Legal Operations Maturity Levels Vary Across Industries

An article by Harbor Global highlights a recent forum where one hundred twenty Legal Operations professionals were brought together to discuss legal operations maturity levels and industry-specific trends from the annual Harbor Law Department Benchmarking Survey.

The sessions revealed differences, commonalities, and the increasing role of data-driven decision-making. While highly regulated sectors emphasized talent over technology, all law departments prioritized resource optimization leveraging technology, as reaffirmed by live polling during the sessions. 

Resource optimization turned out to be the number one initiative ahead of competency frameworks, diversity, employee engagement, leadership, management development, organizational structural enhancement, and training programs. 

According to the Law Department Benchmark Survey, 80% of legal teams plan to handle increased demand by increasing their existing resources or current technology or redistributing work to an appropriate resource. This resource optimization extends to outside counsel as well, with initiatives like form stratification, using RFP software, or leveraging select firms. 

Industry differences emerged, with highly regulated sectors exhibiting more hesitancy towards technology adoption but excelling in talent management. Tech companies lead in technology maturity, while healthcare and manufacturing lag, potentially due to pandemic-related burnout and historical technology adoption rates.

The data from the Law Department Survey and Sounding Boards’ polling underscores the importance of re-engaging with data-driven decision-making in 2024. This is crucial for increasing Legal Operations maturity levels and optimizing resources amidst growing demand.