Leveraging big data into actionable metrics is not only becoming necessary for understanding the legal climate and ensuring regulatory compliance , but also for evaluating whether a legal department is meeting its business goals . Yet these days, it is not enough to measure performance against a set of goals or benchmarks. Legal executives and operations staff are increasingly looking to use data to understand how they can set their department up for future success.

Prescriptive modeling—the use of metrics to anticipate future business demands and prepare a legal department to meet them—is the next big step for data analytics. But it is not one that comes easy.