Yes.

Could his performances have flopped? Yes.

Did he know where it was leading? All caps NO.

The best part? Ironclad just knew they wanted him.

Come, they said. We’ll figure out those formal roles and responsibilities HR requires as we go along.

Alex and Ironclad started with a white board to create the position that honored Alex’s gifts and talents and how it intertwines with the Ironclad community.

Alex Su has joined the few that knows how it feels to make your own map.

So, as it turns out, Alex Su has a story to tell, but it isn’t the one you’ve heard about him before: Boy goes to Big Law. Leaves it for legal tech. Makes memes. You should too!

It’s risky. It’s not for those who play finite games or who need to keep score.

It’s the story of being true.

As Alex said when I had the pleasure of speaking with him, “Brand is what people say and think about you when you aren’t around.”

As it turns out, that is all that building a brand is.

Being true to you. In your own skin. Wherever life takes you.

What a relief.

To learn more about ways to build your brand, visit the Career Center at the CLOC Global Institute.

In recent years, environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives have become strategic imperatives for companies as they seek to build trust with employees, partners, and customers. ESG builds brand loyalty, gives a competitive advantage in the marketplace, and attracts and retains talent within an organization. A study by Unilever found that a third of all global consumers choose to buy from brands because of their ESG commitments. Accordingly, across enterprises, all departments are exploring how to best match their respective programs to support ESG initiatives. 

The legal department is often associated with enterprise-wide ESG discussions on account of the General Counsel’s role in providing advice and guidance regarding these efforts. However, beyond providing ESG legal and regulatory counsel to the enterprise, GCs must also consider how the legal department can adopt practices that align with these ESG goals. More and more GCs are turning to their Legal Department Operations practitioners (LDOs), who will play a critical role in operationalizing ESG initiatives within the Legal department. 

In a recent conversation I hosted with a diverse group of legal operations leaders, it was clear that LDOs are already putting a lot of thought into how the legal department can build programs to align themselves with these ESG initiatives. Here are just a few ideas that LDOs might consider deploying within their own departments that surfaced in that earlier conversation: 

Environmental 

While each industry’s operations carry different environmental impacts, every company (and legal department) would do well to consider how they can make their operations greener.  

Reducing waste and consumption are obvious first steps. Some LDOs have implemented some easy wins like policies that ban disposable coffee cups or issuing reusable water bottles to all legal department employees to reduce reliance on single use plastic bottles.  

Other departments are going paperless, which is especially impactful when you consider that approximately 1 billion trees worth of paper are thrown away each year in the United States. Accordingly, many LDOs are reviewing manual, paper-based processes and moving to digital contract management. When contracts are managed digitally, it means no more printing out 70-page contracts to do redlines or to gather wet signatures. It’s staggering how much paper can be saved thanks to a digital document workflow.  

In addition to investigating the impact of going paperless, LDOs are looking at the environmental impact of legal department travel. The pandemic has proven that many of the meetings we thought had to happen in person—like in-person negotiations of a contract–can in fact be done virtually. LDOs should consider whether they can continue some of these practices post-pandemic—not to prevent the spread of COVID, but to keep carbon out of the atmosphere.  

Finally, legal teams are looking beyond contract processes and looking at the substance within the contracts. As LDOs help build templates and make them accessible to the legal department, they might consider creating and deploying standard contract clauses and contract playbooks that address environmental sustainability. Making such clauses available is a unique way for legal departments to contribute to an enterprise’s environmental goals. 

Social 

The “S” in ESG asks companies to think holistically about all their stakeholders—employees, suppliers, customers, shareholders, and the communities that companies work in—and explore how the company might help close the opportunity gap that has historically existed in these populations.  

To be part of the solution, LDOs should consider the legal department’s hiring practices. Reversing historical bias in hiring within the legal department is one way an LDO can make a meaningful contribution to its organization’s social goals. The CLOC competency model identifies Training & Development as a core skill; LDOs can leverage this competency to create professional development opportunities around unconscious bias training for all members of the legal department. This review of hiring practices should extend to all roles in the legal department, from in-house counsel, allied legal professionals and members of the legal department operations team.  

Alignment with these social goals can also come from how legal teams hire outside counsel. Firm & Vendor Management (also a CLOC Core 12 competency) can provide guidance as the legal department engages and hires law firms with track records of diverse hiring and promotion.  

Governance 

Finally, LDOs can play a big role in ensuring the legal team and the company as a whole are operating legally and ethically.  

Top governance concerns for today’s enterprises include issues around bribery, money laundering, cyber-security, and data privacy. While GCs will play a central role in setting the company’s direction around these laws and regulations, LDOs can assist on this front by identifying technology available to the legal department to enable appropriate governance and compliance. 

