2024 Legal Department Operations Index

Legal department operations teams today are under increasing pressure — both from the general counsel and the broader business — to control costs, evaluate and potentially implement rapidly emerging technologies, and maintain and improve the operational state of their law departments.

The Thomson Reuters Institute (TRI) surveyed seasoned legal department operations professionals this summer to ask about recent changes in their departments, trends influencing how they will operate in the future, the metrics used to track progress, and how they currently manage the changing legal tech landscape. TRI is pleased to release those findings in the latest annual Legal Department Operations Index. 

The following are among the central insights in the report:

• Controlling costs is even more central than ever before, with 84% of respondents calling it a top priority.
• The majority (75%) of departments consider using tech to simplify workflows as a top priority, but most departments report underutilization of their current tech stack, and only a third have seen increases in budget for technology.
• Matter volumes continue to grow for 79% of respondents — and compounding the squeeze, two-thirds of departments are not increasing attorney headcount and more than half are not increasing budgets.
• General counsel want to bring more work in-house, but only a third of respondents have been able to do so.

Please complete the form to download the complete 2024 Legal Department Operations Index.