As legal practitioners, we are as much a part of the global quest to increase operational efficiency and effectiveness as every other profession or industry.

For in house counsel, it is important that we are able to relate to the problem statement in our operations. One of the issues identified is the age-old perception that the legal department is a bottleneck to business operations. In-house legal practitioners will, in their defense, argue that their operations are not appreciated as they are largely qualitative, in contrast with the overall corporate objectives which are generally quantitative. I am familiar with both perspectives and now tend to have a more balanced approach to the two perspectives.

My mind became more amenable after undertaking training in performance appraisal and management as well as the Balanced Scorecard appraisal system. I realized that my pursuit for operational excellence would be impacted if I did not embrace the thinking around performance and the indicators of performance in the organization.

First of all, whether you are a legal practitioner or not, efficiency and effectiveness should be the cornerstone of your performance. Once you are settled on that, it becomes clearer what your objectives are as a provider of legal services to the organization.

It is important to be understanding and empathetic towards the needs of the actors/ department you are employed to support and vice versa. For example, for a transaction that the organisation has committed to a hard deadline for closure and in default, the transaction would abort, what value would be created if your legal review, as impeccable as it may have been, was completed after the hard deadline? The answer is obviously, nothing but a lot of trouble!

The advent of technology has introduced ease and efficiency that was never before imagined and the legal industry has not been left behind in terms of solutions being designed for the more efficient delivery of services. However, the traditions associated with the practice and compensation for legal services have registered slow traction in terms of adaptation to change. The statistics relating to the uptake of technology by legal departments or law firms are generally below expectation. As a result, the practitioners themselves have little or nothing to contribute to a developer of a technological solution for their operations. This in turn may lead to endless complaints from the targeted user about how “unfriendly” the solution is.

Once we come to terms with the fact that technology need not be seen as the monster that has come to devour our trade and/or income, we will become more amenable to leading thought and innovation as the new way of doing business.

Join me in part 2 of 3 as we discuss the various functions of legal operations with a view to unlock some of our fears around doing things differently in this digital era.

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