‘Business management of the legal department brings efficiency, productivity, and survival’
The Wolters Kluwer Foundation and Esade Law School have held their 32nd Professional Meeting to analyse 'What is the role of legal operations in the company?’ These meetings have been held four times a year since 2013 with the aim of transferring knowledge and generating discussion in the legal community through the experience of leading legal experts on management and innovation.
The virtual roundtable was opened by the president of the Wolters Kluwer Foundation, Cristina Sancho, and moderated by Eugenia Navarro, lecturer in strategy and innovation at Esade, and counted with the participation of Jordi Estalella, partner at Alterwork; Javier Gómez-Ferrer, partner at BDO; and Inmaculada Perales, senior manager for transformation, processes, and control of the legal area at Repsol. The participants spoke on their own behalf, and not on behalf of their companies.
Who should lead legal operations?
For Inmaculada Perales, there may be various legal or business profiles suitable to lead this process: ‘but of course they must have good legal and business knowledge, be collaborative, capable of integrating different departments, and have certain specific skills: keenness to innovate, continuous development, efficiency, and analytical ability’.
Efficiency, productivity, and survival
For Javier Gómez-Ferrer, creativity is essential in this function, and he stressed that legal operations ‘are synonymous with efficiency, productivity, and survival, which is fundamental in the current situation’. But he stresses that digital transformation is an essential first step. ‘Thanks to digital transformation and digital tools, we can manage these processes and operations much more efficiently, measure results, and detect areas for improvement’.
Digital transformation and cost reduction
As reflected in the Future Ready Lawyer report which Wolters Kluwer's Legal & Regulatory division compiles every year by interviewing lawyers from ten European countries and the US: digital transformation enables a reduction of costs in a company, law firm, or legal consultancy. Jordi Estalella referred to the resistance that transformation processes often encounter in a sector as attached to tradition as the legal sector. He explained the seven basic steps in the digital transformation roadmap: ‘identify the needs and objectives of the digital transformation; prioritise the KPIs; establish a change management and communication programme; map the processes for detecting the needed improvements; identify the technology; assess the different market solutions; and make an initial test’.
During the session, participants discussed the importance of building diverse teams that bring complementary perspectives to problems; the collaborative culture facilitated by platforms that enable team members to work in real time; and the importance of defining indicators and measuring results to show organisations the value that legal teams bring.
