As legal departments’ workloads increase, more in-house leaders are trying to strike the right balance of automating redundant work to focus on high-level projects and strategies. But lingering corporate norms and few lawyers having experience in leading such transformations are limiting legal departments’ automation ambitions.

While many law departments are making strides in automating aspects of their contract life cycle management, other inefficient workflows aren’t fully explored because it’s a long endeavor that may require difficult decisions, said Stout Risius Ross legal management consulting practice managing director Jim Mitchell.