Legal Efficiency - What the hell is that?!

Starting with stages

Issues about efficiency are not recent topics, in fact, they have always played a role in the evolution of mankind. Whether in the construction of the imposing Egyptian pyramids or in the application of Ford and Taylor's mechanistic models.

In the legal world it was not so different. Over the years 60, American law firms and lawyers began to discuss how to generate efficiency and reduce costs in legal services. In this context, the figure of the paralegal emerged, an agent who would reduce the cost of fees and free up time for lawyers to engage in more technical activities. Over time, the concepts of these legal-administrative activities have evolved and gained more weight.

In the 90s, in the United States, the concept of Legal Operations gains strength, moving from an administrative concept, to a specialized management and support for legal services, acting in reducing costs and outsourcing services, among other functions. A concept that has been evolving since then, bringing other relevant competencies to the legal world, now divided into 12 sections (The cloc core 12).

In the mid-2000s, along with the promulgation of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) law, the concept of legal controllership emerges, covering the controls and financial management of legal departments.

In large companies, since the mid-2000s, interdisciplinary projects have begun to appear in legal departments with the aim of reducing costs, increasing control and financial management and the main, aligning the business strategy with the legal. As a result of these historical combinations combined with a new strategic positioning of the legal, the Legal Efficiency Movement - EJ emerged in mid-2018.

So, what is Legal Efficiency?

We define Legal Efficiency as the link that connects the company's strategy with the Legal, creating direct influences on each other. With methodology, legal knowledge and technique, legal operations, legal controllership, and design are combined, turning this into a business strategy.

LEGAL OPERATIONS (LEGAL OPS) - Integrates administrative activities with operational excellence, including issues such as technology, productivity, identification of strategic partners, knowledge management, analytics, among others.

CONTROLLER & FINANCIAL PLANNING - It is the interconnection between legal financial data with other areas of the company, that is, the team that translates risks, aligns financial strategies, generates predictability and security.

LAW - Legal discussions reach a new level when they connect with these other areas, both to better understand trends in jurisprudence, indicator agreements, convictions, to the management of the legal department or law firm. It is the core activity of the ecosystem, responsible for advising, mitigating risks, developing preventive actions, defending the interests of the corporation and, above all, enabling business and protecting the company and / or its clients.

DESIGN - Science and/or method for problem solving, which integrates all these activities in a multidisciplinary environment with a focus on the problem. There are different types of projects for the design of organizations, systems, services and information. This method ranges from understanding the problem, through the organization of data for clarity and visibility of the strategy in numbers to the design of solutions, providing a clear and user-focused prototyped vision and the democratization of information design with a clear language (plain language) and visual law.

Legal efficiency is more than a map or a framework, it seeks to illuminate paths and provide practical options to be applied in the reality of each environment, with a focus on financial efficiency, operational improvement, performance improvement, and legal results. That is why the efficiency matrix does not have a beginning and an end. In reality, it is the legal strategy connected to the company's strategy that will define the appropriate trajectory for each environment.

The Framework of Legal Efficiency, authored by Felipe Fioratti Coffone and Simone Minassian, is a matrix that guides the optimization of legal operations, with a focus on financial efficiency, operational improvement, and increased performance results. The matrix is divided into four main horizontal areas: Efficiency (optimizing, recovering money, investing with quality, and reducing costs), Quality (eliminating pain points, reducing bureaucratic tasks, and increasing reliability), Risk (preventing, mitigating, and intelligently acting promptly) and People (developing different people, being a heterogeneous organization by conviction). And four vertical areas: Structuring (offering better models and eliminating manual tasks), Transforming (making exponential leaps in controls, financial management, technology, and strategy), Caring (disseminating and developing the best practices for efficiency, risk, and management), and Governing (ensuring one direction). In short, the framework is divided into four horizontal categories (why) and four guiding pillars (how). It is influenced by the concepts of the Golden Circle brought by Simon Sinek.

In these intersections, we can verify the competencies and dilemmas of the legal efficiency professional (what). More than a matrix or framework, it is a new area of Legal Efficiency that manifests itself in eight great ideals:

#1 We seek Excellence

#2 Respect for the whole group

#3 We think Lean

#4 If repeat, automate

#5 We constantly learn

#6 Collaboration

#7 Compliance above all

#8 Scarcity management

Legal Efficiency comes to meet the transformation of the legal world to generate tangible results and expand its role beyond the boundaries that we have built. Connecting us to the strategy of our client or the company we are part of.

We start from the money/result and, to achieve it, we explore all dimensions, including (or mainly) culture.