Business Plan for Legal Department

To address these many management, legal, financial and organizational challenges and clarify the objectives of the in-house legal department, in-house legal officers must assume a role that goes beyond simply overseeing legal matters, overseeing operations and allocating resources. Without a framework aligned with the company`s business strategy, legal departments can underinvest in areas critical to the business. This brings us to the next part of developing your business plan – writing. In the coming weeks, we will focus on the strategic planning of the legal department. Our legal strategic plan template will help you create a simple strategy that you can share with your department and senior executives, and here on the blog we`ll share how your colleagues approach planning, what small departments can do, how to involve business management, and more. The key is to include as much specific financial information as possible, especially if you`re looking for financing like taking out a bank loan. For starters, this financial plan should include numbers for your first year. Publication of a strategic plan for legal operations identifying specific activities aligned with departmental and organizational objectives; Actively monitored Look at the last year (or maybe a few years). Where has your team struggled – workload, budget, staff? What problems do you want to solve? Are there activities worth repeating? In short, what worked and what didn`t? If you have access to your legal intelligence service through a legal operations platform, view your data and dashboards. Otherwise, the process can be a little more tedious, but you can capture important information through law firm invoices, workload reports, and correspondence with senior executives. No alignment between the legal department`s decisions on finance, human resources, technology and external consulting The first step in creating your strategic plan for the legal department is to determine where you want to go: what do you want the department to look like at the end of the year? Identify the core competencies (and limitations) of the ministry to enable optimal use of external consultants.

The legal department`s strategic plans are the guiding framework to guide legal, business, financial and organizational decision-making for in-house legal organizations. Even “best-in-class” legal departments face many complex challenges when managing a high-performing in-house legal organization. Today`s legal environment is more complex, often more punitive. The objectives of corporate and legal services are more dynamic. External pressure (sometimes with conflicting objectives) on companies` legal departments is intensifying, while the company`s internal requirements for cost reduction are also intensifying. At Argopoint, we understand the leadership and management challenges that are unique to in-house legal services. We are used to working with leading legal departments across multiple industries to help them determine their strategic direction, identify and seize critical opportunities, and improve core operational performance. Step Eight: Determine the metrics. How will you measure the success of your tactics? For what purpose do you use these tactics? These must be quantifiable. This can be quite easy for projects with relevant time and money measures (cycle time, response time, expenses); For higher quality projects, such as To improve business customer service, you should consider a before-and-after customer survey in order to have better year-end data than anecdotal data. “We improved accounting satisfaction by 10%” goes better with your CEO than “Tim in accounting was really happy”. Step Nine: Share your plan.

Starting with the first step, your team has been involved in this process – now it`s time to show them the finished product. Sharing your strategy will do two important things, according to the CCA Legal Operations Maturity Model Toolkit: it will provide focus and motivation for specific and important goals. “People perform best when they have a purpose – when they understand not only what needs to be done, but also why it`s important,” the CCA noted. “Involve as many team members as possible in the process and give them the opportunity to understand why strategic goals are important and how tactics and operational details support those goals.” What else? Now, of course, comes the hard part: implementing the plan (and adapting to inevitable but unpredictable changes in your company`s strategy and operations) while continuing to manage your daily workload. Stay disciplined by scheduling accountability audits at regular intervals – monthly or quarterly – and sharing the results with your legal department. Jodie Baker is the founder and CEO of Xakia Technologies, which provides templates for legal processes as well as legal data management and analysis software for in-house legal teams. Baker is also Vice President of the Australian Legal Technology Association, Co-Chair of the Advisory Board of the Centre for Legal Innovation, College of Law and previously architect and founding Managing Director of Hive Legal, Australia`s first NewLaw law firm. Be proactive and forward-looking. What legal, regulatory, business and political trends could influence your business over the next year? Consider the adoption of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018, where 47% of in-house legal advisors worked to update their data security standards – what`s next? The new year is only a few weeks away – and for more than 70% of companies whose fiscal year follows the calendar year, it`s a fresh start in many ways.