Understanding Legal Ops: Mentor and Mentee Reflections
Caroline Bedford is a law student at Curtin University and a mentee in the TLF Connect program. Her mentor is Katrina Gowans, National Legal Transformation Lead for Origin Energy .
As a TLF Connect Mentee, I was matched with Katrina Gowans, National Legal Transformation Lead at Origin Energy. One topic that Katrina and I discussed often was perspectives – how the importance of having different perspectives can bring new and fresh insights into understanding a section of the legal industry. Taking inspiration from this, Katrina and I collaborated to write a post on understanding Legal Operations – from the perspective(s) of a Law Student and a current Legal Ops professional.
What is Legal Operations?
Caroline: Although I am yet to become an expert in all things Legal Ops, I think Legal Ops is about ‘doing more with less,’ aiming to support the legal team by looking to improve or implement platforms that help the legal team run like a mini business. Legal Ops can help optimise legal delivery and improve the efficiency of their services. It is about internal transformation within the Legal team allowing the Legal team to dwell into other areas aside from standard lawyer role, areas such as data analytics, workflow automation, and legal project management.
Katrina: Legal Ops is my life (well, my working life at least). Essentially, Legal Ops is all about how a legal team or legal function operates itself as a business that does more than just provide legal advice. Legal Ops can help by bringing structure and planning to activities that demonstrate the value of a legal team, using skills such as Strategic Planning, Data and Analytics, Financial Management, Matter Management and Knowledge Management. Historically, some of these activities may have been in place and managed by different lawyers or administrative staff in the team. But Legal Ops seeks to bring these elements together so that the team has a holistic view of what it is doing and why.
What benefits can Legal Ops offer the Legal Industry?
Caroline: Legal Ops allows legal services to shift to be more client centred focused, whether that be for the business itself (in-house) or a sector of the community. Legal Ops can be used as disruptive technology, providing innovative and alternative legal advice or solutions. The legal industry can learn from Legal Ops in the sense that it can have human centred design in which projects can be tailored to suit the needs of that particular legal team meaning that platforms can be created to support the business or community and to see how the legal team can be future-thinking, making adaptations whilst also considering the standard factors of business/law firm day-to-day operations.
Katrina: For lawyers working in-house (in a company), Legal Ops is important in order to align the legal function with other parts of the business, by supporting the development and delivery of a clear strategy, key performance indicators and financial targets. It can also help a team with core competencies such as knowledge management (how the team institutionalises what its lawyers know) and vendor management (how the team derives the best value from arrangements with external legal service providers).
For lawyers in law firms, Legal Ops is emerging as both a key function to support the lawyers int the delivery of innovative legal advice and legal solutions, as well as the potential to provide these services externally in a form of consultancy.
Future trends – where do you think Legal Ops is going?
Caroline: I can say that Legal Ops is definitely an up and coming field within the legal industry. Particularly, from a student perspective with the growing realisation that law can change to become more efficient, I do see law firms shifting to develop programs that can allow students to develop skills that can be applied to working as Legal Ops Professional whether that be through innovation workshops, legal design or equipping graduates with other skills such as project management in order to apply a different way of thinking. Here’s to becoming tech savvy 21st century lawyers!
Katrina: Two key trends that I see emerging are:
the continued shift to develop and implement workflows and automation. This shift is designed to get lawyers out of the mechanics of the back and forward with email and phone calls and instead use technology to automate elements of the legal advice process and free up the lawyer to do the legal thinking and advising; and
in terms of the profession more broadly, more in-house teams are recognising the value of engaging a legal operations professional to coordinate some of the elements described above, while those in small legal teams and finding ways to carve out the time away from business as usual to focus on these tasks. While more people in the Australian legal industry now know what legal operations is, we are yet to reach critical mass.
Caroline: I’ve loved the program! Having done mentoring programs before it is rare to find one that is structured and offers additional resources that focuses on looking at the alternatives to private practice. Cristabel and the TLF Connect Program team have done an amazing job, I’ve found the program to be not only inspiring but a way to connect with others that share the same interests as me. Also, a shoutout to Katrina for being such a wonderful mentor and for allowing me to experience all the awesome things that she does as a Legal Ops professional!
Katrina: My overriding reflection of the TLF connect program is impressive! From the program design, the materials provided, the organisers, the get-togethers and finally the mentees themselves, everything made me feel confident that the legal profession of tomorrow is in safe hands.
Personally, I have enjoyed the opportunity to connect with Caroline and hear about the challenges facing law student today (a very different landscape to what I experienced in a time before Caroline was born!).