When it comes to legal operations, there's often talk of tech—how to use new tools to boost efficiency and cut costs—but industry professionals stressed the importance of valuing people and processes, too, in panels Wednesday.

At the second day of the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium's annual Vegas Institute, legal ops professionals discussed the interpersonal challenges and benefits raised when implementing operations. Here are five takeaways from the panels.

1. Meet people where they are. Lindsay Fry, the corporate legal and records information systems manager for Travelers, shared a story about her team's legal ops strategy to better track the volume of matters handled. She said department members claimed they couldn't track every phone call they spent dispensing advice—so her information technology team created a solution. “We thought that capturing those one-and-dones would tell a really compelling story, and it would help us identify opportunities to drive efficiency. So people said it couldn't possibly capture every question into the system,” Fry said. “Our IT team developed what we called a 'quick hit solution' … it automatically creates and closes a matter.” 

2. Apply pressure, if needed. Sometimes lawyers may resist change, even when it's adapted to their needs, Travelers corporate legal ops second vice president Stacy Walsh said. In those cases, pressure needs to come from the top. “You don't want to play that card, because you want to bring people along because they see the value … but at the end of the day there's significant power in, 'because the GC wants it,'” Walsh said.

3. Respect what nonlawyers bring to the department. Legal departments are more than in-house counsel. Vincent Cordo, the central legal operations officer for Shell Oil Co, said it's important all members of the department are treated as valuable contributors. In legal teams, “people are important” and can bring tech, finance or other backgrounds to help a law department run, without a J.D.

4. Survey to gauge satisfaction. It's difficult to know whether legal department members feel included, or if they are getting along well with outside counsel, if there's no feedback loop. Accenture's director of law firm management David White said his department surveys in-house counsel to see what firm relationships are working and firms that don't cut it “fade away.”

5. Measure where people-related spend is going. Mathew Lewis, senior vice president of Axiom, said the vast majority of legal departments' spend goes to paying in-house or outside counsel and some third-party providers. Measuring where spend and work is going can help teams ensure it's being allocated efficiently.