Blog

With the rise of new compliance laws like GDPR in Europe, California’s new privacy requirements and other increased privacy scrutiny, as well as well-publicized law firm data breaches, it is understandable that law firms are feeling even more pressure to take steps to reduce their risk profile and triple-check that their data is safe. CIOs are looking at all aspects of security, including how systems can be breached or how data can be shared inadvertently. If you are working on 2018 data protection commitments made to your firm’s upper management, we wanted to make sure you are aware of a tool that can bolster the effects of your data loss prevention (DLP) solution: DLP Tagger.

Law departments are eager to make use of legal analytics technology to better manage their spend and help guide other decisions. According to HBR’s 2017 Law Department Survey of 300 U.S. and global law departments, nearly half of all respondents reported already having legal spend analytics technology, and 24 percent planned to adopt in the next two years. But once the decision is made to implement new or updated legal analytics technology, what is the best way to do it? Law departments have two options: develop it themselves or engage an outside provider.

Corporate law departments are increasingly challenged to track their e-Discovery activities and costs. In today’s metric-focused business environment, law departments should be able to answer simple questions about their e-Discovery lifecycle, including: Exactly how much is being spent on e-Discovery and how do those costs break down? What volume of data is being handled? What is the cost of reviewing documents? What are the opportunities to reduce costs?

In recent years, law firms have seen a major shift in how their libraries function. As new technology has transformed the legal space and firms face a myriad of unique challenges like mergers, employee departures and cost reductions, law library structures and priorities have transformed.

This is the final article in a three-part series of blog posts designed to help corporate law departments take their operations up a notch. In Part One, we provided an overview of maturity models for six of the twelve CLOC Core Competencies that we reviewed with participants in HBR’s educational program at the 2018 CLOC Institute. The post invited readers to examine the models and conduct a self-evaluation to identify the level of maturity that best describes their current state. In Part Two, we shared specific insights for how departments in the “Foundational” stage can take the next step toward operating as an “Advanced” corporate law department.

During my recent visit to Denver for the 2018 Aderant Momentum conference, I noticed a common theme as I interacted with attendees at the conference: Many law firm leaders are currently questioning the effectiveness of their financial reporting systems.

In a previous blog post, my colleague Kevin Clem provided an overview of six unique maturity models that we laid out to participants in HBR’s educational program at CLOC’s 2018 Corporate Legal Operations Institute. Our invitation in that initial post was to study these models and conduct a self-evaluation to determine where your department fits, then challenge yourself to take your operations up a notch.

According to HBR’s 2017 Law Department Survey, 82 percent of law departments expect their legal needs to increase over the next year. Yet, law departments also reported increased efforts to bring matters in house, which presents an interesting opportunity for forward-thinking law firms. Firms that are strategically examining and evolving legal service delivery models to better align with the needs of corporate clients will ultimately be able to differentiate in a rapidly changing market.

Last month, I had the pleasure of moderating an excellent panel at the Consero Legal Operations Forum entitled “Dashboards & Portals: Leveraging Existing Operational Investments for Greater Returns,” in Pasadena, CA.  My esteemed panelists included Scott Fuller from Applied Materials, Brian Pomeroy from Discover Financial Services, Elizabeth Miller from Dolby Laboratories, Julie Cremeans from Fair, and Emelita Hernandez-Bravo from Fitbit.  Each panelist brought a fresh perspective on how to best leverage data and analytics in a sophisticated law department. The audience consisted of the vast majority of the conference’s attendees and included legal operations professionals and practicing lawyers from approximately 80 different companies.