You can count requests and still struggle to explain where the legal team’s time goes. Before launching another improvement project, choose one recent matter and follow it from the business request to the final result. The broken connections will tell you more than an abstract list of best practices.
Start With a Request People Remember
Consider this worked example: a U.S. retailer asks Legal to review its customer return policy. The attorney approves new wording, but stores continue using older copies. An outside counsel invoice arrives without a matter reference. The monthly report counts several related email threads as separate requests.
Interview the people involved and inspect the actual records. Find where the approved policy was supposed to go and who was expected to publish it. The initial question is small enough to investigate, but it may expose problems in several parts of the department.
Use a Framework Without Turning It Into a To-Do List
CLOC’s Core 12 covers areas such as service delivery, financial management and knowledge management. Use those categories to organize what you find. They do not require you to start twelve projects at once.
Jonathan’s legal operations career spans Niagara Bottling, Oaktree Capital Management, Fisker and Robert Half. His work in entity management and KYC operations informs this focus on the connections between records. A matter, an invoice and an approved policy serve different purposes; the team needs a reliable way to connect them.
Match the Evidence to the Work Required
The table gives you a starting diagnosis. Confirm the cause with the people doing the work before assigning a solution.
| What You Observe | Where to Investigate |
|---|---|
| Priorities Compete Without a Decision | Legal Operations Strategy |
| The Same Intake Questions Keep Coming Back | Legal Intake Management |
| No One Can Identify the Current Owner | Matter Management |
| Invoices Cannot Be Matched to Approved Work | Legal Spend Management |
| A Firm Never Received the Billing Instructions | Outside Counsel Administration |
| Requests Circle Between Departments | Legal Process Design |
| Employees Keep Finding an Old Answer | Legal Knowledge Management |
| Activity Counts Hide Delays | Legal Performance Reporting |
| A Required Step Cannot Be Completed in the System | Legal Technology Implementation |
Choose an Improvement With a Named Owner
Thomson Reuters Institute’s September 2026 report describes legal operations expanding into strategy and business outcomes. For your first initiative, make that connection specific: which problem will change for the business, and how will you know?
In the retailer example, assign publication of the approved policy and retire the obsolete copies. Then ask a store employee to locate the current version. If the person still finds the old one, investigate that route before declaring the issue resolved.
Bring the Findings Back to Leadership
Prepare a short account of what you observed, the correction proposed and the owner who can authorize it. Include a real example of the delay or rework, with sensitive details handled appropriately. Explain any dependency on another team.
A legal operations strategy becomes easier to defend when it grows from that evidence. The next investment can address the next significant gap, rather than following the order in which software vendors or internal requests reached your inbox.