Extract from Emilie Neumeier’s article “Doing More, Differently: How In-House Legal Teams Overcome Resource Strain, Embrace Tech, and Navigate Risk”
For most in-house legal teams, 2023 has become the year of “doing more with less.” In fact, 79 percent of respondents of Relativity and FTI’s General Counsel Report said they were experiencing a strain on legal department resources, budget, and/or capacity.
While under intense pressure to meet the bottom line, how can an in-house team set themselves up for success? At CLOC’s Global Institute (CGI) 2023, many sessions set out to answer this question. We’ve compiled the best advice from the conference, along with the latest research into how corporate legal teams can advance despite the challenging environment we find ourselves in today.
Become an Engine Room of Transformation and Overcome the Department of “No”
In the not-too-distant past, many in-house teams found themselves an island away from their colleagues across other departments. From “don’t tell Legal” to “the fastest way to ‘no’ is Legal,” there was a wall between the legal department and—well, everyone else. That wall prevented in-house teams from being seen as strategic partners to accelerating business objectives, but it also shielded the budget, with department spend being accepted as simply the cost of legal operations.
Fast forward to today, and becoming an active partner in business communications has not come without costs (literally). Still, lifting the veil on organizational budgets and becoming an active partner in everyday business has been to the benefit of most legal departments. This participation has enabled in-house teams to push back on requests and initiatives that don’t meet overall business needs, avoid burnout, and become the “engine room of transformation” or their organizations.
