The inaugural BusyLamp Legal Operations Benchmarking report complements existing legal operations reports that are mainly compiled from US data. The international survey of legal departments from 13 countries and more than 25 industries examines what strategies are in use by legal departments internationally, and highlights differences between countries, industries, legal expenditures and legal department sizes.
The report includes results and written analysis of legal operations trends in a number of areas, including legal department priorities, legal operations maturity and staffing, use of legal technology, external legal spend trends and managing outside counsel.
Key legal operations TRENDS:
- It is still very common (44%) to have legal operations covered as part of someone else’s role, not a full-time position, though more than half have at least one full-time resource.
- The USA is more likely to have developed legal operations teams of two or more people, perhaps owing to a higher legal spend than the other countries. This creates a greater need for legal operations resources and the benefits they bring with regard to lowering cost and improving value and productivity.
- Lack of internal resources is the main reason legal departments outsource work (37%), but there are differences between countries.
- The majority of issues encountered by law firms are related to billing or perceived value for money.
Legal technology can address spend management challenges
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A very interesting finding is that although reducing legal spend is the second priority of those surveyed, and most law firm service issues are billing related, less than half of legal departments are using spend management software. With 74% of respondents expecting their legal technology budget to increase in 2019, legal operations managers should consider e-Billing software because it will solve these immediate challenges. Find out how.
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