The BusyLamp Legal Operations Benchmarking Report was created to complement existing legal operations reports that are mainly compiled from US data. BusyLamp wanted to examine what strategies are used across the board internationally, and discover where country differences appear. To achieve this aim, BusyLamp surveyed legal department professionals from 13 countries and more than 25 industries. The average legal department of those surveyed had 57 employees and €68 million external legal spend.
Key findings in the report include:
It is still very common (44%) to have legal operations covered as part of someone else’s role, not a full-time position, though more than half have at least one full-time resource.
The USA is more likely to have developed legal operations teams of two or more people, perhaps owing to a higher legal spend than the other countries. This creates a greater need for legal operations resources and the benefits they bring with regard to lowering cost and improving value and productivity.
74% of respondents expect their legal technology budget to increase in 2019.
Lack of internal resources is the main reason legal departments outsource work (37%), but there are differences between countries.
The majority of issues encountered by law firms are related to billing or perceived value for money.
Michael Tal, co-founder and co-CEO says, “A very interesting finding was that although reducing legal spend is the second priority of those surveyed, and that most law firm service issues are billing related, less than half of legal departments are using spend management software. With 74% of respondents expecting their legal technology budget to increase in 2019, this budget should be spent on software like eBilling because it will solve these challenges in a number of ways”.
You can download the report here:
https://www.busylamp.com/legal-operations-benchmarking-report-2019/?utm_campaign=lob19_ref_litin