Do you have insight into the type and volume of work being done across the team?

This can be a challenge for many law department leaders who may not have the infrastructure in place to track, triage and monitor workloads - but it is critical to effective resource management.  Exploring options like automation and alternative resourcing for lower risk and lower complexity work can be a natural path forward once you have this insight. Dentons Helix team shares a number of resources and perspectives (and provides a consultancy/implementation service) on how you can gather the data and change your resourcing model to meet your organization's needs and budget.

Is your contracting function optimized for success?

One area that is ripe for optimization and the subject of so much attention in the legal technology universe is contracts and your contracting lifecycle. Finding opportunities to improve your contracting function's efficiency, supporting self-service and even having an outsourced service manage certain types of contracts, can alleviate the pressure on already thinly stretched resources.

Are you engaging outside counsel effectively and efficiently?

While efficiencies and value can be gained from a panel arrangement, if you don’t change the way in which you are engaging with law firms, you may simply be using the same inefficient work processes with fewer firms. One area that is ripe for improvement between legal departments and law firms is the pre-matter analysis and scoping of work for the proposed project. Ensuring that you are clear with your objectives, the deliverables, timelines, milestones, specific tasks and expected outcomes is a first step to ensuring clear and efficient instruction.