The age-old question of “who’s the boss” has plagued law scholars and Tony Danza alike, but now there may finally be answer: corporate legal. OpenText’s Fourth Annual Survey of Legal Operations Professionals—released last week in conjunction with Ari Kaplan Advisors—indicates that legal operations professionals are taking control of their relationships with law firms, alternative legal service providers (ALSP’s) and even their own organizations.

In fact, exactly 100% of the 35 legal operations leaders surveyed agreed with the sentiment that the influence of legal ops professionals has grown over the past few years, a reality that may be strongly tied to greater concerns around efficiency, legal spend and the security of sensitive data.