Sylvie Rozenfeld: You are the author of the first French-language book dedicated to the role of Legal Operations Officer, known as Legal Ops, published at the end of last year by LexisNexis. You previously served as a general counsel, founded the operational project management firm Calame – Legal Ops Company, and created and chaired the AFJE “Legal Ops” commission for five years to promote this role, which emerged in France in the early 2020s. The world is changing, and so are law and the legal profession.
Is Legal Ops in France a myth or a reality?
Emilie Calame: It is very much a reality, and one that is gaining momentum. It initially developed cautiously, as is often the case with new functions, before becoming increasingly significant, much like compliance or contract management, for example.
What does this new role of Legal Ops involve?
Le Legal Operations Manager est en charge des Legal Operations. Ce sont tous les éléments qui concourent à la performance de la direction juridique pour qu’elle soit dirigée comme un département de business avec un P&L (Profit & Loss), une gestion de budget avec des objectifs, des KPI (Key Performance Indicators), etc. Ce sont des éléments auxquels les directions juridiques n’étaient pas habituées mais qui sont désormais rentrés dans le paysage de l’entreprise de façon générale.
Cela est dû à la fois à la digitalisation accrue du métier et aux solutions qui se sont déployées ces dernières années mais aussi aux contraintes économiques et conjoncturelles comme le Covid et le télétravail qui ont favorisé la digitalisation. Beaucoup de directions juridiques doivent faire plus avec moins ou à périmètre constant, être toujours plus performantes avec un ensemble de contraintes et pressions avec lesquelles elles doivent composer.
Emilie Calame: The Legal Operations Manager is responsible for Legal Operations. This covers all the elements that contribute to the performance of the legal department, so that it is managed in the same way as a business function, with a P&L (profit and loss account), budget management aligned with objectives, KPIs (key performance indicators), and similar tools. These are dimensions with which legal departments were not traditionally familiar, but which have now become part of the corporate landscape more generally.
This evolution is driven both by the increasing digitalisation of the profession and by the solutions that have been deployed in recent years, as well as by economic and contextual constraints, such as Covid and the widespread adoption of remote working, which accelerated digital uptake. Many legal departments are required to do more with fewer resources, or with a constant scope, and to deliver ever higher levels of performance while operating under a growing set of constraints and pressures.
What does the digitalisation of legal departments involve? And what is the role of Legal Ops in this context?
Emilie Calame: Digitalisation is the visible part of the iceberg. Beneath it lies process organisation. Without processes, there can be no digitalisation. Software vendors have offered legal departments tools and ways of working that are more efficient, more effective and, in particular, suited to remote working.
Initially, LegalTech focused mainly on B2C. From around 2015, there was a genuine surge in the deployment of tools, with the emergence of B2B solutions aimed at the legal departments of large groups, but not exclusively. Covid then acted as a catalyst, as it became necessary to maintain economic activity despite not being physically present in the office, and to remain able to negotiate and sign contracts using electronic signatures, and to hold general meetings.
It is easy to forget that only five years ago, very few companies had an electronic signature solution. With hindsight, this now seems astonishing. This is how digitalisation became established. Since then, there has been a clear appetite among legal departments for these topics, and the wider availability of AI has played a role in this development.
Sylvie Rozenfeld: Today, there is a great deal of discussion around artificial intelligence.
Emilie Calame: Lawyers are concerned about missing the shift. They attend many conferences on the subject and talk about it far more than they actually implement it. There is now an abundance of solutions, and they are evolving extremely quickly. However, many people struggle to gain a clear understanding of what distinguishes the different solutions available. This is where the Legal Ops function, or external firms, has a role to play in supporting them, including in the deployment of these tools. At present, legal departments are generally not ready to implement such solutions, even if they were allocated the budget to do so.
Sylvie Rozenfeld: Why are they not ready to implement them?
Emilie Calame: The foundational basis of digitalisation in general, and even more so of artificial intelligence, is data. Today, that data is not structured within legal departments. For years, Word was effectively the only tool in use. There was no anticipation of how significant and pervasive data would become, nor of the need to connect it and make it interact with other data sets.
In addition, legal departments were not, and are still not always, represented at executive committee level, and therefore do not necessarily have the elements needed to inform senior management. This situation is changing, and AI will contribute to that shift. However, to be able to use artificial intelligence, data must first be structured, identifying where it is located, cleaning it, and centralising it. Only then can it be placed on a platform that the organisation acquires, in order to analyse it and extract the insights it is seeking.
Is this organisation around data and AI the responsibility of Legal Ops?
Emilie Calame: That is indeed one of the responsibilities of Legal Ops. From this description, it is clear that this is no longer about practising law as such. Although I am a former general counsel, my work does not involve legal analysis or contract negotiation. My experience, however, is extremely helpful in determining how to address these issues, engage with colleagues and manage change, because change management is, of course, a very significant component. These initiatives cannot be driven while being overwhelmed by day-to-day operational demands. That is why clearly defined roles are required, filled by individuals who are able to adapt.
