CLOC – 2021 State of the Industry Survey

A comprehensive survey of in-house legal operations departments

Companies need their legal teams to keep pace with the commercial needs of the business while, at the same time, legal departments are increasingly being asked to do more with the same or fewer resources.  In addition, today’s corporate General Counsel (GC) faces multiple other challenges: a heightened regulatory environment, mass globalisation of business and acceleration of technology advancements.  This results in increased complexity and demand from the business, which is creating an unsustainable workload for existing in-house legal departments.  The current business landscape creates a compelling reason for legal departments to rethink their operating model, achieve greater efficiencies and increase the value they deliver to the business.

The Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) is a global community of experts focused on redefining the business of law.  By helping legal operations professionals collaborate with each other and with other industry players, including law firms, technology providers, and law schools, CLOC works to help set industry standards and practices for the profession.

On 10 May 2021, CLOC published its annual report regarding the state of the legal industry.  Based on a comprehensive survey of in-house legal operations departments, the 2021 report involved 200 organisations across more than 22 industries and 21 countries.  This year’s highlights show a substantial increase in overall spending over the last year; legal operations teams remained roughly constant in size but see an increase in responsibility; and in terms of 2021 priorities, Diversity & Inclusion initiatives lead the way (source: CLOC: 2021 State of the Industry Report).

Below we highlight some of the key findings from the 2021 State of the Industry Survey.  These are non-exhaustive and we recommend you read the full report available on CLOC’s website (2021 State of the Industry Report - CLOC).

• Significant increase in external spend with on average a 50/50 balance between internal and external expenditure. Regulated industries (such as biotech/pharma/life sciences and healthcare) tend to top the ranking.

• Alternative Legal Service Providers consolidate their position as an important alternative for traditional providers.

• Legal Operations Professionals become more common practice with a substantial increase in medium-sized companies and continued growth in the prevalence, scope and stature of the function.

• Adoption of Technology is going up across all technology areas. eSignature, eBilling, Contract Management and Document Management remain the top four technology areas.

With the legal world now undergoing some radical changes, Deloitte Legal is developing tools to help the legal businesses during this transformative time.  Deloitte’s Legal Management Consulting (LMC) is designed to help GCs manage and transform their departments in a controlled and methodical manner, to move from firefighting and piecemeal changes to a more structured transition.

Deloitte’s LMC services were developed by lawyers in collaboration with experts from across Deloitte practice areas such as mainstream management consultancy, risk advisory, and tax management consulting. LMC is a collection of models, frameworks, and systems, designed to help in-house lawyers run their departments more efficiently, and meet their business needs.

You will find more information on our website (Legal Management Consulting (LMC) | Deloitte Legal) or read our paper to learn more about this approach: A changing world requires a new approach to law.

Contacts

If you have any questions concerning the items in this newsflash, please get in touch with your usual Deloitte Legal - Lawyers contact at our office in Belgium or:

• Christoph Michiels, cmichiels@deloitte.com, + 32 2 800 71 38

For general inquiries, please contact:

bedeloittelegal@deloitte.com, + 32 2 800 70 00

Be sure to visit us at our website: http://www.deloittelegal.be