Misconceptions About Legal Ops Challenged

A blog on the CLOC site takes on some myths about the purpose, scope, and responsibilities of legal operations. The first is its role, which is not as narrow and well-defined as sometimes portrayed. Some organizations’ legal operations teams focus on paralegal work, others solely on managing budget or technology. Fluency in data, metrics and technology is a good skill set for a legal ops professional but skills in project management and executive presence are equally if not more fundamental. Reliance on legal tech can be over-emphasized. It won’t solve bad processes but it can be integrated into processes to achieve better results. Legal operations management is feasible in all sizes of legal departments. The attorney to legal operations headcount ratio varies drastically from one industry to the next. Start-up legal ops programs put infrastructure in place that can scale as the department grows.