For instance, LDOs can make sure that all governance policies are easily accessible in a single, shared location (like SharePoint) and simple to read and understand. Transparency and accessibility are key to good governance; accordingly, LDOs can champion the avoidance of legalese and search out opportunities to more clearly explain the rules—so people can follow them. 

LDOs can take a more ambitious step by identifying technology that can assist in an audit of third-party agreements to ensure partners are obliged to follow company guidance on questions of governance. Contract management software can assist in centralizing all contract data in a single location, and AI trained to detect obligation language can automate discovery to turn up gaps in compliance. With past contracts analyzed, LDOs can then turn their attention to future contracts by setting up rules to ensure all relevant regulatory clauses—from privacy to anti-corruption and beyond—are appropriately included in every executed contract. 

Conclusion 

Legal is a critical voice in the organization urging management to look beyond quarterly earnings to understand how a company’s behavior impacts its long-term viability and reputation. With the help of LDOs, legal departments can help operationalize these enterprise-wide ESG initiatives through new programs and technology. This is a golden opportunity for legal teams, and especially LDOs, to step up and lead like the world depends on it. 

The art of tailoring an approach that aligns to an organization’s unique needs 

As corporate law departments continue to look for ways to do more with less, the concept of shared services frequently enters into the equation. For most organizations, centers of excellence (COEs) represent a generally familiar approach. Historically, a “typical” COE model was often thought to rely upon lower-cost/administrative resources focused on lower-risk tasks that arise with frequency. And while this type of COE most certainly still exists, gone are the days where this one-size-fits-all approach to shared services is the only option on the table. This blog post will outline the considerations most heavily influencing the design of shared services models today, identify a few potential challenges (most of which can be proactively mitigated) and provide guidance on the next steps toward designing a (successful!) shared services model. 

In exploring how a COE might drive value in an organization, where should a corporate legal operations department start? 

There are many reasons to consider legal shared services: improving client service, reducing costs, standardizing processes, lowering legal costs or spend, supporting corporate strategy, eliminating redundant processes, or helping to introduce new technologies. So — where to start? 

1. Define  short- and long-term goals in collaboration with stakeholders for the shared services initiative 

Shared services centers appear to be underused, according to findings from a 2021 EY study in conjunction with the Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession. While 73% of companies use them to support the legal function in some capacity, only 9% use them extensively. One frequent driver of this lag in shared services adoption is the absence of a clearly articulated set of goals and objectives for the initiative. In the absence of this, shared services models can stagnate, thereby reducing overall value and leaving internal resources frustrated by the lack of progress. To avoid this outcome, formally define goals at the outset and include all impacted stakeholders in the process. 

2. Solicit executive feedback on shared services goals and enlist leadership support to drive stakeholder buy-in 

The implementation of a shared services model can be challenging under the best of circumstances. However, with a well-articulated set of goals and buy-in from appropriate members of an organization’s leadership team, the likelihood of success with a COE initiative will increase exponentially! Once the goals for the shared services initiative have been defined, pressure test them with leadership to confirm alignment with other strategic initiatives that may or may not be in the COE line of sight. Finally, ask for a commitment from leadership or an executive sponsor to help drive stakeholder messaging, thereby confirming a top-down approach to promote enthusiastic acceptance of the shared services initiative and the organizational changes it will bring. 

3. Develop an implementation strategy  

There is no substitute for a well-defined strategy, except a well-defined and documented strategy. With this in mind, be sure to formally capture the requisite details of the implementation plan, socialize and gather feedback as required, and identify a resource to maintain and update the COE plan as required. 

4. Communicate early and often 

No one likes to be surprised by changes to organizational strategy and/or structure. Thus, a change management and communication plan that contemplates stakeholder outreach both early and often is likely to drive the best outcomes. 

Realistically, what legal work can be managed in a shared services setting? 

The law department’s move toward shared services does not necessarily mean making wholesale changes all at once. Typically, law departments will start a shared services journey with activities that are high volume or low risk that have clearly defined and standardized processes, for example, e-discovery, template automation, document review, entity management or contract life cycle management. Starting with high-volume or low-risk areas, companies can design specific workflows and can measure performance according to standard metrics and process guidelines. Begin with one, two or several of these activities during the initial move to this delivery model. 

