Many legal ops pros reported friction with
in-house legal staff, negatively impacting decision-making and
collaboration, increasing risk around AI adoption, and fueling
burnout
NEW
YORK, July 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Legal
operations teams face significant challenges aligning with in-house
legal department leadership and managing the rapid adoption of AI
technologies, even as they gain influence and budget within the
department. Specifically, unhealthy power dynamics are hampering
collaboration, productivity, and job satisfaction among many legal
ops professionals.
This is according to Bridging the Divide: Optimizing Legal
Department Performance through Legal Ops, AI, and In-House
Collaboration, a new national study of 200 legal
operations professionals—100 from companies with annual revenue of
$250M to $1B, and 100 from companies with annual revenue
of more than $1B—conducted by Wakefield Research and
commissioned by Axiom.
This report explores insights into some of the crucial aspects
of corporate legal ops teams and the profession itself, including
budgeting and resourcing strategies, the working relationship
between in-house and legal teams, legal technology adoption, the
people and factors that influence technology implementation, AI
policies and usage, career satisfaction and job hunting, and
more.
These insights highlight the crucial role legal ops plays in
driving innovation and efficiency across the legal department,
while exposing a key challenge—namely, gaps in business alignment
and collaboration among many legal ops and in-house legal teams
that can impede the success of the legal department and the
business it serves.
The good news? The insights offered in Wakefield's report
highlight immense opportunities for improving team unity, which can
advance a legal department's efficiency and effectiveness,
accelerate digital transformation, and enhance job satisfaction and
retention. In a nutshell, the research found:
- A Culture Gap: Nearly all legal operations professionals
surveyed reported experiencing tension or conflicts with their
legal teams due to power dynamics or decision-making authority,
with 41% stating this tension occurs often. Not surprisingly, 99%
of respondents believed bridging this gap would improve overall
organizational performance.
- An AI Gap: While the study found AI adoption to be
surging, few organizations have clear policies in place to govern
the implementation of AI technologies. Nearly all legal teams
reported using AI tools, yet 6 out of 10 (64%) businesses surveyed
lack AI policies. Only 3% of respondents said the AI tools used by
their legal teams have been explicitly approved, creating a "side
of the desk use" problem that poses significant compliance and IP
risks.
- A Career Satisfaction Gap: Career mobility, the culture
gap with in-house leadership, and high stress levels are
contributing to current and potential retention issues. Almost a
third (32%) of legal ops pros reported extremely or very high
stress and burnout levels, 64% said they're open to new roles or
actively job searching, and nearly half (49%) indicated their team
struggles with retention. This data suggests a potential wave of
legal ops attrition could be in the offing when economic conditions
improve.
On the upside: While 96% of legal departments reported
budget cuts and hiring freezes over the past year, legal ops
budgets are on the rise. Most legal operations professionals (83%)
reported a budget increase last year, with an average increase of
5%. About the same number of legal ops pros (81%) anticipate
another increase in the next budgeting cycle, with the average
increase projected at 6%. This might reflect increased recognition
of legal ops as a vital in-house partner, especially in light of
the growing role of AI and digital transformation in law.
"In-house and legal ops teams need tight alignment to meet the
challenges of an increasingly complex regulatory, legal, and
technology landscape," said Ashlin
Quirk, Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Axiom.
"The regulatory environment is changing fast across practice areas,
technology is disrupting the business of law, and cost and talent
pressures keep rising. To optimize in-house operations, legal ops
leaders need to be equal partners with their in-house lawyer
colleagues in the decision-making processes that drive innovation,
optimize budgets, and flex capacity."
The full report, Bridging the Divide: Optimizing Legal
Department Performance through Legal Ops, AI, and In-House
Collaboration, is available at
https://www.axiomlaw.com/resources/articles/2024-legal-operations-survey-report.
For more information or to talk to an Axiom representative,
visit https://www.axiomlaw.com. For more information about Axiom,
please visit our website, hear from our experts on the Inside Axiom
blog, network with us on LinkedIn, and subscribe to our YouTube
channel.
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