Source: Forbes
Unlike other business units for whom value creation and customer-oriented metrics are the norm, the legal function is “metrics light” and focused principally on cost and internal efficiency indices. The legal profession has staunchly and spuriously challenged the applicability of business metrics to its work for a variety of reasons. Examples include: legal work is “bespoke,” best evaluated by other lawyers, and inimical to business metrics because of the conflict they pose professional independence and ethics. More recently, legal has conflated metrics with automation and redundancy.
Digitally mature business is focused on customer outcomes and end-to-end experience. This is their transformational North Star. Corporate culture reflects organizational purpose, values, priorities and standards. Metrics are its scoreboard and reflect what it values and its adherence to those tenets. They measure the enterprise’s performance through the customer lens, focusing on ease of access, on-time delivery, experience and satisfaction, and net promoter score. These are regarded as keys to corporate sustainability, scalability, profitability, and brand loyalty.
There are several ironies in law’s aversion to business metrics. The author has previously opined that, “Lawyers are the legal function’s greatest obstacle to demonstrating business value.” The “legal bubble,” a culture that perpetuates the myth of legal exceptionalism, and legal language that distances the profession from clients and “non-lawyers” are a few reasons cited. These legal guild holdovers are emblematic of the short-term mindset of many in the legal establishment and their persistent efforts to preserve the status quo. In the digital world, this is self-sabotage. It is also perhaps the ultimate irony for a service profession grounded in facts, evidence, proof, persuasion, and professional competence.
Read the full article by Mark Cohen, CEO of Legal Mosaic: https://www.forbes.com/sites/markcohen1/2024/09/03/what-is-the-legal-functions-true-enterprise-value/
Mark was a speaker at LegalTechTalk 2024