However, there is a trend for companies to also look at expanding the legal shared services model beyond those traditional activities to include more transactional-type support. These activities may include regulatory remediation and repapering programs, contract drafting and negotiating (vendor or customer) intragroup service agreements, and IP rights management. These types of activities were previously thought to be too high risk to be handled by a shared services format; however, with detailed workflows and proper oversight, there has been success with expanding beyond process support. It should be noted that the expansion typically requires a legal-driven shared services model with the right mix of legally trained professionals or a COE that utilizes professionals with the right legal skills to provide the necessary amount of legal expertise to offer guidance when needed.  

Is it a COE or something different? 

There is often a lot of confusion about the differences between COEs and shared services teams. A shared services center (SSC) usually refers to a dedicated unit, including people, processes and technologies, that is structured as a centralized point of service and is focused on one or more defined business functions. Shared services may come from several different physical locations (regional or global) and can operate onshore, offshore or virtually in some cases. Service delivery may be executed by internal resources or external providers, or a hybrid combination of both, and can involve a single or multiple business functions. Companies sometimes engage external providers to consult with various elements of the design, structure, location and execution options.  

Comparatively, a COE is typically thought of as a specialized knowledge center. A COE is a team that provides leadership, leading practices, research, support or training for a particular focus area. The focus areas of COEs vary and may include technology, business concepts, strategic initiatives or specific legal skills. In other words, they are smaller groups within an organization that can get better results by devoting themselves to a particular activity or set of ideas. Within COEs, there is an emphasis on advanced training and certification, knowledge sharing, and development of standards and methodologies. For COEs to gain acceptance within an organization, they must be given a clear mission and then provide demonstrable value to the business units. Like SSCs, COEs have many variations and should be implemented to meet an organization’s individual legal needs. COEs can be centralized at the enterprise level, within business segments or in the form of smaller communities of practice.  

This is a big change — what is the best way to bring the shared services vision to life? 

The deployment of a shared services team can represent a big change from a cultural and resourcing perspective. A strong business case that clearly illustrates the overall benefits to the organization and the impacted resources will establish a solid foundation on which to build. From there, internal socialization of both project goals and project approach is key, although a methodical change management and communications plan is equally important to determine the right messaging at the right time. Finally, a flexible, phased approach to shared services implementation will allow for adjustments as needed.  

The views expressed by the author are not necessarily those of Ernst & Young LLP or other members of the global EY organization. 

EY member firms do not practice law where not permitted by local law or regulation. Ernst & Young LLP (US) does not practice law or offer legal advice. 

Co-authored by: 

Christine Sanz, Senior Manager, EY Law – Legal Function Consulting, Ernst & Young LLP 

Melissa Miller, Senior Manager, EY Law – Legal Function Consulting, Ernst & Young LLP 

Legal operations professionals are the cornerstone in any corporate legal department with wide ranging impact across an organization. They are the process visionaries who make sure the legal work gets done on-time and on-budget, that the right stakeholders are included, risk is identified and mitigated, and that the best technology and service partners are tapped to make everything run smoothly. 

When it comes to working with outsourced service providers from managed services or alternative legal service providers (ALSPs), there is both a science and art to managing the vendor relationship to extract maximum value.  Done right, the outsourced relationship can bring tremendous support and expertise to the legal operations function as well as other departments and external law firms.  Handled poorly, the outsourcing effort can fail, creating unnecessary risk, reflecting negatively on the legal operations team and other teams within the organization. 

So how can legal operations pivot to extract maximum value from its outsourced service providers and ensure success?  By focusing on five key areas including Building Trust, Communication, Metrics and Reporting, Active Engagement, and Honesty. 

Building Trust

If trust cannot be established between legal operations and the outsourcing provider, the relationship is doomed; trust is a two-way street.  The outsourcer must consistently and predictably provide excellent communication, quality work, and accountability with proper metrics and reporting to back it up.  All of this instills confidence in their services.  However, the legal operations person also has to become an internal advocate for the outsourcer, someone within the company who is committed to their success. Change can be frustrating so legal operations must ensure that all of the internal stakeholders remain informed and involved as the relationship grows. 

Whether it’s a one-off project or a long-term managed services contract, the legal operations professional has the power to be a champion of the outsourcing effort.  Legal operations often has to make the case for outsourcing, to show proof of concept, anticipated value, and a vision for how it can work best.  There may be some initial resistance and objections at the company, and a preference to use in-house resources.  Legal operations needs to be vocal about the reasons and benefits for outsourcing in order to overcome and address concerns. Service providers need to be very aware that their champion will also be the person taking the brunt of criticism when partners are not performing up to expectations, so their goals must include supporting that champion proactively and substantively wherever possible.

At the outset of the relationship, the provider needs to get connected to the right people and necessary information.  Their client contact within legal operations must help get them what they need to get them off to a flying start.  When both the client and the outsourcing company trust each other and have one another’s backs, the relationship really takes off. 

