Daniel Coll, vice president and general counsel of Elevate Services.

Daniel Coll, general counsel of Elevate Services Inc., an alternative legal services provider, believes that heading a legal operations group today could put an in-house lawyer on the fast track to leadership of a law department.

In a wide-ranging interview with Corporate Counsel Tuesday, Coll used himself as an example. Before he joined Los Angeles-based Elevate in 2015, Coll was associate general counsel for legal ops at Oracle Corp. “Elevate sought me out. But I wasn't sure I was ready to be a general counsel yet,” he recalled.

Elevate's CEO convinced him that in the modern corporate world Coll's digital and business analytical expertise were his key assets, while his legal experience would grow in the GC role over time.

“He was more interested in my business acumen and what I could bring to the table other than pure law,” Coll said. “Outside counsel can bring the law, but it's hard to get the business part, especially in the startup world.”

As another example, Coll pointed to Lucy Bassli, a colleague in the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium. “She just took the top legal job at a startup after five years heading legal ops at Microsoft,” he noted. Bassli this month became chief legal strategist at LawGeex, which offers automated contract review through its artificial intelligence engine.

Coll expects new general counsel today may need to wear two or even three adviser hats, as Coll does at Elevate—legal, legal ops and business.

He also has myriad duties besides just being the GC. Coll serves as chief risk officer, and as corporate secretary for the company and its nine subsidiaries around the world. As general counsel and corporate secretary, he said he reports to Elevate's CEO. But as chief risk officer he has a dotted line report to the head of the board of director's risk committee.

Before joining Elevate, Coll spent nearly three years at Oracle overseeing the legal department's digital analytics and legal technology. Prior to that he developed the legal ops function as senior corporate counsel at NetApp for two and a half years, and served as senior staff attorney at Jabil Circuit Inc. for another two and a half.

He also spent time with Swanson Martin & Bell in the greater Chicago area. Before starting his legal career, he was a senior auditor at the accounting firms Arthur Andersen and at Grant Thornton.

At Elevate, Coll said his legal department includes six other lawyers, based in India and the Philippines, plus one paralegal based in Utah. Though Elevate's corporate headquarters are in Los Angeles, the CEO is based in India, Coll is based in Florida, and the company president is in London.

The company has 600 employees spread around the world. The majority are lawyers who perform specific legal services for clients that are both corporations and law firms. Most of Elevate's lawyers are based in the Philippines and India. The United States, the U.K. and Australia are its main client markets, Coll said.

As for trends Coll sees in the legal world, he said artificial intelligence “is not quite ripe,” but it's on its way. “There will be some fatigue with AI promises, but then retrenching,” he explained. “The technology is right around the corner.”

He said there will be a stronger focus on development of the processes needed, and more clarity as to what legal work should be automated. “The next shining tool,” he predicted, “will be the silver bullet for someone's contracts management team.”

He also predicts changes in the mergers and acquisitions area. Just as legal ops unbundled corporate e-discovery and outsourced its parts to save money, “we will see M&A go down that path of getting unbundled and getting clarity,” Coll said.

“Rather than seeing six months of acquisition frenzy with large legal costs at the end, we are going to see legal ops professionals lead that change,” he added.

Coll said there are a lot of companies like Elevate as well as the Big Four accounting firms entering this market. “There is a lot waiting to be done in corporate legal departments,” he said, “a lot of unmanaged spend that needs scrutiny.”