The Core Volatility of
Legal operations
While it’s a well-known concept, what does “Legal Operations” imply? In essence, the word “legal operations” refers to internal legal procedures and activities that ought to operate professionally. However, it focuses primarily on making the legal department more effective for contemporary organizations in areas like financial management, service design, and analytics.
During the COVID pandemic, all businesses struggled with handling the repercussions of their operations to varying extents. When it comes to legal operations, however, this is a direct impact that has been addressed, as the move to working from home (or remote work) has resulted in a new slew of legal matters that need to be addressed.
Several research and consulting projects within various businesses have been conducted using 12 main areas as the industry-recognized benchmarks for what makes up a practical Legal Operations function. These span fundamental levels up to mature, advanced levels. Any organization that chooses to comprehend legal operations can use these competencies to determine the level of its success and allocate resources for the competencies that follow that success.
Organizations can use Core 12 to determine which competencies require the most investment to meet their goals. As numerous companies try to optimize for excellence in these areas, they all encounter the same difficulties.
The core 12 areas are as follows:
- Cross-functional alignment
- Data Analytics
- Financial management
- Vendor management
- Knowledge management
- Technology & process support
- Communications
- Service delivery & alternative support models
- Organizational design, support & management
- Litigation support & IP management
- Information governance and records management
- Strategic planning
Beyond calculating departmental (or even corporate-wide) cost reductions, a Legal Operations team’s genuine worth and influence must also be taken into account. The capacity to increase connections between business units like finance, human resources, and information technology is one of the biggest advantages that cannot be measured.