Legal Operations Leaders Ponder Right Path for Strategic Growth

Mary O’Carroll, a leader in the corporate legal operations world, recently posed a question to her LinkedIn followers: “Are we losing momentum?”

O’Carroll’s post, which reignited a debate in the field, signaled her concern about a reduction in the number of high-level legal operations jobs at companies, she said in an interview. It nodded at a tension in the world of legal ops, the legal department function that handles non-lawyering work such as budgeting, communications, and technology implementation.

“The question is: Will these roles continue maturing into strategic leadership positions that drive alignment with organizational goals?” O’Carroll asked in her post. “Or will they plateau as tactical functions, focused primarily on managing tools, vendors, and budgets?”

The perceived stagnation in legal operations leaves the field at a juncture between two very different futures: One where senior legal ops professionals work closely with chief legal officers and general counsel on high-level decisions, and another where the legal ops function as a whole is relegated to procedural work.

Interviews with more than half a dozen legal ops leaders reveal an uncertainty that reflects the relative newness of the developing field. The Corporate Legal Operations Consortium, legal ops’ main trade group, is less than 10 years old and has 6,300 members across 1,900 companies. Sixty-eight percent of companies with annual revenue of more than $1 billion employ at least one legal operations professional, according to a 2023 survey by the Association of Corporate Counsel.

O’Carroll and others say there are still plenty of legal ops jobs. But it’s the high-level, high-paying ones—like the one she once held at Google—that are harder to come by, some said.

“I think those roles have just completely fallen off a cliff,” O’Carroll, now chief operating officer at Goodwin Procter LLP, said.

Legal ops leaders told Bloomberg Law that some GCs struggle to see the value of the operations role. Outside service providers can bring some of the benefits of legal ops without requiring companies to hire full-time ops professionals, some ops leaders said.

Oyango Snell, CLOC’s executive director, said his industry is evolving and striving for more visibility in the legal world.

“We might be at an inflection point in our industry,” he said, adding legal ops “might not be losing momentum, but it might be changing.”

Mismatched Expectations

Stephanie Corey, the founder of a legal ops networking and events organization, said there is often a mismatch between what in-house counsel hope to get from legal ops and the capabilities of the people they hire. GCs who hire legal ops pros have heard from colleagues that legal ops can boost efficiency and improve their offices, she said. But in practice, GCs often hire someone who isn’t always a perfect fit.

“First of all, you’re hiring people who may not be as experienced as what you needed,” Corey said. “And secondly, your expectations are very unrealistic.”

Corey’s group, the Legal Innovators Network, was recently acquired by the L Suite, a general counsel networking organization. She hopes the acquisition will help legal ops professionals and in-house lawyers to better understand each other.

Jeff Franke, a founder of CLOC who went on to launch another legal ops group, said some of the unevenness in the legal ops job market was a sign of GCs’ high interest in legal ops. They’re looking to hire legal ops professionals even though the field’s youth means there aren’t a ton of people with relevant experience.

“A lot of the new people are coming in with no background because there’s no place to get a background,” Franke said.

Franke said he and co-founder Connie Brenton created LegalOps.com to fill that gap and and train professionals.

“I think overall, people are very bullish about this space,” he said. “And it’s proven by the number of people who are entering the space.”

Careful Conclusions

Legal department leaders should be careful about drawing broad conclusions about the effectiveness of legal ops, Alex Su, chief revenue officer at the legal staffing company Latitude, said.

“There is a perception it is not always adding value,” Su said. “I personally think it’s because of the people who are sitting in the seat of the legal ops role, but that’s not a comment on whether or not legal ops is valuable. It’s a comment on who is the person who is sitting in that role.”

O’Carroll said legal ops professionals need to be proactive about expanding their roles and can’t wait for a legal department leader to anoint them with strategic responsibility, she said.

“We as a profession or as individuals in these roles have to take some sort of responsibility for this as well,” she said.

Other Strategic Solutions

Legal operations professionals are facing competition internally and externally, O’Carroll said. GCs and CLOs are taking on strategic responsibilities alongside their company’s leaders, perhaps reducing the need to hire someone else. Outside consultants can also perform some legal ops functions.

“There are just so many more options to accomplish the goal of the legal operations function,” she said in an interview.

Franke was more skeptical that outside professional service firms and legal ops consultants can set up an ops shop. GCs understand the value of having full-time legal ops professionals and it’s hard for outside entities to do the full strategic analysis necessary for an ops department, he said.

“What we’re seeing is the role exists in almost every company now,” Franke said. “So now the dynamic is how do you build it out.”

Adam Becker, the director of legal ops at Cockroach Labs, a maker of databases, was also more optimistic.

“There’s definitely a sentiment that this is an expanding strategic situation, so it’s not all doom and gloom,” Becker said.