Legal operations has been around for years, decades even. But the movement appears to be having a moment. Though implementing new technologies and processes to drive operational change has often not been the focus of the majority of legal departments in the past, there is now discussion that legal ops professionals may soon become commonplace at companies.

The question remains, though: Is real—and widespread—change actually afoot in a profession that historically clings to its traditions?

In some ways, it seems so. To begin with, there's the Association of Corporate Counsel's Chief Legal Officers 2017 Survey, in which 43 percent of the nearly 1,100 respondents reported having at least one dedicated legal ops professional on the legal team. Forty-eight percent said the same in the 2016 survey, which marked a notable increase from the roughly 20 percent who reported a legal ops staff member in the legal department in 2015.