Growing up isn't easy, even for law departments. As the range of options for technology available to in-house legal teams expands, departments want to use these tools to run smarter. However, this doesn't mean the latest legal tech gizmo will be easy to implement and add to the in-house work flow.

To help legal departments measure how they've progressed in their use of tech tools, LexisNexis has created a maturity model that they can benchmark against. This will help general counsel tell others within the company exactly where the legal department is with technology—and where it would like to be.

The appetite for more and better technology in law departments is certainly there. In a recent study of departments by LexisNexis, more than 60 percent cited improving operational efficiency as a top challenge, and more than 40 percent cited making better use of technology. “We're seeing more and more corporate legal departments embracing technology—and that's great,” Kris Satkunas, director of strategic consulting at LexisNexis, told CorpCounsel.com.