With management teams prioritizing data-driven decisions, legal departments need to provide accurate data to support their operations. Data analytics provides visibility and insights, leading to actionable intelligence and better legal decisions.
To implement data analysis, Legal departments should first identify available data sources, such as e-billing systems, case management systems, departmental reports, data from legal tools, other company departments, publicly available data, and government data. E-billing systems and case management data are effective starting points.
Next, it is critical to determine the measurement indicators. Indicators can be descriptive (what happened), diagnostic (why it happened), predictive (what will happen), and prescriptive (what should be done). For example, a descriptive indicator might track the reduction in the hourly rate paid to an outside lawyer by 10% from one year to the next.
Legal departments should aim to achieve quick results by using existing data and developing simple measurement questions. Creating simple reports and sharing results can highlight successes and areas for improvement. Transparency is valuable, even if the results are unfavorable.
Another benefit of data analysis is the creation of dashboards that visually summarize key points, facilitating discussions. Dashboards can present summaries of external spending versus budget, closed business deals, statuses of key files or projects, and the company’s intellectual property.
