For years, the mantra among legal departments has been, “Do more with less.” Faced with a battered economy and pressure from the C-suite, law department operations managers and their teams have been leaving open positions unfilled, limiting travel and pushing law firms to reduce rates, all in the name of creating efficiencies and cutting costs.

Now, however, it appears many legal departments are finally reaching their limits. Instead of doing more with less, they are now realizing they have to do less with less, according to respondents to the Fourth Annual Law Department Operations Survey.

“We are leaving the era of efficiency and entering the era of prioritization,” says Brad Blickstein, principal at the Blickstein Group, publisher of the survey.