Corporate Legal Departments Increasingly Relied Upon to Do More, According to LDO Index Report
More than two-thirds (68 percent) of legal departments said they are facing increasing legal work demands. This is among the findings from the fourth edition of the “Thomson Reuters Legal Tracker™ Legal Department Operations (LDO) Index Report.” The report, released in late October, looks at the qualitative and quantitative insights into the operations of corporate legal departments.
“It is clear corporate legal departments continue to face the pressures of addressing a growing workload. Legal departments, and legal operations teams, continue to explore new ways that people, process and technology can impact the delivery of legal services and management of the legal function to control cost, increase efficiency, maximize effectiveness and ultimately demonstrate value,” said Chris Maguire, customer proposition lead for Large Corporate Accounts at Thomson Reuters. “By benchmarking performance and understanding industry trends, legal departments continue to become more sophisticated in approach to control spend and maximize their organization’s competitive advantage.”
This latest report has expanded its commentary to examine trends over the last three years. The report reveals that the priorities of corporate legal departments remain consistent – controlling outside counsel costs; using technology to simplify workflow and manual processes; focus on internal data security; driving internal efficiency in delivery of legal services and focus on legal operations.
The report also includes benchmarking data from more than $90 billion in legal spending from more than 1,400 legal departments and 62,000 law firms, as well as responses to a July 2019 survey of corporate legal departments that use Legal Tracker, the world’s largest legal index.
The news release highlighting additional key findings can be viewed here, and the 2019 Legal Tracker LDO Index Report can be downloaded here.