Uber's search for a new chief legal officer came to an end recently when the tech company hired former PepsiCo CLO Tony West. With the ride-sharing startup facing several federal investigations and a major lawsuit from a rival, West has his work cut out for him.

So what should recently hired CLOs think about when taking on new roles? There's the obvious, like asking “How can I make the department more efficient and productive?” and actionable–like implementing time tracking and BI tools that centralize accounting, e-billing and matter management.

Lauren Chung, managing director at HBR Consulting, sat down with inside Counsel to discuss whether new CLOs can truly make an impact during the early days of their new job. She shared tips on what CLOs should be focusing on during their first few months, along with what technologies and legal operations trends they should consider implementing within their new departments.

“Within the first few months, it is imperative for new chief legal officers to take time gaining a baseline understanding of the current state of the law department and appropriately define the department's short-term and longer-term strategy,” she explained.

To gain this baseline understanding, CLOs should seek an unbiased assessment or “health check” of the law department's organizational structure, processes and operations. According to Chung, the overall goal is to gain a holistic and comprehensive view of how the department's current state compares to industry best practices and develop a well-defined strategy and roadmap that helps prioritize the path forward to address gaps and opportunities.

During the early days of their new job, it is important for the CLO to engage with the department's leadership and set a tone of collaboration and transparency. This time spent early on to align the leadership and the members of the department around the CLO's vision helps with morale and engagement.

She said, “This should include establishing a cadence for regular communication from the leadership and developing a mechanism to collect feedback on a periodic basis from the members of the department.”

So what technologies and legal operations trends they should consider implementing within their new departments?

Today, new legal officers should consider adopting technology that gives them easy access and better visibility into data that supports management decisions, per Chung. A data analytics platform can serve as the single data source for the CLOs as it compiles data from the various disparate legal technology tools like e-billing/matter management, contract management, IP, e-Discovery–and presents what is relevant and significant for the CLO to effectively lead and drive change.

Amanda G. Ciccatelli is a Freelance Journalist for Corporate Counsel and InsideCounsel, where she covers intellectual property, legal technology, patent litigation, cybersecurity, innovation, and more.