At most companies, legal operations is no longer simply a back-office support function—it’s a strategic partner driving value, efficiency, and innovation. A session at Wolters Kluwer’s recent ELM Amplify User Conference explored this transformation, offering insights into how legal ops professionals working in legal and claims departments can elevate their role within their organization. From aligning with business priorities to mastering change management and leveraging AI, here are the key takeaways to help your legal ops team make a greater impact.
Align with business objectives
One of the session’s recurring themes was the importance of aligning legal ops activities with broader business goals. Legal ops should not operate in isolation or focus solely on internal objectives. Instead, its initiatives must support leadership’s top priorities. This alignment fosters collaboration and ensures that legal ops is seen as an integral part of achieving organizational success.
Key to this approach is understanding what is valued by leadership and demonstrating how legal ops contributes to advancing those goals. Whether it's improving cost efficiency, mitigating risks, or streamlining processes, the alignment of objectives positions legal ops as a trusted partner.
Harness AI
The integration of AI in legal ops is both exciting and challenging. Data emerged as a critical factor for successful AI implementation. As highlighted during the session, great engineering cannot overcome bad data. Normalizing and cleaning data upfront is essential for scalable, reliable AI-driven solutions.
Another crucial insight was the importance of bringing leadership along on the AI journey. Experimentation is a necessary part of innovation, but it must be accompanied by transparent communication. Leadership needs to understand the value of testing and iterating before AI reaches its full potential. Without their support and appreciation for the nuances of an AI implementation, adoption and progress can stall.
Focus on change management
Technology implementation itself is relatively straightforward compared to managing the associated change experienced by the legal or claims staff. Legal ops teams must navigate resistance and foster adoption by understanding users’ needs and underlying processes then addressing any related concerns.
The session emphasized the importance of listening. Before suggesting alternatives, take the time to understand why people do things a certain way. When users feel heard, they are more likely to engage with new solutions. Additionally, tools and workflows should meet users where they are, integrating seamlessly into their existing environments to minimize disruption.
Staying curious is another key strategy for driving change. Legal ops professionals must remain open to new ideas and aware of emerging trends that could disrupt current processes. Curiosity fuels innovation while helping teams stay ahead of the curve.
Data: The foundation of success
Data is the backbone of effective legal ops. Without clean, well-organized data, even the best systems and tools can falter. During the session, participants shared examples of how centralizing and normalizing data unlocked powerful insights and streamlined operations.
For instance, one organization tackled a massive data migration to consolidate years of information across multiple platforms. By standardizing and organizing their data, they achieved consistent reporting and improved accuracy, which laid the groundwork for successful AI implementation. The lesson is that investing time and resources into data hygiene pays off in the long run. Accurate data enables better decision-making and ensures that AI and other tools deliver meaningful results.
The session underscored the transformative potential of the legal ops function. The participants found that legal ops was able to move from a support role and begin making greater contributions by keeping their focus on the objectives, technology, and processes that help them make meaningful positive impact. The message is clear: legal ops professionals must remain adaptable, innovative, and committed to delivering value.
To hear how Microsoft manages legal operations to deliver the greatest organizational value, listen to the Managing exponential growth in legal operations: The Microsoft case episode of our Legal Leaders Exchange podcast.
