By Diana Flanders, Vice President of Strategic Planning and Marketing, Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions
Legal operations has shifted beyond a supporting function within organizations. In an ever-evolving world replete with economic pressures, increased matter complexity, and technology disruption, legal ops teams are essential to corporate growth and profitability.
Companies are under intense pressure to drive greater value from every function, and legal operations is no exception. In fact, positioning legal operations as a strategic business partner has never been more important. While controlling legal spend with modernized technology and streamlined processes remains essential, the most impactful legal ops teams are going far beyond simple cost-cutting.
Today’s legal operations professionals are expected to connect legal priorities to enterprise goals, use data to inform decision-making, and adapt through economic and market headwinds. That shift requires not only new tools, but new mindsets and new skill sets. Legal ops teams are evolving rapidly, and so too must their role within the organization.
Let’s look at two driving factors behind legal operations’ transition from tactical management into a strategic powerhouse.
Speaking the company’s strategic language
Not long ago, legal operations may have started as a reactive function within the business. They would intake legal requests, manage vendors, and track budgets, often in isolation from the larger goals of the organization.
As legal complexity has increased and the expectations of in-house legal teams have grown, a proactive model is essential. Today, the most effective legal ops professionals are those who understand the business as deeply as they understand the legal process.
Strategic legal operations teams are closely partnering with the business, proactively aligning their work with company-wide goals. This level of integration requires fluency in the language and priorities of each business unit and key stakeholders. Legal ops professionals should understand how their actions influence broader financial and operational outcomes, and tailor their strategies accordingly.
From selecting external counsel to setting performance metrics and investing in legal tech, every decision is made with a sharp focus on enterprise priorities like accelerating deal cycles, optimizing spend, managing risk, and strengthening brand integrity. As such, they’re not just building a better legal department, but also a better company.
New skillsets and perspectives drive modern legal ops
This strategic shift is being driven by internal transformation within legal operations departments. While traditional legal ops roles like billing analysts and matter coordinators are still vital, those roles are being complemented by new skill sets and perspectives.
Today’s legal ops teams increasingly include data analysts, legal technologists, change management specialists, and even AI and automation experts. These professionals bring critical capabilities that allow legal departments to extract insights from data, implement scalable tech solutions, and manage complex cross-functional initiatives with agility.
Legal ops organizations must have the right combination of digital literacy and strategic vision. Equipped with the right legal technologies and expertise, legal ops professionals become strategic value drivers, using advanced tools and data analytics to:
- Help organizations make smarter, more informed decisions about law firm selection, ensuring not just cost efficiency but performance alignment.
- Streamline matter management workflows, reduce manual friction, and surface insights that improve legal outcomes.
- Identify areas of spend leakage, uncover hidden inefficiencies, and bring transparency to where every legal dollar is going.
These qualities are indispensable in every business environment but are especially critical now. Legal rates are rising, the regulatory landscape is shifting, and matters are becoming increasingly complicated. In this climate, legal operations professionals with the right blend of strategic insight, technical fluency, and business acumen are essential to shaping their organizations’ direction.
Want to learn more about how this environment is impacting legal ops teams? Download my short paper Why Strategy Matters in Today’s Legal Operations Landscape for my take on why legal departments must evolve beyond cost centers to become true engineers of business value.
