Hi there,
You’ve heard me talk about how critical it is for enterprise legal leaders and in-house teams to develop their business and operational skills. It’s not enough to just be experts in the law, you need new talents to successfully navigate the industry changes ahead.
But don’t just take my word for it. As Gabriel Harnier, General Counsel, SAP (another very happy PERSUIT customer 😉), recently told my team:
Ten years ago, I was so happy to be a lawyer and only a lawyer. But if I could travel back in time, I would tell myself, if you want to lead a legal department, you cannot only focus on law and being strategic, you also need to focus much, much more on your legal operations. Because in the end, this is what makes life easier for your own team and your internal clients.
As the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now.
And the imperative for in-house teams to level up their operational focus has never been greater.
Consider the latest from the Association of Corporate Counsel’s (ACC) 2025 CLO survey. Of the 772 CLO participants polled:
🎯 The scope, complexity, and volume of legal and legal-adjacent matters handled by their teams has never been greater. At the same time, CLOs and their teams are increasing their strategic ownership across the business — 79 percent report directly to the CEO (when did we ever imagine such a day!).
🎯 All this while 41 percent have reported cost-cutting mandates and cite understaffing as one of their most pressing issues.
How do CLOs plan to slice the “do more with less” conundrum that only seems to intensify? According to the ACC survey:
- They’re placing their bets on operational efficiencies and new technology innovations.
- They’re planning to send more work to law firms (despite the never-ending rate increases that don’t show any sign of abating).
These takeaways may seem straightforward, but the reality of putting it all into practice is much less so.
In short, for in-house legal teams to succeed in today’s reality, they’ve got to build the operational muscle and skills to maximize their resources for optimal outcomes.
Perhaps that’s why nearly 2 in 3 of the CLOs surveyed said that business acumen tops their list of skills that they want their team to develop.
Thankfully, the skills you and your department will need for this new approach won’t require an MBA. There are three ways your team can up their operational game right now:
- Over Communicate. Tell your law firms how your role is expanding and evolving and what is expected of your team. Help firms understand where you are at, so you can set proper expectations from the outset.
- Great Expectations. Before any engagement, your team’s default position should be to ask “What is the outcome I want, and therefore what value do I want delivered?”
- Data. Data. Data. Engaging outside firms can be both a relationship and a data-driven business. Data helps you quantify the value you receive from firms and demonstrate the value your team creates for the overall enterprise.
Improving your legal operations isn’t an either/or scenario, it’s actually both/and. Better legal operations will actually make you better at your overall job.
As Gabriel Harnier also said:
Once you realize how powerful things like spend management, matter management, automation and the like are – if you then combine them with the lawyering and the strategic advice giving, it's a beauty.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Cheers,
-Jim
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