While not always a practicing attorney, legal department operations managers can maintain similar influence on the day to day of the department. Responsible for overseeing everything from technology implementation to staffing projects, the role has become increasingly critical to the modern practice of corporate law.

In fact, 40 percent of chief legal officers of departments of 300 or more lawyers delegate operational management responsibilities, according to the ACC Chief Legal Officers (CLO) 2015 Survey. The percentage in departments of 50 to 299 lawyers is 36 percent.

In an effort to empower this increasingly critical (and common) post, the ACC has expanded its membership to provide association options for legal operations professionals. The new membership area will provide professionals with law department management resources, benchmarking opportunities, conferences and forums designed to help foster innovation in the law departments. With major decisions like building versus buying, technology platform selection and e-discovery often falling to these team members, the additional support aims to help in the continued evolution of the legal department, according to Veta Richardson, ACC president and CEO.