Why Reporting Is Still Legal’s Biggest Missed Opportunity

Legal’s workload has surged in complexity, volume, and visibility expectations. More requests. More risk. More scrutiny. But while demand has grown, transparency hasn’t kept pace. Legal is still largely seen as a black box: trusted, but not always understood. When it comes to opening that box and showing the business what’s inside, reporting is where most teams still struggle.

Not because they don’t care. But because it’s complex. Data is scattered. Workflows are messy. And many teams are still building the operational maturity required to track and surface insights in ways that matter to leadership.

And yet, the need to prove legal’s value has never been greater. Reporting, when it works, can unlock resources, influence decision-making, and help define the strategic future of the function. But to get there, teams have to shift the way they think about reporting in the first place.

Reporting Isn’t Just About Metrics; It’s About Legal’s Impact

Reporting has a perception problem. It’s often treated as a compliance checkbox or a one-off board request, not a built-in part of legal’s daily workflow. But the true power of reporting isn’t in the numbers themselves. It’s in what those numbers allow legal to do.

A strong reporting framework lets your team say: This is the volume we’re handling. This is how fast we’re responding. These are the trends we’re seeing. It draws a direct line between the work you’re doing and the value it delivers.

And that’s what changes how the business sees legal: from reactive responder to forward-looking partner.

What’s Stopping Legal from Reporting Proactively?

Most teams don’t avoid reporting because they think it’s unimportant. They avoid it because it’s hard. Data lives in too many places. Requests come in through Slack, email, Teams, hallway conversations. Keeping up with it all feels impossible.

In fact, according to the 2025 State of Legal Intake and Visibility report, 71% of legal teams still rely on manual intake and tracking methods. That means the majority of teams don’t have a clean way to measure their own work, let alone communicate it to others.

Add to that the lack of standardized KPIs, the time it takes to compile meaningful reports, and the pressure of an already overloaded team? It’s easy to see why reporting often gets kicked to the curb.

From Manual Metrics to Strategic Reporting

The difference between reporting that’s useful and reporting that’s transformative is structure.

When metrics are cobbled together manually at the end of each quarter, they’re often incomplete, inconsistent, or misaligned with business needs. But when reporting is designed to be strategic, it becomes a living asset: a lens into legal’s operations, a blueprint for where to go next.

That starts with surfacing the right data: intake volume, matter progress, cycle times, risk trends. It also means understanding what each audience actually cares about. Your GC might want to see a big-picture trend. Your CFO might care more about cost per matter. Your team might need visibility into bottlenecks.

Build reporting around those needs and it stops feeling like busywork. It starts becoming useful.

Why Now? Because the Pressure to Prove Value Isn’t Going Away

Legal isn’t just a cost center anymore; it’s a strategic business function. But if legal can’t show where time, energy, and value are going, that strategic role becomes harder to claim.

In a climate where every department is being asked to do more with less, data becomes legal’s best ally. It’s the difference between asking for resources and justifying them. Between defending the status quo and driving change.

And as AI and automation shift the way legal work gets done, reporting will only become more central. Without visibility into what’s happening, where it’s happening, and what impact it’s having, legal risks being left behind.

Where to Start: Building the Foundation

You don’t need a perfect dashboard on day one. What you need is a repeatable way to capture what’s coming in, what’s in progress, and what’s being delivered.

Start by:

• Standardizing intake so you can track volume and type of requests

• Mapping matters through their lifecycle

• Capturing key data points like time to close, risk flags, and internal escalations

Even simple patterns (like which departments send the most requests or which types of work take the longest) can offer major insight into where legal can improve or advocate for help.

And if you’re using a platform like Checkbox, much of this becomes seamless. Intake data is tracked automatically. Workflow stages are visible. Metrics are available in real time. That makes it easier to focus less on collecting data and more on acting on it.

The Bigger Picture: Visibility and Strategy Go Hand in Hand

Reporting is more than a deliverable. It’s your voice in the strategic conversation. Done well, it signals maturity, builds cross-functional trust, and invites collaboration.

It also keeps legal aligned with the rest of the business. Sales has pipeline data. Finance has forecasts. Product has roadmaps. Legal needs reporting that shows where it’s been, where it is, and where it’s going.

When legal can speak the language of data, it earns the power to influence strategy, not just respond to it.

Ready to Make Reporting a Strength, Not a Struggle?

Reporting might feel like a chore today. But it’s one of the fastest ways to elevate how your team is seen, heard, and supported.

By moving away from ad hoc metrics and toward intentional, insight-driven reporting, you create more than just visibility. You create a foundation for stronger influence, faster decisions, and smarter growth.

Want to see what that looks like in action? Book a demo today and we’ll show you how modern legal teams are turning their data into their most powerful asset.