In companies headquartered outside the US, in-house teams are often smaller. Many executives don't know much about how legal services are delivered. That makes it harder for the General Counsel to argue for dedicated legal operations resource. I had the good fortune to ask CLOC's leaders at the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) conference in London how in-house leaders globally can make a winning case for legal operations.

Meeting CLOC's A-team evangelists (their Board) face to face, I was struck by their close-knit style and unbridled optimism. It's no wonder. All seven lead legal operations at multinationals with neighboring headquarters on south San Francisco Bay: Adobe, Cisco, Facebook, Google, NetApp, Oracle and Yahoo.  That community feel has proved powerful not just in building new CLOC members across North America and beyond and shining a bright spotlight on this fast-growing profession.

Slow growth in Legal Ops outside the US and UK? Not for long

Legal ops professionals are valued, high-impact players in many top corporate legal functions today, and especially in American and British companies.  What the legal operations pro actually does varies based on your corporate legal team's strategy and level of sophistication.  What's certain are the capabilities legal ops can deliver to improve Legal's contribution to the company.

Where I work internationally, I see very few dedicated legal operations people in corporate legal teams.  Yet I'm convinced that the legal operations role will grow around the world. Why? It makes excellent business sense.

If you're among the global in-house counsel that don't have a clear picture of the legal operations role and what all the talk is about, I offer you this rationale:

1. In any industry and for any company in the world that does business internationally, it's likely that technology and efficiency are focal points for the organization. That focus has spread to Legal and all other functions.

2. Demands on you and your corporate legal team grow year after year, while headcount and budgets stay limited. The most certain route (likely the only route) to sustainable legal services delivery is technology-driven operational innovation.

3. Few in-house lawyers, let alone your leaders, have the experience and bandwidth to implement operational innovation and find ways to improve efficiency yearly. You need help from experienced, dedicated professionals.

4. To defend your budget and fund technology and process to improve your performance for internal clients, you must present a compelling case. Metrics, the language of business, are required as you set your goals and show results. Legal ops pros, skilled at mining and presenting data, can help you build your case.

5. Cyber breach, supply chain disruption, financial reporting issues and third-party problems all fuel corporate crises that demand a fast and informed response from Legal. Your in-house leader and team can't deliver without access to good data. Legal ops can help.

It's up to you, General Counsel

As powerful as the rationale is (and there are many points I didn't get to), success in growing the legal operations role in companies worldwide rests mostly with the General Counsel. If the legal operations role is a new concept in your company, gather information from peers in US and UK-headquartered global companies. You'll learn about achievements and advances achieved with legal operations support.

Aine Lyons, based in Ireland as Deputy General Counsel for Worldwide Legal Operations at VMWare, is one of the people you can call.  “Fearless legal innovators” is our mantra,” Aine says. We see our role as business enablers. The legal innovator DNA devises ways to better mitigate legal risks while still pursuing business objectives as the global environment changes. We work closely with our stakeholders to help them achieve their business goals and get to market more quickly.”

Use these tips to make your case

Shortly after you hear concrete examples of how the legal operations function contributes, you'll be developing your own big list of ways that they could help you. And then, Madame General Counsel, you must effectively convince those who will make the decision to fund the resource.

Use these tips to make your case for dedicated legal operations support, straight from the pros:

“The role of the General Counsel has evolved from risk manager to trusted advisor, and this change is a primary reason for legal operations.  Today's GC advises and counsels the Board, the CEO, and responds to various stakeholders. In a big global company, it's a huge job, and it's not just legal work. GCs need help setting and driving day-to-day operations. Legal Operations is about running a legal department efficiently, building bridges and busting silos throughout the enterprise.” – Connie Brenton, Chief of Staff and Director of Legal Operations at Net App, and CEO of CLOC.

“The operations function can pay for itself without question. The role will depend on the legal organization's size and external spend. Through a strong focus on operational effectiveness, defining KPI's and metrics and analyzing data that you already have– such as outside counsel spend—legal ops helps the GC identify potential savings. A logical starting point is external spend with law firms and other vendors. The legal ops function implements billing guidelines, introduces alternative fee arrangements and creates a rigorous and more efficient process to select law firms for major matters.” – Hans Albers, Chief of Staff and Head of Worldwide Legal Operations, Juniper Networks, Amsterdam

“The legal operations function is not only about cost savings. An operations team can improve the department's effectiveness, and let experienced lawyers focus on the complex, strategic work.  Legal ops enables the GC to put lower-cost resources to work on contract automation or handle high-volume, low-risk matters. - Hans Albers

“A dedicated legal operations lead can help the general counsel transform their legal department from a “back office” function into a strategic enabler for the business.  A part-time lawyer with legal operations duties can only scratch the surface of what is required to build the legal departments of the future.  At VMWare we use legal technologies, business intelligence and data analytics to help us automate standard processes, to assess and monitor risk and apply laser focus to priority areas.

“We measure ourselves not only on outcomes, but also on responsiveness, cycle times and our overall ease-of-doing-business profile with our customers and partners. Innovations by Legal have positioned VMware to improve our work with customers globally by harnessing a combination of contract automation, e-signature, process reengineering and a streamlined contract infrastructure to deliver a swift path from contract initiation to closure.”  - Aine Lyons

Last but not least, find out more about the legal operations role and legal ops job descriptions at https://cloc.org/ and www.acc.com/legalops/

Leigh Dance advises corporate legal and compliance leaders and teams on the people part of change management– including strategy, communications and demonstrating performance. She is Executive Director of Global Counsel Leaders and is based in New York and Brussels. www.GlobalCounselLeaders.com