Tracking Legal Team Productivity: Metrics and Best Practices

As legal teams face increasing pressure to deliver more value to their organizations, tracking and improving team productivity has become a critical priority. For in-house legal and legal operations teams, this is no exception. However, given the unique nature of in-house legal work, there are some specific considerations to keep in mind when tracking productivity metrics and implementing best practices.

Here are some key metrics and strategies to consider for in-house legal teams:

1. Matters per Attorney: This metric measures the number of legal matters handled by each attorney in the department. This can provide insights into individual workload and capacity, and help identify areas where additional resources may be needed. Additionally, tracking this metric over time can help identify trends in workload and adjust staffing levels accordingly.

2. Turnaround Time: This metric measures the time it takes for legal requests to be completed. In-house legal teams often work closely with other departments in the organization, so it is important to ensure that legal requests are handled quickly and efficiently to avoid delaying other business processes. By tracking turnaround time, legal teams can identify bottlenecks in the workflow and make process improvements to speed up response times.

3. Cost per Matter: While in-house legal teams do not typically bill for their time, it is still important to track the cost per matter to ensure that resources are being allocated efficiently. This metric can help identify areas where legal spend can be reduced without compromising quality.

4. Workflow Automation: In-house legal teams can benefit greatly from implementing workflow automation tools to streamline processes and reduce manual tasks. By automating routine tasks, such as document review or contract management, legal teams can free up time for higher value work and increase overall productivity.

5. Communication and Collaboration: Effective communication and collaboration between legal and other departments is critical for ensuring that legal requests are handled efficiently and effectively. In-house legal teams should consider implementing collaboration tools, such as project management software or team messaging apps, to facilitate communication and ensure that everyone is working together towards common goals.

By tracking these metrics and implementing best practices, in-house legal teams can improve their productivity and deliver more value to their organizations. However, it is important to remember that each legal department is unique, and productivity strategies should be tailored to fit the specific needs and goals of the team.

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Want to learn more about how Streamline AI can provide key metrics to optimize legal process cycle times and increase legal team productivity? Schedule a meeting with us to get additional insights and see how Streamline AI can help.

“As a result of using Streamline AI, we were able to reduce the number of days spent on each ticket by over 2 days or nearly 60%! Our SLA allocated 4 days per ticket, and Streamline AI reduced that to 1.7 days per ticket. We were also able to eliminate the emails the legal team received asking for status and updates as this information is readily visible to stakeholders in the Streamline AI system.” - Daniel Michalek, Legal Operations Manager at Branch Metrics