.png)
Reading time:
[reading time]
Legal departments are evolving. Faced with rising workloads, tighter budgets, and growing pressure to deliver more strategic value to the business, many are rethinking how legal work gets done. One function playing a central role in that shift is legal operations.
But what are legal operations, exactly? And why are more companies—especially those in fast-growing industries—investing in legal ops teams?
In this guide, we’ll explore the definition of legal operations, how they fit into modern legal departments, what legal ops professionals do, and how teams are structured across different company sizes. We’ll also look at the key responsibilities, skills, and resources for in-house legal operations—and how platforms like Checkbox support teams at every stage of growth.
Definition of Legal Operations
Legal Operations → The function of an in-house legal team that manages the processes, systems, and strategies that support a legal department’s operational effectiveness and optimize the delivery of legal services to internal clients.
This includes areas like:
- Technology management,
- vendor oversight,
- budgeting,
- data analytics, and
- workflow optimization.
Evolution of the Legal Ops Function
The rise of legal operations can be traced back to when forward-thinking companies began creating dedicated roles to bring more structure and efficiency to in-house legal teams. What started as project management and cost control has since evolved into a critical function for driving value and scalability.
This reflects a broader trend: legal is no longer seen as just a risk mitigator, but a strategic enabler. And as the role of legal evolves, so does the need for professionals who can support it with the right structure, systems, and data.
How Does This Differ from Traditional Legal Roles?
Where traditional legal roles, such as the GCs and legal counsel, are focused on legal analysis and risk management, legal operations professionals focus on the “how” behind legal delivery.
For example, how work is tracked, how vendors are managed, how technology is adopted, and how results are measured. So, it’s not about replacing legal judgment, but about enabling legal teams to function more like high-performing business units.
What is Legal Operations & Why it Matters
Legal operations refer to the function within a legal department responsible for managing the business side of law. This includes overseeing efficient legal processes, legal technology enablement, vendor relationships, cost control, and reporting. The goal is to make legal work more efficient, measurable, and aligned with broader business objectives.
One of the reasons legal operations have gained traction is the increasing complexity of the corporate legal environment. Legal teams are expected to handle more work with fewer resources, while also demonstrating value back to the business. Legal ops fills that gap by introducing operational excellence—giving legal the tools to move faster, work smarter, and report more clearly.
Today, a growing number of companies—especially those scaling quickly—are recognizing the importance of building a formal legal operations team. And whether that team is one person or ten, it often becomes the engine that keeps the legal department moving forward.
The Legal Operations Department
As legal operations mature, many organizations are formalizing the function into a dedicated department. But what does a legal operations department actually look like—and where does it sit within the broader legal and business structure?
In most companies, the legal operations team reports directly to the General Counsel (GC) or Chief Legal Officer (CLO). This placement reflects the strategic nature of the role: legal ops doesn’t just support the legal team—it enables it to function more effectively across the board.
Where Legal Operations Fits
Within the legal org chart, legal ops typically sits alongside legal counsel, compliance, and risk functions. But unlike traditional legal roles, legal ops is designed to work cross-functionally. That means regular collaboration with finance (for budgeting and spend management), IT (for legal tech and integrations), procurement (for vendor management), and HR (for process alignment and training).
As the legal department grows, legal operations become a hub for connecting these moving parts—ensuring that legal services are delivered efficiently and that resources are allocated strategically.
Key Functions Legal Operations Oversees
While every company defines the scope slightly differently, most legal operations departments are responsible for:
- Vendor and outside counsel management
- Legal technology implementation and support
- Budgeting, forecasting, and spend tracking
- Process design and workflow automation
- Data collection, reporting, and analytics
- Knowledge and document management
- Intake and triage of legal requests
Legal Operations Department Maturity Stages
Not all legal operations departments start at the same level of maturity. Some begin with a single hire focused on urgent projects like cost control or implementing in-house legal software. Others may launch with a broader scope and long-term roadmap.
Generally, departments evolve through three stages:
- Forming – Legal ops is newly established, often with one or two team members focused on foundational tasks like spend management or matter tracking.
- Scaling – The team expands and formalizes key processes, introduces tools, and begins supporting other departments.
- Optimizing – Legal ops become a strategic partner, driving continuous improvement, advanced reporting, and innovation within the legal function.
Understanding where your team sits on this maturity curve helps in identifying the right legal operations resources and planning for what comes next.
The Legal Operations Function
While the legal operations department refers to the team structure and where it sits within the organization, the function of legal operations is broader. It exists whether you have a dedicated team or not—and it’s essential to the performance of any modern legal department.
The legal operations function focuses on making legal services more efficient, scalable, and aligned with business goals. That includes everything from streamlining intake processes to overseeing legal tech, managing budgets, and improving data visibility. The function is responsible for translating legal needs into business outcomes.
However, it is important to note that the legal operations function doesn’t operate in a vacuum. It supports legal counsel and compliance teams by taking ownership of operational tasks so lawyers can stay focused on risk, strategy, and advising the business.
