Very soon, it will be lights out "Down Under" to kick off another great season of Formula 1 (F1) racing. One might think the teams are returning after a leisurely off-season, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, truth be told, the winter preparatory months are arguably more frenetic than the season itself. There's so much to do and prepare, it's virtually impossible to pack all those activities into a few short months.

Building out technology services in legal operations isn't all that different. Like building a car from scratch, it takes a considerable effort to build systems for goals such as applying analytics to quantitative legal case management data or integrating legal judgment and services into existing corporate decision processes. And at the beginning of the year, when budgets are renewed and optimism is rampant, these activities are more important than ever.

So, whether one is creating a new McLaren livery or attempting to use AI to automate repetitive legal processes (think depositions or contract review), there's commonality in the project components.

Here's a primer on key factors lawyers or law industry professionals may wish to consider when building services to improve legal operations.

Sponsorship/Livery (Business Need/Funding)

You know the old saying, "Money Talks". Well, that's the case in tech projects too. Prior to a season, F1 teams like Scuderia Ferrari focus on developing lucrative relationships with Title Partners and Sponsors. Legal business improvement projects need funding also. We often read about services like Crunchbase who track seed money investments into companies like Clio and Elevate Services, but within the realm of corporate legal, let's constrain our thoughts to a more limited sphere.

First, let's talk project essentials. Corporate legal projects need key components to enhance the likelihood of financial support. A clearly defined goal, an executive business champion, articulate project scope, a timeline and a project budget are what gets the job done.

Sometimes practical examples help add clarity to recommended methodologies. So, let's define a hypothetical effort for this purpose.

Imagine that a corporate legal department wishes to migrate 10 terabytes of data to a leading cloud-based E-Discovery Vendor with the goal of slashing hosting costs by $5 million dollars. If this effort requires only a new project manager, the data transition is estimated to take nine months, and the General Counsel supports the project, that set of circumstances is likely to receive funding.

Conversely, loosely defined projects with ambiguous goals generally won't get it done, just as marketing departments lacking statistics on advertising impressions and success stories probably won't fill an F1 car with sponsorship stickers.

Engine (Core Technology)

Obviously, engine power is vital to an F1 car's success. Acceleration, straight-line speed, rapid power transfer, all done within horsepower limitations and using hybrid technology to help conform with F1 environmental sustainability targets, is required. It's incredibly complex. Reliability is essential too. Retiring a vehicle for mechanical reasons is destructive to a team's season and morale.

Similarly, legal technology presents demanding infrastructure and computing services. Projects must run using enterprise grade technologies (that generally means cloud platform providers like Oracle, Amazon Web Services or Azure). Regulatory requirements such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) must be adhered to. And some industries, such as financial services, employ such stringent requirements on their data that containerized methodologies like Kubernetes (K8s) offered by Reynen Court are emerging as strong practices.

For those not inclined to do applications development, partnering with prevalent legal technology providers in areas like document management, e-discovery and legal case management makes sense. Industry leaders already have all their i's dotted and t's crossed in areas such as ISO certification, HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and PII (Personally Identifiable Information) compliance and business continuity.

But whatever the project approach, the calling is clear. The days of build-it-yourself, shadow IT types of deployments within corporate legal should be discarded. Sophistication is required. Like the F1 engine, technical architecture needs to be powerful, operate within the rules and reliable.

Aerodynamics (Business Process Improvement)

F1 teams invest heavily in wind tunnel analysis. Reducing drag while also generating massive amounts of downforce is the order of the day for these engineers.

In my mind, this literal "streamlining" exercise is akin to business process review and improvement. Often times, processes are laden with redundant or unnecessary steps. Some examples might be humans validating case data rather than an automated process, the repetitive execution of some tasks (think document review) which machine learning can sometimes support, or asking attorneys to file emails or manually create time entries when AI powered software tools might be able to assist.

The benefits in this area are appreciable. The more attorneys are freed from the shackles of rote, low value-added tasks, the more time they have to use their legal skills to better service client needs. Both corporate legal operations and the law firms to support them would be well-served to integrate process improvement tools into their workflows. .

Team Principal (Ongoing Adjustments)

All teams need strong leaders, a person who can make critical calls during the course of a project. In F1, Team Principals like Red Bull Racing's Christian Horner make vital race day calls on car setup, tire selection and pit strategy, just to name a few.

Strong ongoing decision-making is important on a technology build as well. The ideal project manager, like a F1 Team Principal, understands all elements of the project team (the company, legal department, pending legal priorities, partner law firms network, etc.).

On most projects, tweaks and adjustment are commonplace. Scope, budget, deployment timing, use of particular development tools and technologies, ability to facilitate rollouts via solid communication and change management processes, and the creation of post-implementation support teams are all in play. .

Driver (Special Talent)

And finally, let's discuss the role of the F1 driver and how that equates to key legal operations projects personnel.

Even with all the prior components in place, an exceptional individual to drive progress and put projects over-the-top is hugely beneficial. On legal process improvement projects, different folks can help raise the bar. It could be the General Counsel, the company's Chief Information Officer, an external partner with specific expertise to set a vision, the project's Chief Architect or even a rank-and-file employee who lives and breathes a particular functional areas.

Key individuals must be mindful of multiple concerns. For example, in F1, drivers need to decide when to risk overtaking, balance racing with taking care of the car, drive the proper lines and execute flawless pit stops. In legal ops, project managers must decide when to ask more from their teams, push back against end user requests, and have the resolve to maintain the project course when navigating choppy waters.

And, speaking of said choppy waters, having the fortitude to act like a Captain Ramius to turn into an oncoming torpedo in the movie Red October doesn't hurt either. All decisions aren't easy or obvious. Sometimes a bit of risk taking, hopefully based on detailed knowledge and solid experience, can be exceptionally beneficial to projects.

Podium Finish

F1 teams who keep all of this in mind are strong candidates for a top 3 finish in a sport where standing on the podium is the name of the game. In the legal technology world, the completion of projects on time and within budget which deliver the desired benefits to corporate legal departments is key.

Be sure to keep these principles in mind. For those who so, you're sure to see continued progress in streamlining processes, freeing up attorneys to more directly assist clients and the improved use of data to identify legal operations trends and opportunities.

Kenneth Jones is Chief Technologist of Tanenbaum Keale, a boutique litigation law firm and Chief Operating Officer of the Xerdict Group, a SaaS legal collaboration software company. Xerdict is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tanenbaum Keale.