Investing in technology is not a priority for Canadian corporate counsel although they say more investment in contract management, compliance, litigation management and workflow management technologies would have a material impact on their legal department’s efficiency. Meanwhile, one in three respondents said controlling legal spend was top of their agenda in the next 12 months. Worryingly, less than 50 percent of the in-house legal departments surveyed apply any benchmarks or conduct any detailed analysis to assess their external legal spending levels, mainly due to a lack of relevant and readily available data.

Adding value

The report recommended that in order to stay relevant, legal departments must align with the key performance indicators of the broader business. The report says: 'Historically, cost was often the primary driver for how decisions were made in legal departments. Low value tasks were reallocated to ever-growing in-house teams to limit external spend (e.g. contract management, NDAs). Today, legal departments must be strategic and continuously add value to business leaders. Continuing education is necessary align with the future needs of a given business.'  Source: Deloittes