Core Pillars of The Legal Operations Function
Most legal operations functions are built around a set of core capabilities. While frameworks can vary, five key pillars tend to show up consistently:
Scaling With Organizational Growth
As companies grow, so does the complexity of legal work—and the need for a more mature legal ops function. A startup might rely on a single legal operations professional juggling intake requests and contract templates. A scaling B2B SaaS company may add roles focused on reporting, tooling, and vendor oversight. And at the enterprise level, the legal ops function often mirrors the legal team itself, with dedicated specialists in areas like finance, technology, and program management.
But, regardless of size, the legal ops function plays a critical role in enabling legal to move from reactive to proactive—and from siloed to strategic.
Legal Operations Team Structure
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to building a legal operations team. So, while the right legal operations team structure depends on the size of your legal department, the complexity of your business, and where you are in your legal ops journey, there are still a few common patterns that tend to emerge.
Small Legal Teams: Generalists Wearing Many Hats
In smaller legal departments—often with fewer than 10 lawyers—legal operations typically start with a single hire. This person may be a Legal Operations Manager, Legal Project Manager, or even a paralegal taking on operational work by necessity.
These legal operations professionals tend to be generalists. Their responsibilities span across intake management, basic reporting, vendor tracking, and implementing core tools like in-house legal software.
In these teams, flexibility is key, and success often depends on being able to juggle competing priorities with limited resources.
Mid-Sized Legal Teams: Defined Roles, Growing Impact
As companies grow, legal teams and legal ops start to expand. In mid-size legal departments (typically 8–12 lawyers), you’ll often see legal operations formalized into a small team with more clearly defined roles.
A common structure at this stage includes:
- Legal Operations Manager – Focused on day-to-day ops, process improvement, and stakeholder alignment
- Legal Tech Analyst or Systems Specialist – Manages legal software, integrations, and support
- Data & Reporting Lead – Handles performance metrics, dashboards, and KPIs
- Vendor or Spend Manager – Oversees outside counsel, budgets, and procurement
At this level, the legal ops team begins acting as an internal consultancy—advising the GC, optimizing workflows, and supporting performance reporting across the department.
Enterprise or Large-Sized Legal Teams: Specialized & Strategic
Large-sized corporate legal operations teams often mirror the structure of the broader legal department. These teams can include 10+ professionals with specialized roles focused on finance, data, technology, change management, and innovation.
In these cases, you’ll likely see titles like:
- Director of Legal Operations
- Legal Chief of Staff
- Head of Legal Technology
- Legal Operations Program Manager
These teams lead department-wide transformation initiatives, manage complex technology ecosystems, and act as the bridge between legal, finance, IT, and the executive team. They’re responsible not just for execution, but for enabling long-term strategic planning.
Legal Operations Responsibilities
Legal operations sit at the intersection of legal, technology, finance, and strategy—making them essential to how legal teams operate, scale, and show value.
While responsibilities will vary depending on the size and maturity of the legal operations team, several core duties show up across most organizations.
By taking ownership of systems, processes, and data, legal ops free up lawyers to focus on what they do best—providing legal advice, managing risk, and driving business strategy. In doing so, they become a multiplier for the legal department’s impact.
Legal Operations Professionals & Skillsets
Legal operations is one of the fastest-growing roles in corporate legal departments—and for good reason. As legal teams look to become more strategic, efficient, and tech-enabled, they need professionals who can bridge the gap between legal expertise and business operations.
But what exactly makes a great legal operations professional? What skills are most in demand? And how do these professionals continue to grow as the legal function evolves?
Unlike traditional legal roles, legal ops isn’t necessarily tied to a law degree. In fact, many legal operations professionals come from backgrounds in project management, finance, consulting, business analysis, or IT. What they have in common is the ability to understand legal priorities and apply operational thinking to solve problems.
Great legal ops professionals are:
- Strategic thinkers who can see the bigger picture
- Detail-oriented problem solvers who thrive on process and structure
- Strong communicators who can align stakeholders across legal, finance, IT, and the business
- Data-literate and comfortable making decisions based on metrics and reporting
Key Legal Operations Skills
The most effective legal operations professionals bring a blend of soft skills and technical expertise. Here’s a breakdown of the most sought-after legal operations skills:
Certifications and Training for Legal Ops
As the legal ops field grows, so do the professional development opportunities. Some of the most recognized certifications and learning resources include:
- Checkbox – Training and certifications to develop and deploy no-code applications using Checkbox’s no-code workflow automation tool
- CLOC Institute – Training and resources based on CLOC’s 12 functional areas
- LegalOps.com – Community-driven courses and certifications
- ACC Legal Operations – Programs designed for in-house legal operations professionals
- Project Management Certifications – Such as PMP or Agile certifications, which are highly applicable to legal ops work
These in-house legal operations resources not only help professionals sharpen their skills, but they also offer access to peer communities and ongoing industry insights.
