Extract from Trudy Knocless’ article “Legal Departments See Gaping Digital Divide, as Some Spend Nothing on Tech and Others Spend More and More”
While many in-house legal teams are stepping up with contract lifecycle management and AI tools, others are still stuck in manual workflows that limit oversight and expose them to risk.
That’s one of the key takeaways from the newly released 2025 Legisway Benchmark for Legal Departments by Wolters Kluwer, which surveyed more than 700 in-house legal professionals across the U.S. and Europe. The report paints a picture of legal departments caught between two realities—one group moving toward digital maturity and strategic alignment, and another struggling with outdated processes and insufficient tech investment.
Legal teams in the U.S. are feeling the strain of day-to-day operations. Most respondents reported that contract and entity management—core pillars of legal operations—are handled in-house. Yet the methods vary widely—just 42% use dedicated contract lifecycle management software, while a third still rely on shared drives like Google Drive and SharePoint. Thirteen percent manage contracts with no structured system at all.
Getting over the tech hump can be time-consuming and painful—but worth it in the end.
In the report, Christian Georg, senior legal counsel at Elkem, said his company’s diverse business model, which ranges from purchasing coal to selling specialized silicones, required the development of tailored AI tools and custom solutions. “We found that implementing a one-size-fits-all CLM solution was not ideal,” Georg said
