Deloitte Legal launches new legal management consultancy
Legal Management Consulting (LMC), a new global multidisciplinary offering designed to help chief legal counsel and their in-house legal teams navigate rapid legal industry transformation, was launched by Deloitte Legal yesterday, 29 January 2018.
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Through its new LMC offering, Deloitte Legal and other Deloitte practices around the world aim to help corporate counsel improve their operating models to deliver faster, more effective, integrated services to business. Developed for lawyers by lawyers, business consultants and litigation support professionals from various Deloitte practices, the LMC approach includes a robust operating model gap analysis, bespoke legal operating model recommendations and ongoing legal risk trend monitoring. Deloitte’s initial legal management consulting teams will consist of over 100 professionals across the globe from Deloitte Legal, as well as other Deloitte practices.
“Companies need their legal teams to keep pace with the commercial needs of the business and take on more responsibilities with fewer resources. The increased complexity and demand from the business is creating an unsustainable workload for existing in-house legal departments,” said Piet Hein Meeter, Deloitte Global’s managing director, Deloitte Legal. “Facing heightened regulatory scrutiny, increasing workloads, accelerating technological advancements, and growing demands from within the business, legal departments are rethinking their operating models, to achieve greater efficiencies and increase the value that they deliver back to the business.”
New Chief Legal Operating Officer role emerging
In many larger corporations, the new role of Chief Legal Operating Officer (CLOO) has emerged. The scope of this new leadership position focuses on the operational needs of a legal department — and the CLOO is often tasked with leading the operating model transformation.
Meeter continued, “With LMC, Deloitte Legal helps CLOOs and their teams get ready for longer term strategic business needs by transforming their traditional legal operating models, introducing operational efficiencies and providing sustainable value for their organisations.”
Proactive risk management
Traditional legal departments often take a reactive approach, finding themselves caught in a constant state of urgency. Developed by lawyers for lawyers with the assistance of consulting experts — the LMC approach aims to combine legal expertise with the capabilities offered within other Deloitte business lines. This innovative approach brings together subject matter leaders with global, industry sector knowledge, innovation, methodology, and technology experience. To help set the direction and priorities for clients’ legal departments, Deloitte Legal LMC tactical prioritisation helps organisations manage legal risk, comply with appropriate regulations, and help safeguard corporate reputation.
Horizon scanning and monitoring are some of the key components of Deloitte Legal LMC risk management, focusing on identifying important trends and anticipating likely developments based on available trend data. The net result of this proactive approach is to move from traditional reactive “fire-fighting” to pre-emptive legal risk management that corporate leadership expects.
Legal technology advancements aren’t only for law firms
Deloitte Legal’s LMC teams can assist in creating a roadmap leveraging innovative legal technology tools that improves the quality and consistency of legal department deliverables, as well as improve the effective management of department workload and contract processing.
“In-house legal teams sometimes assume most legal tech isn’t designed for them — it’s only for law firms, but that simply isn’t the case. Deloitte has adapted technologies for LMC clients that include workflow and deadline tracking systems, as well as global risk management tools,” Dan Lange, Deloitte Global Tax & Legal leader. “We’re making significant investments in our talent both inside Deloitte Legal practices and across Deloitte’s existing network of seasoned technology, industry specialists and business consultants to help in-house legal teams rise to the industry transformation underway.”
Note: “Deloitte Legal”, as used above, refers only to the legal practices of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited member firms or their affiliates outside of the United States that provide legal services. For legal and regulatory reasons, some member firms, including the United States firm, do not provide legal services.
