General counsel can now consider data on how matter and contract management software relates to staffing and spending benchmarks. Counterintuitively, departments with the software show worse attorney-to-paralegal staffing ratios and higher spending than those without the software. This article describes research from the General Counsel Metrics’ 2012 Metrics Survey, addresses some methodology points, and concludes with some possible explanations as to why sophisticated software has not made for more efficient staffing and spending.
The research started with a large set of North American law departments grouped according to the presence or absence of two kinds of software: matter management and contract management. Matter management software tracks work being done by a department’s lawyers along with payments to outside counsel, by electronic bills or otherwise. Contract management software, in simple terms, keeps track of agreements.
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