THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
How GCs Can Leverage Legal Department Metrics to Drive Strategy By LAURA GLEESON
B
y tracking the right legal department metrics, general counsel obtain real-time insights into how their team is operating—and receive the data they need to chart the path forward. But there are so many metrics capable of being tracked. How do you identify the ones that will have the biggest impact on your department? As a general rule, the metrics your legal department tracks should answer one of these three questions:
To build that reputation, legal must ensure it is effectively managing its budget. And tracking spend-tobudget at the overall and practice area level provides the visibility to make that possible. Why It’s Important: At the overall level, this metric shows how your spend is tracking against legal’s budget for the year.
But there are so many metrics capable of being tracked. How do you identify the ones that will have the biggest impact on your department?
• How efficiently are we managing our budget? • How effectively are we managing our workload? • How well are we leveraging outside counsel? Below, we’ll outline some metrics that address each of these questions and show you how tracking them can improve your team’s legal operations.
FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT METRIC: SPEND-TO-BUDGET As the general counsel, it’s important to establish the legal department as a strategic partner to the business. One way to demonstrate this is by showcasing that legal can serve as a reliable financial steward within the organization.
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However, this metric becomes more meaningful for proactive financial management if you also track spendto-budget at the practice area level, because it’s at this level that it can be used to address potential issues before they become significant problems. For example, there may be instances where your overall spend-tobudget is on track, but diving deeper into
MAY 2025
the breakdown by practice area reveals that litigation is already at 100% of budget. Knowing this information could prompt you to reassess resourcing and avoid going over budget. How to Track It: Create your overall and practice area budgets for the year in an e-billing and matter management system. The system can then automatically track spend to each of these budgets in real time.
WORKLOAD MANAGEMENT METRIC: MATTER RISK AND COMPLEXITY It likely goes without saying, but not all matters are created equal. That’s why having insight into a matter’s level of risk and complexity is important—because it allows you to have a more comprehensive understanding of how much time and attention each of your legal department’s matters will require. Why It’s Important: If you’re not tracking this aspect of your matters, you may find yourself in a situation where an individual or team appears to be working on fewer matters, but they are actually facing a heavier workload due to the high complexity of the matters they are working on. How to Track It: To track risk and complexity, require that your team classifies matters as either low-, BACK TO CONTENTS
