The future of the data-driven CLO

Did you know a whopping 40% of CEOs feel that their company will fail over the next 10 years if they maintain their current operational path, according to a new PwC survey?

In July, Agiloft’s General Counsel Laura Richardson, was joined by PwC’s Tyler Marion, Principal of Legal Business Solutions, to discuss the evolution of the Chief Legal Officer (CLO) and the legal department. The conversation focused on the changes that legal teams have experienced over the last decade, how to become a data-driven CLO, and how to be sure their departments are prepared for the inevitable changes coming in the future.  

Transforming Legal’s reputation 

Legal departments are often dubbed the “department of no” and are actively seen as only a cost center to the organization. Legal teams can also be perceived as withholding information, lengthening timelines, or introducing stopgaps throughout certain processes. Ultimately, this perception hurts both the credibility and the accessibility of the legal department, and depending on the organizational scenario, it can lead to external departments bypassing legal and their processes completely.   

But as the roles, responsibilities, and overall impact of the legal department changes, these perceptions will likely shift too.  

Legal departments have been experiencing change for the last few years already. The top 10 priorities for most General Counsels (GCs) over the last decade have expanded from things like litigation, deals, and contracting, to Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), global risk, and more. So, it’s time to take these new responsibilities and handle them with a strategic and business-minded approach. But how? The first step is taking advantage of the wealth of contract data that Legal possesses and provide an easy and self-service way for the rest of the operation to access it.  

Becoming a data-driven CLO 

In order to change the perception, legal teams must change the way they operate. It’s time to change the process and make it more data and user friendly. As Laura mentioned in the webinar, “A post-transformation legal department is both data and process driven, and they move quickly – and it’s not easy to get there. The lift is substantial.”   

First, let’s take stock of what that information is that we have access to. there’s a wealth of knowledge trapped inside contracts, and it’s time to liberate that data. To start, it’s time to think cross-functionally: what data is needed to operate, and what data can Legal share across the operation to provide value? Think of Procurement, Sales, the C-Suite, and more. Introducing process to make improvements on your process overall.  

“Build it and they will come,” right? For legal departments that are looking to transform, the building phase is one of the most important. There are tools across the space to liberate information and data, but today there are platforms specifically created for forward-thinking legal teams. For example, Agiloft’s Data-first Agreement Platform was designed specifically to help the data-driven CLO take their legal department to the next level. 

Laura gave some great advice: take stock of your current process, and don’t lose sight of the goal.

“Shape up your department before you start layering on processes and technology on top of it…as a legal department, start to operate as a business – get things on paper, and don’t boil the ocean,” she advised.  

When you take that look under the legal operations hood, ask yourself a few things:  

• Where are you spending your time? Are you falling to a specific retreat point?  

• How do we make that point part of the new process?  

• What level of risk are you willing to accept if it means the ROI of the process improvement outweighs the potential risk?  
   

Conclusion 

How do you know that you’ve successfully transformed your legal department, and the processes around it?  

Tyler said it best, “You know it’s a success when your day-to-day is asking the harder, tougher questions because everything else is being handled by your process and solution.” 

Want to learn more about becoming a data-driven CLO? Listen to the entire discussion with Laura Richardson and Tyler Marion here.