In 2017, William Deckelman, executive vice president and general counsel of DXC Technology, faced a towering task: Integrate two large legal departments, increase the number of company contracts processed, and do it faster and with far fewer resources.

To accomplish the task, Deckelman put his job on the line and made one of the gutsiest calls a GC could make. He created a new kind of legal department, totally redesigned around the needs of DXC, one of the world's leading IT service providers. For its courage, innovation and use of technology in building a law department of the future, dubbed “Legal 2.0,” DXC has been named one of the overall Best Legal Departments for 2018.

“Yes, it was risky,” Deckelman acknowledges. “But I didn't see any other path to meeting the cost target we had been given and still supporting the company as we were being asked to do.”
Most of DXC's lawyers chose to follow their GC's lead. A year later, the results have surprised even Deckelman and his boss, chairman and CEO Mike Lawrie. They include helping to save DXC some $1 billion by building more efficiencies into its supply chain and other areas of its operations, while supporting more than $26 billion worth of contracts.