At a time when legal departments are constantly looking to be more efficient, it's not uncommon to hear about new tools and technologies that can go a long way in cutting costs and speeding up processes.

But there doesn't always have to be a massive and tech-heavy overhaul to see improvements, according to Lucy Bassli, former assistant general counsel of legal operations and contracting at Microsoft Corp.

Bassli, who left Microsoft earlier this month to start law firm and consultancy InnoLegal Services, joined a panel at ALM's Legalweek 2018 on Tuesday to discuss how legal departments can best utilize legal operations professionals.

Contract management, e-billing tools and the like may be needed to improve the way a legal department functions. But there “doesn't have to be a leap to technology right away,” Bassli said. “There actually doesn't ever have to be a leap to technology, depending on the size of the department and the volume of the work you have.”

“There's so much talk about innovation this week, as there should be, but innovation does not equal automation,” Bassli said. “Sometimes it can, but right now, especially for where the legal industry is, there's a ton of innovation that can happen with just optimizing processes, just rethinking your resource allocation, the who's doing what type of work, who's doing which parts of the process.”

Bassli explained that in certain circumstances, the best way forward for a legal department can be as simple as rethinking a particular approach. “Why go through an implementation of any kind if you could tweak the process?” she asked.

For example, Bassli recalled a time when she was involved in conversations about mapping the contracting review process used at Microsoft. The realization was that, when checking different databases, it was consistently the case that the database that typically didn't have the information needed was looked at first, simply out of habit. Right away, Bassli said, the process was changed to reflect what would be most efficient. It was a simple tweak, but it's “these tiny things,” she noted, that can amount to success.