General Counsel Champion Enhancements in Department Management, Operations, and Resourcing
[EDRM Editor’s Note: EDRM is happy to amplify our Trusted Partners news and events.]
The final segment of FTI and EDRM Trusted Partner, Relativity’s comprehensive report on the experience and priorities of General Counsel is available for download. The report focuses on how legal department management, operations and distribution of work have matured.
The annual report, produced in collaboration with Ari Kaplan Advisors, identified several areas of increased demand for certain matter types and legal activities, finding huge spikes in compliance monitoring, privacy incidents and surprisingly, class actions.
The report includes inquires about legal operations, risk management hybrid work and bringing in new technology.
Forty-two percent of participants said they have at least
Part 4 of 2024’s FTI and Relativity’s General Counsel Report.
one dedicated legal operations professional, and several more said they
have a team member who is at least partially dedicated to the role.
More than half of respondents would like to hire a legal operations
professional or expand the role.
Part 4 of the report also found that among the legal department leaders surveyed globally:
- 53% of general counsel aim to delegate operational decisions to legal operations.
- Diversity, inclusion and belonging were described as focused priorities with allocated budgets, ownership, objectives and benchmarks among 55% of respondents.
- 13% said they were either not practicing any form of hybrid work or had experienced a negative result from such arrangements, due to isolation or disengagement of employees.
- As retention is described as “both a risk and a concern,” 87% of general counsel based outside of the U.S. describe the current state of retention within their legal departments as stable.
Download the report here.