Legal operations people working at large organizations often face a long process to get an outsourced vendor approved for a Master Services Agreement.  Therefore, it behooves them to support the services provider so that they are able to leverage that resource to the hilt once they finally have the agreement in place.  The company doesn’t need multiple vendors if it makes the most of the ones it has vetted.  Once vendors are approved, give them the training, information, and access they need to succeed.  Document the process with playbooks, briefing documents and workflow maps to establish clarity and uniformity.  Ensure that the company’s legal operations team and in-house lawyers are on hand to provide quality control at key junctures.  Any changes in process, even slight modifications, need to be checked and approved.

Communication

Communication with outsourced providers is more than emails, conference and phone calls – it’s a mindset and modus operandi.  The communication flow must be immediate and mutual between legal operations and the external resource regardless of the information being shared.  This includes sharing good news, relaying bad news, or discussing a process change.

From a troubleshooting standpoint, if an issue or problem arises, the outsourcing company should notify the client immediately and vice versa.  By definition, the outsourcing company has one degree of separation from the company itself, so delayed notification can cause the issue to get exacerbated and potentially more out-of-control.  Communicating the problem promptly and clearly allows for a solution to be devised so resolution comes more swiftly.  Quick issue notification, communication, and resolution are primary factors in building trust in the relationship and being a true partner.

Communication is also crucial from a billing standpoint, and the onus is on the outsourcing company to keep legal operations contacts informed of the financial status of ongoing projects.  Perhaps the work is clicking along fine but the bills are totaling up much higher than the budget allows – that’s a problem.  Or maybe there is not enough work being supplied by the client and the budget is not being used to its full extent; the outsourcer needs to communicate that, too. 

As a legal services provider, there is value in establishing a client’s preferred method of communication. Important emails can be lost in a busy mailbox and phone calls can go unanswered during a hectic day.  Understanding when a short conversation would be more effective than a flurry of email messages should not be underestimated.

Metrics and Reporting

Any discussion about communication these days inevitably leads to accountability through metrics and reporting.  The outsourcing company must track and provide status updates and reporting to the satisfaction of legal operations and its stakeholders.  At any time, legal operations should be able to ask the provider for status on team size, productivity, bottlenecks, and delivery dates and get a quick, thorough response.  Where physically is the work being done, and is the location secure?  Where are the work assignments coming from within the company, and are they in line with the outsourcing agreement?  Weekly check-ins may be necessary at the beginning of an engagement and then less frequent as the relationship becomes more established.  The more granular tracking and details the outsourcer can provide, the more prepared and forthcoming legal operations can be when reporting on progress to the GC and company executives.   

Tracking and reporting on metrics can provide more than updates and status reports. They can deliver valuable insights into a client’s processes, resourcing, data and help frame conversations around methodology or delivery improvements. One of the first operational tasks in a project should be the mutual agreement of the key metrics required to manage the process and risk. Both teams will obviously have different perspectives, but the core metrics needed by both teams will be very similar.

Metrics and reporting can be enormously helpful from a diagnostic point of view if something goes wrong.  Outsourcing companies have human beings on their delivery teams, and they are going to make mistakes, despite their best efforts.  Discovering these errors and mitigating or eliminating them as soon as possible helps to keep risk low and iron out kinks for a smoother, more flawless process.

Active Engagement

Outsourcing companies cannot work in a vacuum – they need frequent interaction to operate as a seamless extension of the corporation’s own team.  The outsourcing resources must be actively engaged with the client via email but also on calls, especially now that in-person meetings are uncommon and most are done virtually. 

The legal operations/outsourcing partner relationship is ever-changing and it can grow over time to serve the client organization more adeptly.  The more the outsourcer becomes familiar with the company’s priorities, protocols and deadlines, the more successfully it can support the client.  Both sides are equally invested in a quality result, both sides are careful not to waste time and money going down the wrong road.  Ideally, both legal operations and outsourcer are empowered to call an audible if a project is going astray. 

One of the secrets of successful outsourcing companies is the personalities of the people they employ.  Client-facing outsourcing team members must be able to speak up, push back, and earn the client’s confidence.  More passive individuals who are less forthcoming may be highly intelligent or knowledgeable but they are not always well suited to client-facing positions.  The best outsourcing providers have client-facing team members who have terrier-like perseverance and who develop the confidence to speak up at the right time.  These inherent tendencies are improved by empowerment and guidance provided by experienced managers.

Honesty and Transparency

The pandemic has brought about a new level of humanity and honesty in the working world.  How many times has a dog barking or child bringing in a school paper appeared in business meetings over the past two years?  Many of the formalities of business have fallen away, giving people the opportunity to be more “real” and connect on a more level playing field.

