When the First Law Department Operations Surveys were tallied last year, the results could have been summed up as “incremental improvement, exponential results.” While it is still true that many legal departments can benefit from the type of manager who can handle the day-to-day details, the challenges and opportunities have changed dramatically in the last 12 months, according to those who have responded to this year's survey.

“The current economic environment has really driven home that the law is a business,” says Brad Blickstein, principal of the Blickstein Group. “The operations manager who has always done a fine job keeping the trains running on time now is expected to do much, much more.”

As the Second Annual Law Department Operations Survey proves, legal department managers are juggling a number of different tasks in an effort to do much, much more.