Survey Provides Key Insights on the Future of Legal Ops

The legal ops’ role within companies is becoming more and more significant, driving efficiency, innovation, and strategic alignment, as Axiom’s Kelsey Provow writes in a recent blog post. Axiom commissioned a survey by Wakefield Research of 200 legal ops professionals across various industries to explore the current state and future of legal ops.

Here are some of the major findings from the survey:

• Contrary to a broader trend of budget cuts at legal departments, legal operations teams are experiencing budget growth. With 83% of survey respondents reporting increased budgets last year and 81% expecting even more budget expansion, legal ops is gaining recognition as being critical to in-house legal success.
• Interdepartmental dynamics between legal ops professionals and in-house lawyers remain a challenge, with conflicts often arising from power dynamics and unclear roles. According to the survey, more than 60% percent reported being affected by perceived power imbalances and/or overlapping expertise.
• There is strong resistance in process improvement and technology adoption. Many legal teams face difficulties in implementing new tools due to the resistance of in-house legal teams. A whopping 95% of survey respondents said that that in-house lawyers and paralegals are not completely open to making changes- even when those changes are based on legal ops feedback and decisions.

• The survey illustrates a concerning situation regarding artificial intelligence (AI) adoption and governance within legal departments. is slow. Only 37% of respondents say their organizations have artificial intelligence (AI) policies in place and 96% of respondents admit they are using unapproved AI tools. The gap between AI’s technology and governance within legal departments exposes organizations to potential risks and liabilities.
• There is broad agreement on the need for improved collaboration between in-house legal teams and legal ops, with 100% of respondents acknowledging that alignment would boost performance.

The survey underscores the importance of communication, defined roles, change management, and AI governance to the future of legal ops.

To respond to these challenges, Axiom suggests that legal departments work on fostering better communication between legal and legal ops teams, better defining roles within organizations, developing strong change management strategies, implementing comprehensive AI policies, and investing more in legal ops departments.