Human beings are creatures of habit, and it takes a lot to shake us out of our routines. Law firms have operated in a particular fashion for decades, and most corporate law departments adopted similar practices to those employed at firms. Thus, the law department was frequently seen as the one area of the business that did not function according to the rules of business.
Nowadays, with law departments being asked to do more with less, general counsel are focusing on initiatives such as analytics and spend management to drive efficiency. In many cases, they are spearheading these initiatives by creating legal operations departments and bringing in individuals with business experience to serve as chief operations officers (COO) within law departments.
