Legal departments in software companies may have leading technical expertise at their disposal, but when it comes to legal tech, they face the same universal challenges of finding the right solution and vendor partnership. Plus, while software companies have access to in-house tech experts, pulling them away to discuss legal tech isn't always realistic or ideal, legal ops leaders noted.

To be sure, while software companies' law departments aren't magically more tech savvy than any other in-house team, their corporate culture will demand high-tech.

"The [tech] expectation is going to be higher [because] even if the attorneys within the legal department aren't tech savvy, they have access to people that are," noted Lucy Bassli, founder of law firm and legal department consultancy InnoLaw Group and former assistant general counsel of legal operations and contracting at Microsoft.