Traits of High-Performing Legal Ops Professionals
While skills can be developed, some traits consistently show up among top performers in this field:
- Curiosity – Always looking for better ways to do things
- Agility – Comfortable navigating ambiguity and shifting priorities
- Business-mindedness – Understanding how legal fits into broader company goals
- Leadership – Even without a formal title, legal ops pros often lead change across the organization
Resources for Legal Operations Teams
Running a high-performing legal department requires the right tools, templates, and communities to support day-to-day operations and long-term goals. For legal operations teams, having access to strong resources is essential to doing more with less, scaling effectively, and staying ahead of the curve.
Whether you’re building a function from scratch or looking to optimize an existing setup, here’s a breakdown of the most important legal operations resources available today.
Internal Resources [Processes, Workflow, Templates]
Strong legal operations functions are often underpinned by well-defined internal resources. These are the systems and tools that support consistent, scalable, and measurable legal work:
- Process Documentation & Playbooks – Clear SOPs for intake, contracting, and vendor management.
- Workflow Templates & Automations – Mapped-out processes and automated workflows for tasks like generating NDAs, service agreements, and compliance reviews.
- Budgeting Tools – Dashboards or spreadsheets for forecasting, spend tracking, and outside counsel management.
- Self-Service Resources – FAQs, knowledge bases, AI legal chatbots, and template libraries for the business to access without legal involvement.
The 4 Core Capabilities of Legal Operations
These four foundational capabilities underpin the success of every high-performing legal operations team. Together, they provide structure, visibility, and control over the legal department’s most critical functions:
Technology Stack: Tools That Power Legal Ops
Most legal ops teams rely on legal ops software and automation tools to support these capabilities. These often include:
- E-billing and spend management solutions
- Document and knowledge management tools
Legal operations professionals should evaluate tools based on integration, ease of use, reporting functionality, and business adoption.
External Resources [Communities, Events, Thought Leadership]
Beyond internal tools, some of the most valuable legal operations resources are found outside the organization. These platforms and communities provide learning, benchmarking, and peer-to-peer support.
Communities & Thought Leadership:
- CLOC (Corporate Legal Operations Consortium) – Frameworks, certifications, and the CLOC Global Institute
- LegalOps.com – Toolkits, courses, and a growing professional community
- ACC Legal Operations – Resources tailored to in-house legal operations teams
- Legal Operators – Events and insights from legal ops leaders
There are also many notable events that offer insight into evolving legal trends, new tools, and best practices from leading legal operations professionals such as CLOC Global Institute and the ACC Annual Meeting.
Corporate vs. In-House Legal Operations
Not all legal departments are created equal—and the same goes for legal operations. The structure, scope, and resources of a legal ops function can vary dramatically depending on whether it’s part of a large, global enterprise or a lean in-house team at a scaling company.
Understanding the differences between large corporate and smaller in-house legal operations functions can help teams benchmark their own setup and plan for what’s next.
Large Corporate Legal Operations
In large organizations, corporate legal operations is often a fully built-out department. These teams tend to be specialized, with dedicated roles for spend management, legal tech, and reporting. They operate with larger budgets, formal processes, and enterprise-wide tools for matter management, e-billing, and workflow automation.
Smaller In-House Legal Operations
Smaller in-house legal operations teams—especially in fast-growing companies—are usually lean and more generalist. One or two legal ops professionals may cover everything from intake to reporting. Agility is key, as is having scalable, easy-to-use in-house legal software that supports rapid growth without heavy resource demands.
Whether starting small or scaling fast, legal ops evolve as the legal team grows. What begins with basic in-house legal operations resources—like intake forms or spend tracking—can grow into a strategic, data-driven function that supports the entire business.
How Checkbox Can Help
Without the right systems in place, legal teams struggle with poor visibility, manual processes, and reactive service delivery. Intake requests get lost in inboxes, legal doesn’t have data to report on impact, and scaling becomes inefficient. This limits the value legal can bring to the business.
Checkbox solves this issue by bringing structure, automation, and real-time visibility to legal work. As an AI-powered in-house legal software platform, it consolidates intake, matter management, triage, approvals, and reporting—all in one place. It’s purpose-built for legal operations teams looking to streamline processes and scale without adding headcount.
Checkbox’s key features include:
- Centralized intake & triage to manage all legal requests from the business
- Real-time matter tracking with full visibility into status, volume, and turnaround times
- AI-powered self-service workflows for routine tasks like NDAs and compliance checks
- Dashboards & reporting to surface insights on legal workload and performance
- No-code builder so legal ops professionals can create and adapt workflows without IT
Checkbox acts as the operational backbone for legal operations teams. With a single source of truth and the ability to measure workload and outcomes, teams can scale efficiently, partner more effectively with the business, and clearly demonstrate value to leadership.
So, whether you’re building out a new function or optimizing an existing one, Checkbox gives legal ops the tools to lead with confidence.
Want to learn more? Book a demo today.
Frequently Asked Questions
Book a Personalized Demo
Discover how workflow automation can benefit your team and organization