David Cambria, Baker McKenzie's first global director of legal operations, didn't mention it in a recent conversation, but he's got quite a nickname in his field - The Godfather.

He has pioneered legal operations roles twice already – first in the law department at professional services firm Aon, and most recently at food production and agriculture giant Archer Daniels Midland. And last month, 23 years after graduating from law school, he went to work at a law firm for the first time.

Cambria is another example of the emerging trend of global firms bringing aboard operations experts from corporate law departments who offer a client-side perspective on doing business. He spoke to The American Lawyer about what the title means and the challenges that global law firms face in a rapidly changing marketplace.

How do law firms benefit from having a 'voice of the client' as part of their leadership team?

There's a whole dynamic that happens between the law department and the C-suite, there's a whole dynamic that happens between the law department and the finance function, and the law department and the business function, where it's hard to understand the nuance of what you read about, or what you hear about, or what your clients are telling you. It actually brings a third dimension, and it brings it to life, in a way that - until you've lived it – it's hard to appreciate.

How far along is this trend of hiring legal operations directors from the client side?

It's fairly new, and I think in a large part because it takes a certain mindset - I think, a very open mindset - to bring in someone from in-house into a law firm to really start aligning the resources to the needs of the client.

Legal operations is a topic getting a lot of airtime these days, but the reality of it is a bunch of us have been doing this a long time - 20 years or so. So you do tend to have varying degrees of readiness and sophistication from the legal operations side to actually start making that transition over to a law firm. While you see the number of legal operations folks growing on the in-house side, a lot of those folks are actually fairly new to the space and probably working through some of the things that more senior folks have addressed earlier in their career. The talent pool is a little smaller.

Archer Daniels Midland also has operations spread around the world. The businesses are in two different industries, but are there any similarities between the two?

Absolutely. I would say the complexity in different parts of the world – understanding how to address those complexities and realising that the solutions that you have, while they may work in one part of the world, might not work in another - is a key component.

Because you are on global platform and in a global organisation, all of the workings of the world affect you in one way or another and impact the way you do business or deliver legal services. While we were at ADM, that was a focus of review for us, something you always had to consider in delivering legal services. At a firm like Bakers, I think they have very similar concerns and things they look over and watch over.

What do practising lawyers need to know about legal operations?

People tend to talk about legal operations as a role within the company, rather than a multi-disciplinary field where professionals collaborate to design and build systems to manage legal problems.

Is there a degree of stubbornness that you have to overcome?

No. Certainly there is inertia that you have to overcome in thinking about legal service delivery, but there is a massive amount of willingness and desire on both in-house and the law firm to figure out what that means and how to do that adeptly and in a way that's providing value.

What do you expect the landscape for global firms to look like 10 years in the future?

Their expertise, their capabilities are going to be what drives people to a firm like Bakers to solve very complicated problems.

The lawyers will really focus, at a global law firm, as legal integrators. [The concept was pioneered by consultant Bill Mooz and Indiana University Law professor Bill Henderson.]

Legal integrators design systems and solutions. They pull together bespoke lawyers at the firm They help and run manage systems, and by systems, I don't just mean technology systems but really models that help deliver legal services. And they also pull into the mix legal specialists and subject matter expertise based on specific tasks, or allied professionals around data and processing and software technology. I think a global firm that manages those pieces and helps pull those all together is what the global firm of the future is going to look like.