The Essence of ACC Legal Operations
Legal operations, both within the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) and across the industry as a whole, is defined as the management of the internal business of the legal department of an organization, such as a corporation. Members of the legal team working within legal operations are responsible for providing not only technical legal expertise and support but also implementing better practices, providing more value, and improving efficiency and quality in the general operation of the legal department.
Legal operations personnel often work across functional lines and collaborate with all members of the legal team, including the legal administrative staff . They also coordinate and work with those involved in eDiscovery, records management, knowledge management, vendor and contract management, finance, billing, collections, matter and project management, and reports and analytics. They are charged with working to understand and communicate the needs of the legal team and those they support to ensure that information and technical tools are flowing between departments and functions as needed. Additionally, they are expected to document best practices, processes, strategies, and procedures to further educate those in and eventually outside the legal team of why things are currently done in a certain way, and how doing them differently (or more efficiently) can lead to better results.
Functions of ACC Legal Operations
At the American Corporate Counsel (ACC) in-house legal operations environment, these functions may be known as the backbone of legal departments. They seek to cross commercial functional silos, create aligned processes, and act as a process-oriented knowledge center to facilitate better decisions.
Process Optimization – These roles exist to standardize, streamline, rationalize, and optimize the functional processes for a legal department to be more efficient and effective.
Technology Management – Many ACC legal ops roles specifically address the requirements of identifying, implementing, and managing the technology suites that the legal operations department needs to communicate, track, and manage contract, e-billing, matter management, and client portals.
Financial Management – The ACC legal ops professionals maintain the financial controls, budgetary constraints, vendor billing, and provisioning of talent to ensure alignment between corporate finance department and ACC legal.
Vendor Management – In addition, a role exists to procure legal services vendors for ACC legal department as the procurement interface for outside counsel.
In-house Consulting – Finally, one role focuses on providing business consulting services to other business units within company.
The Advantages of Legal Ops at ACC
Incorporating legal operations into the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) can have numerous benefits for corporate counsel. By capitalizing on efficiency and cost savings, ACC members can become more strategic and business-oriented as well as more agile and innovative than ever before.
One of the biggest advantages to legal operations is that it can help grow the legal function from a cost center to a value center. A 2018 report prepared by ACC’s Chief Legal Officers Summit provides substantial evidence this is true. As ACC put it, "Legal departments are meeting rising expectations and increasing their value to the business by adding sophisticated operations functions."
Using a panel of legal experts that included the Chair of the ACC board, the Chair of the ACC Legal Operations Section, the Deputy General Counsel, Head of Solutions and Operations at Bank of America, and the Vice President of Legal Operations at Harman International, ACC has identified the key benefits to implementing legal ops:
"Apply the operations model to identify alternatives and choose based on strategic alignment, financial impact (including risk-adjusted value), and budget implication." Equip legal ops professionals with expertise and leverage them to deal with critical issues in their organization, such as legal technology and cybersecurity.
Focus on the implementation plan to see if it is realistic. Ensure that there is a funding plan, address distraction, and set firm dates for all major milestones.
Work collaboratively rather than strategically on the overall approach of the efforts.
Recruit those who bring knowledge about the company and legal services from different perspectives, work across silos to increase the breadth of their organization, and hire leaders who understand how to drive change.
Align with strategic enterprise-wide goals and create a process for replacing outdated ideas, even sacred cows.
Use data to tell the legal department’s story and realize the bottom line business value.
Understand that legal departments are shifting from a spend focus to value focus.
In order for ACC members to get the most out of their legal teams, it is crucial that they employ the services of legal operations professionals to ensure proper planning and coordination. Those who do will be able to advantage of the numerous benefits that legal ops promises.
Role of Technology in ACC Legal Operations
Technology is an integral part of modernizing legal operations and enhancing their capabilities to benefit both in-house counsel and legal department management. Document management tools provide solutions for a fundamental struggle faced by ACC legal professionals: a robust knowledge management system. To this end, tools like iManage for document management and governance, legal departments can shore up process and improve efficiencies by using platforms such as Onna and HighQ. E-billing solutions such as TyMetrix and Bill4Time help address the challenges with timekeeping, billing, and the management of external counsel fees. Work management tools such as Asana, Monday . com, and SmartSheet can be leveraged for project tracking and administrative tasks, while contract lifecycle management (CLM) solutions such as ContractSafe and contract management software such as Contract Logix can help streamline contract generation, execution, and tracking. Legal operations professionals can also better serve in-house counsel by using AI-powered research platforms like Kira and Casetext. Finally, corporate legal management systems (CLMS), such as Onit or Mitratech, provide a robust platform for the management of a multitude of legal operations challenges from matter management to the management of financials.
Pain Points in Legal Operations at ACC
One of the significant challenges in ACC Legal Operations is effective change management. Many organizations face internal resistance, often because of fears associated with changing established processes and traditional methods of evaluating legal service providers. In addition, ACC Legal Operations may struggle with how best to implement and integrate new systems, programs and technologies while promoting buy-in across the global organization. These implementation challenges can cause delays and short-term loss of productivity and forethought as to the impact of these changes on how lawyers do document reviews can minimize long-term disruption of the business. From a technology perspective, seamless integrations and solutions that work across numerous software programs, systems and/or platforms are essential to ACC Legal Operations success. The level of security of firm attorneys reviewing documents also needs to be taken into consideration. And the ability to monitor legal productivity through the use of key performance indicators (KPIs) also helps to assure project and staffing needs are met.
Future Considerations for Legal Operations
The world of ACC Legal Ops is changing, and at a rapid pace. Emerging trends such as innovative tools for project management, efficiencies in work allocation and data analytics are at the forefront of this shift. Many of the changes involve the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) where machines take previously complex decisions , data and analysis and distill it into actionable information that can be used by ACC Legal Ops leaders. The analytical abilities of computers and advanced algorithms provide awesome tools for improving efficiency and gaining insights that were previously lost in the ether. Another important area is the new alternative legal service provider (ALSP). Consisting of 100s of companies globally, ALSPs represent one of the fastest growing areas of the legal services sector in recent years and take a variety of forms. Many ACC Legal Ops leaders are using ALSPs to meet their technical challenges and help support D.E.I. initiatives. The ACC Legal Ops field is thriving, and its future looks bright.