Why is change management so important today?
Emilie Calame: Because we are experiencing a genuine shift in our working practices. This is the first time that an industrial revolution has directly affected white-collar workers, and in particular in-house lawyers.
This inevitably raises concerns about the future of our professions. I am a strong advocate of open and honest communication, as anything else risks generating resistance among colleagues. Rather than remaining passive and waiting for decisions to come from senior management, such as halving team sizes, it is preferable to take ownership of the issue, retain control over it, and make considered choices about how and why these tools should be used.
In this drive for rationalisation, will companies recruit a Legal Ops professional?
Emilie Calame: If their size justifies it (generally for a legal department of more than 20 people), they do recruit (or appoint) someone on a full-time basis, which is what I recommend. In the United States, organisations started with a single individual and then went on to recruit entire teams. That is the direction of travel. Where there is insufficient scale or budget, companies can turn to external firms to deliver these projects on an ad hoc basis. One common pitfall is to assign a specific project, or several projects, to a lawyer in addition to their existing role. If that person is not relieved of at least half of their workload, it will not work: they will not have the time, they will not be able to train and develop the necessary expertise, and they will lack credibility and legitimacy within the teams. The role requires a position of leadership and a genuine command of the subject matter, particularly in relation to change management, which cannot be improvised overnight.
External advisers have the advantage of a broader perspective, with exposure to other legal departments and a cross-functional view of what works and what does not. By contrast, appointing a paralegal, an assistant, an apprentice or a junior lawyer to these matters will not provide the level of leadership required for such a role.
What is the profile of a Legal Ops professional? A lawyer?
Emilie Calame: There are two ways of approaching the question. In the United States, it is not necessary to be legally qualified. People may come from audit, engineering, design, data analysis or IT. In France, there is a preference for a more legal profile. In my view, this is linked to the relative novelty of the role. If there is only one person, it makes sense for that person to be a lawyer: they understand the profession, its frustrations, its challenges and the peers with whom they will interact.
Where a Legal Ops team can be created, diversity of profiles becomes key, enabling a multidisciplinary team that can address issues lawyers would not necessarily identify themselves.
Sylvie Rozenfeld: What types of companies have created such a role?
Emilie Calame: At present, it is clearly large groups, or smaller groups that can afford it. In my view, where recruitment is possible, it is preferable to recruit a Legal Ops professional rather than an additional lawyer. Why? Because a Legal Ops role addresses process-related matters that, by definition, affect the entire legal department. Even a small initiative can therefore relieve the workload of several members of the department, which an additional lawyer cannot achieve. Worse still, that additional lawyer will themselves be overwhelmed within a month.
Sylvie Rozenfeld: From a sector perspective, it seems mainly to concern technology companies, doesn’t it?
Emilie Calame: That was true when I started in 2019. Until 2022, I worked extensively with the French Tech ecosystem, particularly software start-ups. They had not internalised the function, so I worked with them as an external adviser. They were the first to engage with these issues. Subsequently, funding became more constrained, which naturally slowed things down. Today, it is more often large groups or mid-sized companies that are focusing on the topic.
With the acceleration of digitalisation, organisations have realised that these are strategic, structuring and time-intensive functions. Moreover, it is genuinely a role far removed from the traditional practice of law. As digitalisation continues to accelerate, this function will become increasingly significant.
Sylvie Rozenfeld: But it still remains marginal, doesn’t it?
Emilie Calame: No, it is not marginal. It reminds me of ethics, compliance and CSR functions, which were once dismissed as passing trends. Not only have they endured, they have continued to grow in importance.
Why is Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) a flagship project?
Emilie Calame: Because it is a corporate issue shared by all legal departments. Whatever the size of the department, contracts are inevitable, because contracts are the business. Corporate matters are also unavoidable, as they stem from legal obligations. Every organisation therefore has a contract base to manage, whether newly created or, more often, legacy. One of the professional responsibilities of legal departments is to have a consolidated view of the business and of the volume of agreements executed by the company through the legal function. To achieve that, a tool is required to record and track this information. How can a legal department demonstrate the contribution of its function if it is unable to produce such data?
Sylvie Rozenfeld: So is this something the Legal Ops function organises?
Emilie Calame: Exactly. It is not the role of the general counsel, who has far more pressing priorities. Legal Ops is, in effect, the COO (Chief Operating Officer) of the legal department, responsible for day-to-day operations. Where the function is internalised, it should report directly to the general counsel. The role must benefit from what I describe in my book as a “delegation of authority”. Acting alone, the Legal Ops professional can achieve nothing. This underlines the challenge in terms of leadership and change management. To be legitimate, that delegation must come from the highest level, namely the general counsel.
Legal Ops is the function that implements or enforces a new way of working. Hence the importance of not appointing someone too junior. This is a moment when the operating model of the legal department is being rethought, and Legal Ops professionals will be the primary drivers of the transformation of the function, which is genuinely exciting.
