While the profession of Legal Operation Officer has existed in the United States for several years, it is relatively recent in France.
The Chief Legal Ops Officer (or CLOO) occupies a cross-functional position within a company. Reporting to the legal team, he is not a lawyer in the strict sense of the term. In fact, he is not a lawyer by training!
It helps to optimize the processes in place, i.e. to simplify and organize them, within legal teams. In fact, its role is to help cope with the transformation of work methods and tools, and to modernize their use, in particular through the use of software.
In this article, we look at the 5 qualities of a good Legal Ops Officer.
5 qualities of a good Legal Ops Officer
Legal Ops plays an important role in the company. Overall, his role is to evangelize the legal culture within the company and make the subject simple and accessible to all.
Responsible for choosing the software best suited to facilitate legal operations, he or she is in charge of ensuring a smooth and efficient transition, while respecting the allocated budgets.
As his field of action is quite broad, it’s important for him to have these 5 main qualities.
1. Good legal knowledge ⚖️
Legal Ops personnel have no legal responsibilities as such within the company. In fact, many of them did not even study law! They may even be business engineers or financiers.
However, a strong legal culture is essential. To implement appropriate methodologies, and ensure the harmonization of quality tools, the CLOO needs to understand the challenges faced by the legal professions. For each diagnosis, he must provide a solution.
Being at ease with legal issues is also essential when dealing with other teams: the Legal Ops team must be able to explain the principles to operational teams during its preliminary investigations, but also to get them to adopt the tools it has chosen.
Finally, the CLOO will be asked to master with the issues related to compliance in the implementation of the tools he chooses. The RGPD, for example, should hold no secrets for him.
2. Be strategic and comfortable with numbers
Finding the right software and organizational solutions is a delicate balancing act! The CLOO must ensure that legal department budgets are optimized.
If there are often financial profiles in this position, it’s because it implies a mastery of the company’s budgetary and economic aspects. After mapping the company’s needs and setting benchmarks, a good Legal Ops manager will choose the most effective solutions and know how to negotiate and spend intelligently.
3. Have a 360° vision and demonstrate rigor and organization
To implement the digital solutions best suited to their company’s needs, Legal Ops personnel must have a 360° vision. He adapts his research according to the demands of his collaborators to find the most complete offer.
This requires rigor and organizational skills, as the CLOO never manages just one project at a time.
A certain aptitude and taste for project management and management is therefore essential for any good Legal Ops.
Also read: 5 qualities of a good Contract Manager
4. Team player and team spirit
The Legal Ops Officer has a cross-functional profile.
He/she must be in contact with all the teams to understand the company’s needs and help with the integration of new tools. This requires great interpersonal skills and empathy.
If the CLOO has to take into account the needs of his employees, he must also be aware of those of his customers, as it is towards them that he directs all his actions.
Last but not least, a good Legal Ops team must take care of its external relations, especially with suppliers.
The reason why we find business engineers in this position is that the CLOO job requires both commercial and financial skills, as well as a strong sense of negotiation.
5. Have a taste for new technologies and equip yourself with the right tools
A good Legal Ops team must be able to recognize and manage the implementation of the right tools for the business.
To thrive in this position, it is therefore important to have an interest in new technologies, particularly in the field of LegalTechs.
Among the software that CLOOs are looking for to facilitate the day-to-day work of legal departments are: electronic signature software, software for digitizing general meetings, virtual spaces for centralizing documents…
Why is a CLM the best tool for Legal Ops?
DiliTrust offers a CLM solution, integrated with the DiliTrust Governance suite. Our CLM supports companies from the creation of contracts to their validation and storage. It’s a complete solution, designed to facilitate all contractual processes for legal departments and operational teams alike.
Opting for a CLM solution such as ours when you’re a Legal Ops customer means you can :
- Ensure better collaboration between teams
All contracts are dematerialized and accessible anywhere, at any time and simultaneously for all users, as they are stored – in complete security – in the Cloud. This saves your staff time, especially legal departments! No more long hours spent looking for the right contract in the wrong folder.
It also facilitates work between teams. Work flows more smoothly, and contracts are easily created, exchanged, checked and signed, thanks in particular to tools such as the legal clausier, which brings together all clauses relating to the company to generate contracts more easily, or validation workflows, which enable the progress of a contract to be monitored by all parties.
- Avoiding risks
Our artificial intelligence recognizes the dates, clauses and amounts contained in contracts, and notifies teams in real time.
- Protect your data
DiliTrust keeps your data safe. We have received ISO 27001 certification, attesting that we meet the highest security requirements and measures on the market.
- Focus on interoperability
All departments use software that meets the needs of their business. Software like DiliTrust’s can integrate with EDM, ERP, CRM, electronic signature solutions and other business-critical applications, making work easier for all teams.
In short, the Legal Operations Officer ‘s cross-functional skills make him or her a key element for legal departments and companies alike. They help to streamline and modernize internal practices.
Description for this block. Use this space for describing your block. Any text will do. Description for this block. You can use this space for describing your block.