Honesty and transparency are essential elements to building strong legal operations/outsourced provider foundations.  This involves the culmination of all the principles mentioned above including communication, metrics and reporting, building trust and active engagement.  Over time, the outsourced provider earns trust through being honest and transparent with legal operations and vice versa. 

An honest outsourcing company will admit when a project is out of its wheelhouse and will not overstate its capabilities. While legal operations may be disappointed at an initial no, this is much preferable to the outsourcing company saying it’s capable and then the project fails.  An honest answer paves the way to a possible solution, and the companies may be able to work together to co-create a solution that benefits both.  Both legal operations and the outsourcing resource must be equally transparent about what each is providing and how they meet in the middle to get the job done right.

Conclusion

Legal operations are in a central position to leverage outsourced providers to bring about successful outcomes.  By combining key principles like establishment of trust, communication, measurement and accountability, active engagement and honest transparency, they ensure that outsourcing relationships pay off and deliver on their promise.  Over time, the relationship will shift from being client and outsourcing vendor to an equal partnership.  When legal operations cultivates outsourced teams which are true extensions of their internal resources, that’s a win-win.

About the Authors:

Clare Chalkley, Robert Daniel and Randi Salzberg are all subject matter experts (SMEs) in their respective fields at Integreon, a global ALSP and managed services provider. 

• Clare Chalkley, Vice President – Legal Services, is based in London and runs managed document review and litigation services projects for Integreon, having previously been a litigation support manager at Clifford Chance law firm and other roles in the field for 25+ years. 
• Robert Daniel, Senior Director and Financial Services SME, is based in the U.S., having previously worked for Bank of America in legal discovery and related positions for 25+ years.
• Randi Salzberg is Vice President, Marketing and Creative Services in Integreon’s Business Enablement Services division. Before Integreon, she was a Managing Director in Marketing at investment firm Alliance Bernstein for 25+ years.

A note from Mike Haven & Betsi Roach, CLOC Leadership. Read the full message.

We enter 2022 primed for growth and impact.

We are living through one of the most challenging, but exciting, times in our history, a crossroads in the development of legal operations. After many years pushing for change, our community has helped drive a wave of investment and adoption that has transformed the face of Legal. Even a historic multi-year pandemic has not stopped the momentum and growth of our movement.

Let us resist the temptation to slow down or tamp down our ambitions. This is no time to stop moving forward. Our organization has always been about solving problems; it is what has made us great, and what defines our community. Collectively, we have innovated powerful new ways to work smarter, faster, and with greater scale and focus to the delivery of legal services. We will keep pushing in these areas, but it is now time to apply that same problem-solving power to the stubborn challenges of equity and access.

We can, and must, make our industry work better for everyone. We have to look at access at all levels, particularly when it comes to the pipeline of young people entering the field. We have to make Legal more compelling and accessible for a new generation of diverse professionals. When we bring more diverse candidates into our space, we shift entrenched systems and culture in deep ways. Let’s work together to find ways to push Legal forward in this, the most important challenge of all.

As we move forward, our problems are only becoming more complex. To solve them, we have to reach across the ecosystem. We have to stop relying on our own limited toolsets and start pulling in other experts and voices. One of our clear focus areas for 2022 is to continue to engage with law firms, legal service providers, technology companies, and law schools. No one has all the answers. Almost everything requires a combination of skills and approaches. We will keep broadening our community to find the ideas, expertise, and perspectives we need.

Our progress is a testament to the strength of this community. The real power of CLOC lies in the ingenuity, determination, and collaborative spirit of our members. Our greatest assets have always been the capability and generosity of our people. We are honored to have the opportunity to help steer this incredible organization. Thank you for your support and trust. We look forward to an amazing 2022!

A survey of this year’s digital trends in over 800 global legal teams.

Organizations all over the globe rely on legal resources to manage a majority of contracting responsibilities. To keep up with the demand, in-house legal teams are looking for innovations that can improve today’s contracting workflows with an eye toward interoperability and automation. As the speed of business and the need for functional remote work increased in 2020, it became even more important to solve modern agreement problems in a way that set the stage for sustained, scalable digital transformation.

To study the way modern, in-house legal teams operate, DocuSign conducted a survey of more than 800 global corporate legal professionals, focusing on their contracting responsibilities and the tools they use to manage their work. This report summarizes the research, highlighting key trends in the way legal teams prepare and manage contracts today. You’ll also see predictions about the future of contract automation and details of the robust, interconnected contracting processes that legal professionals are central to building and implementing.