The rise of the legal ops function might be bringing a greater understanding and sophistication to the way that corporate legal departments look at and leverage data. But while many in-house counsel might have grown increasingly comfortable asking for and analyzing billing-related data, the type of high-level insights that can help shape trial outcomes or litigation strategies could remain just out of reach.

Still, legal departments do appear to be pushing deeper with regards to the patterns they can derive from billing and other matter-related information. Mark Yacano, managing director of the Transform Advisory Services team at Major, Lindsey & Africa, indicated that law departments have evolved from viewing that data in a one-dimensional or “static” context and begun using it as the basis for more sophisticated extrapolations around potential “risk hot spots” in a company’s operations that tend to incite legal activity.