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Four years ago, Richard Susskind published the first edition of “Tomorrow's Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future.” With the rapid changes in the legal profession, tomorrow is now today.

The second edition of “Tomorrow's Lawyers” focuses more sharply on how artificial intelligence, alternative business structures, low-cost law firm service centers, legal tech startups and evolving in-house roles are changing the way legal services are delivered and how law schools are educating students to meet those changes.

To that end, ALM during October is publishing excerpts across several of our brands from the second edition to spark thought and conversation about the industry's future among the legal profession's leaders. ALM editors and reporters have solicited reactions—positive and negative—to Susskind's ideas from law firm chairs, top legal educators, general counsel, law students and industry analysts to get their take.

Strategy for GCs

In practical terms, how are GCs preparing for the future and, in particular, addressing the more-​for-​less challenge? I cannot answer that question across the board but I have found that four broad strategies are in play, each differing in its scope and ambition. The first strategy has been for GCs to concentrate largely on external law firms and to drive their prices down. This is the preferred method of GCs who pass much of their legal work to external law firms. The second approach, better suited to large in-​house departments, has been to focus instead on reshaping the in-​house departments. The third has been simultaneously to review internal and external capabilities and seek to streamline both. The fourth tack has been the most ambitious—​to start with a blank sheet of paper, to forget the current resources (in-​house and outside) and instead to undertake a comprehensive legal needs analysis for the business. Once this analysis has been completed, the task then has been to identify dispassionately how best to resource the full set of needs; drawing not just on conventional lawyers but on the new legal providers too. This final strategy, in my view, is the one that will deliver the most cost-​effective and responsive legal services for large businesses in the future and, in due course, will be the preferred approach of all competent in-​house functions.

One relatively recent and related development is worth noting—​the appointment of chief operating officers (COOs) or directors of operations in in-​house legal departments. These individuals are charged with the task, broadly speaking, of running the department like a business. Many are focused on strategy, alternative sourcing, more effective procurement, and technology, while their GCs are freed to do what they do best—​acting as counsel to the generals. The COOs themselves are also collaborating: the best example here is CLOC, the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium, a community of COOs set up in 2014.

-Richard Susskind, “Tomorrow's Lawyers, Second Edition”

Analysis

Richard Susskind has been peering around the legal industry's corners for decades. He has written several books about evolving work models and has offered insight into a potential future for the legal field—one that includes artificial intelligence tools, online courts and even more commoditization of matters.

In his research, Susskind spotted an increasingly important legal professional—one he calls the “chief operating officer” or the “director of operations.” Working inside in-house legal departments, such a professional ensures a company's legal function is run like a business by focusing on budgets, technology and efficiency.

Several general counsel and a legal operations professional who spoke to Corporate Counsel agreed with Susskind's evaluation—having a legal ops director can be crucial to the development of a legal department. And, for the legal ops managers themselves, relying on their individual insight isn't always enough—many have chosen to share their best practices and ideas, through organizations such as the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC).

“It's definitely true,” said Airbnb Inc. general counsel Rob Chesnut of the importance of in-house ops directors. “I've hired a chief operations officer who is focused on metrics, improving efficiency, sourcing and procurement of legal services.”

Lyft Inc. general counsel Kristin Sverchek spoke highly of her hire of Frances Pomposo, who she brought in as head of legal operations at the company in late 2016. She said Pomposo's role is to increase efficiency within the legal department and to ensure the in-house lawyers' interests are represented across multiple departments, including information technology, security, privacy and procurement.

“We have been able to streamline a number of processes in a very short amount of time, as well as implement a brand-new contract management system that we are very proud of,” Sverchek said. “Our department has also been able to make great strides when it comes simplifying and automating requests to the legal team when possible through the use of our instant eform in [our contract and document management tool] and we plan on continuing to focus on creating more efficiency gains for the team and the company like these.”

For companies like Lyft and Airbnb—and Facebook Inc. and Uber Technologies Inc.—legal operations directors are a recent addition, with hires made in the last two to three years. But one company was way ahead of the curve, hiring an ops boss for the legal department close to 20 years ago.

“I say—and nobody's disputed me, but I'd like to know, if that's the case—that I think I'm the first person hired in this role in all of Silicon Valley,” said Stephanie Corey, the former legal operations director at Hewlett-Packard Co., who was hired there in 1999. She is now the co-founder of the legal operations provider and consultancy UpLevel Ops.

In the past 18 years, Corey said, legal operations has gone from a behind-the-scenes support role to a front-and-center partnership with general counsel and chief legal officers. She said the success of many sophisticated legal departments depends on that relationship.

“The GC is the 'what,' and the chief of staff is the 'how,'” Corey said.

Margo Smith, chief legal officer for Apttus Corp., and former general counsel to Marketo Inc., said she believes “legal operations to be central to the foundation of a world class legal department.”

Smith added that hiring a full time legal operations professional is a smart move for companies of multiple sizes—not just for the corporate giants of the world.

“Some people assume that having a dedicated legal operations professional or team is reserved for large organizations, but it is just as critical to have a legal operations leader both in smaller legal departments that are naturally resource-constrained, as well as in emerging legal departments just beginning to take shape within a company,” Smith said.

Some of Silicon Valley's biggest companies have had legal ops directors for years. Google Inc. has Mary O'Carroll, head of legal operations hired in 2008. NetApp Inc. has Connie Brenton, chief of staff and director of legal operations, hired in 2010. Yahoo Inc. has Jeffrey Franke, chief of staff to the general counsel and assistant general counsel of global legal operations, hired in 2011. Facebook Inc. has Brian Hupp. Oracle Corp. has Christine Coats. Cisco Systems Inc. has Steve Harmon, and Adobe Systems Inc. has Lisa Konie, a 2004 corporate counsel hire who quickly took on legal operations duties.

Away from their companies, many of these legal ops directors have each other, in the form of CLOC. Brenton, O'Carroll, Franke, Hupp, Coats and Harmon are all members of the group's executive leadership team.

CLOC, which has rapidly increased its membership, puts on conferences, shares best practices and develops collaborative guidelines for interacting with outside counsel on a range of issues, including billing and e-signatures.

Corey, an original co-founder of the organization, said the willingness of other legal ops professionals to work together helped legitimize the industry and its goals. And, by working together, legal ops professionals showed outside vendors there was a real business need for the tools that the ops directors required.

“With technology vendors, any one of us was a little bit influential, but all together, we were incredibly influential,” Corey said. “Tech vendors, instead of saying, 'Oh, just Stephanie needs this,' they saw that these 10 big companies are interested in us helping them, and there's a market for this.”

Corey said that 20 years ago, she never could have imagined the current success of the legal operations industry.

“Truthfully, when I started in the role [with HP], it was more like managing the budget, in an operations manager role,” Corey said. “I really thought I would work in a legal department for four or five years, get some experience and move onto something else.”

Now, it's Corey's—and many others'—full-time career.