Law department operations (LDO) professionals play an integral role within the corporate legal department. Because of their wide-ranging data management expertise, they are also now collaborating with other internal groups to add value to important corporate projects.

As recognized in the Blickstein Group's December 2021 14th Annual Law Department Operations Survey, "the law department operations (LDO) function at many companies is evolving toward assisting law departments to deliver more value to many different areas of their organization," and "LDO professionals are having substantial interactions on matters that stretch beyond the legal department." This survey further validates LDO expertise and value within the corporation.

For an example of these interactions, we can look at a collaborative approach for facilitating a needs analysis and data mapping project for vendor agreement compliance. Specifically, that could include updating new terms in third-party agreements; validating that all confidentiality and privacy clauses are consistent with GDPR, CCPA and other compliance-related requirements; and preparing contracts to be incorporated into a new or existing contract management system (CMS). LDO data management expertise is extremely beneficial in ensuring a thoughtfully planned and executed project.