When Vanessa Sutherland came to Norfolk Southern Corp. as executive vice president and chief legal officer in June 2018, she came hoping to find a way to streamline legal services.

The Norfolk, Virginia-based transportation provider's law department, comprised of 106 people, already had a decentralized legal analytics team. Sutherland says she wanted to put together a centralized legal operations team to dig through the data and find new ways of billing outside counsel and adding value to the company's business units. That dream became a reality with the help of Lorri Kleine, vice president of the law department; Katie Kline, a legal analytics paralegal; and Christopher Blenden, director of legal analytics and operations.