Legal departments anxious to leverage the full potential of data analytics to their advantage may find themselves hampered by a purchasing philosophy that has for too long emphasized point solutions over a more holistic approach to internal technology. While technology was made to be upgraded, is the cost of revamping an entire network of solutions enough to dissuade general counsel from taking action?

There are certainly incentives. A holistic approach to legal tech—meaning that systems like e-billing and contact management can talk to each other—makes it easier to organize data and find answers to legal operations queries without having to invest time and effort in organizing the same information manually. Still, many departments may still be falling short of achieving that kind of synchronicity.