5 things I’ve learned about legal transformation in 2022

Yes, it’s one of those articles. I know the internet is groaning under the weight of end-of-the-year digests and predictions for the year ahead, so I apologise in advance for contributing to your pre-Christmas reading list!

That said, it’s been a significant year for the team and I, so I welcome the opportunity to do some navel gazing. This time last year we didn’t really exist, at least officially. Prior to 2022 our legal transformation services were well and truly under the radar, primarily provided to our existing customers on demand. But as word got out about our capabilities it was decided that we should put our heads above the parapet, which is why yours truly is now all over LinkedIn…

Another important event in early 2022 was our partnership with ContractPodAi. Of course, we were already familiar with our friends at CPAi, so we were delighted to partner with them and offer in-house legal teams their AI-driven contract lifecycle management solution and legal intake service -?One Legal Platform. Over the last 12 months I’ve also met lots of new friends: announcements about exciting new partnerships and innovations coming soon!

As you can imagine it’s been a year of learning as we have grown our legal transformation division and worked with a growing portfolio of in-house legal teams and law firms.?

So, what have I learned? Read on…

1: GCs and in-house legal teams are too busy to take my calls!

It will come as no surprise to those on the inside, but most of the time GCs and other in-house lawyers are too busy to contemplate legal transformation. It’s a Catch 22, they know there are opportunities to make things easier for the team, but most days are spent firefighting and keeping up with current workloads, which means there’s no time to innovate.

That’s why making small incremental changes can often have the most impact. Because if those changes buy the team enough time to define a vision for legal operations and identify their priorities, they can then start to build momentum for larger scale transformation.

2: Legal operations roles are undervalued

Legal operations roles are relatively new to many organisations and so not everyone understands their value. But just as in other business units such as in finance, sales or HR, where a dedicated operations manager is more common, legal operations is much more than an admin role.

Legal operations is a strategic enabler aligned with the company’s goals and focused on optimising the delivery of legal services. They have a mission to make it easier for in-house lawyers to get things done efficiently and accurately, free up time to focus on high value activities and, increasingly, to do more with less. If you’ve got budget to make an additional hire your instinct may be to employ a paralegal to pick up some admin tasks and legal work. But for many in-house teams, investing in a legal ops professional would ultimately deliver a far greater return on investment.?

3: Legal transformation is not just about technology

Over the last year I’ve written a lot about what legal transformation is and isn’t. Those of us, me included, who come from a technology background are often guilty of confusing the term with digital transformation. It’s not.?

At its most simplistic, transformation is about making a change: changing a process to improve the way you do something. Technology may have a role to play, but it’s just a solution, not the legal transformation itself. As I suggested in point 1, incremental changes can often have the greatest overall impact and so non-tech solutions, such as legal design work, can be just as transformational as introducing new technology.

4: A cloud native document management solution should be top of every law firm’s wish list

You can’t evolve as a business if your data is all over the place and isn’t accessible. Especially if it can’t connect to other software. For law firms that means a true cloud native practice management platform, note?platform?not?product. In the next few years firms will want to use software that isn’t even on the market now, so they need a central platform that everything plugs into. Top of the list being a cloud native document management product.

5: Empathy uncovers opportunities to innovate

We – I – talk a lot about workflows, tasks, processes, data and technology but powering all these things are people, and sometimes they can be overlooked. When we introduce a new way of working, either by deploying legal technology, optimising existing or introducing non-tech solutions, it’s people that are impacted by the change – not inanimate sequences and devices.

That’s why empathy is so important. By listening to and understanding your people - what’s working, what isn’t, what would make their working lives easier and what would they like their work to look like – you can uncover opportunities to innovate that make a real difference. Whether in-house or private practice, you?can’t begin to think about transformation unless you know what it is you are trying to achieve.?With empathy you can also overcome many of the barriers to change, making your legal transformation initiatives all the more impactful.?

That’s it. No doubt many more seasoned legal transformation experts have already learned these lessons, but these are the ones that stand out for me. In summary these are the things you can take away from my year of learning:

1.?????Small incremental changes can free up time to focus on larger legal transformation projects

2.?????The ROI from employing a legal operations professional can outweigh hiring another lawyer

3.?????Technology doesn’t have a monopoly on legal transformation and innovation

4.?????A cloud native practice management platform is a must have for law firms

5.?????Spend time listening to the people before initiating any change programme

What about you? What have you learned this year? Please leave a comment if you want to share…