What Is a Legal Operations Dashboard? [Features + Examples]

In order for legal teams to operate efficiently, they need clear visibility into their work—what’s coming in, how long it takes to complete, and where resources are being used the most.  

A legal operations dashboard provides a centralized view of key metrics like matter volume, cycle times, and team workload, helping teams report on performance and make informed decisions.

Let’s break down what a legal dashboard is, what to track, how to build one, and how platforms like Checkbox make it easy to turn raw data into real-time insights.

What is a Legal Operations Dashboard?

A legal operations dashboard is a centralized, visual interface that shows real-time data about your legal team’s work. It aggregates information from across intake, matters, and workflows, giving legal teams and leadership a snapshot of performance, volume, and trends—without having to dig through spreadsheets or email chains.

Dashboards are commonly used to track operational metrics like matter status, turnaround times, workload distribution, and legal service demand from the business. For General Counsels (GCs) and Legal Ops, they’re essential for identifying bottlenecks, spotting trends, and making faster, data-informed decisions.

Whether you’re reporting up to the CEO or looking to improve how work is triaged, a legal ops dashboard turns siloed activity into structured insight.

Essential Metrics to Track (e.g., Matter Volume, Cycle Time)

To get real value from a legal operations dashboard, it’s not just about having data—it’s about tracking the right data. Here are some essential metrics legal operations teams should focus on:

By consistently tracking these metrics, legal teams can proactively plan and turn data into a foundation for smarter decisions and stronger reporting.

Dashboard Features That Improve Decision-Making

A legal operations dashboard is only as useful as the features behind it. To move beyond surface-level reporting and enable smarter decision-making, look for the following capabilities:

Real-Time Data

Static reports age quickly. Real-time dashboards ensure you’re working with the most current data—whether it’s new intake volume, shifting matter status, or workload spikes.

Custom Filters and Views

The ability to filter by matter type, department, priority, or assignee makes it easier to answer specific questions quickly. This ensures the right view, at the right time, for the right audience.

Drill-Down Capabilities

Legal KPIs are helpful, but the real insight comes from being able to click into the data. Want to know why average cycle time increased last month? Your dashboard should be able to drill into specific matters, owners, or bottlenecks to find out.

Visualizations That Tell a Story

Charts, graphs, and status indicators can highlight trends or risks at a glance—making it easier to communicate with stakeholders outside of legal, especially executives and department heads.

Exportable Reports

Sharing insights should be simple. Whether it’s for a monthly board report or a weekly check-in with finance, exporting visuals and summaries saves time and increases transparency.

Platforms like Checkbox bring all of these capabilities together—turning fragmented data into a clear picture of legal operations performance. This allows legal to lead conversations with insights, not just instincts.

Building Custom Dashboards vs. Out-of-the-Box Tools

When it comes to implementing a legal operations dashboard, teams often face a trade-off: build a custom solution or adopt an out-of-the-box tool. Both approaches have pros and cons—what’s best depends on your resources, timelines, and flexibility needs.

Custom Dashboards

Custom dashboards—built internally or with the help of IT—offer full control. You can tailor every view, metric, and integration to your team’s exact processes. But that flexibility comes at a cost:

• Requires significant time and technical resources (unless using a no-code solution)

• Dependent on IT bandwidth for changes and maintenance

• Typically slower to deploy and harder to scale

For fast-moving legal teams, especially in growth-stage companies, that level of complexity can be a blocker rather than a benefit.

Out-of-the-Box Tools

Pre-built dashboards from legal tech platforms offer a much faster path to value. These solutions are typically:

• Easy to implement with minimal setup

• Designed specifically for legal teams, with built-in metrics and templates

• Configurable—so you still get flexibility without starting from scratch

The key is choosing a platform that balances structure with customization. Checkbox, for example, comes with pre-configured dashboards tailored for legal ops, but still allows users to filter, configure, and build views that fit their workflows.

Example Dashboard Layout

A well-designed legal operations dashboard should give you both a high-level snapshot and the ability to dig deeper. Here’s an example of how a dashboard might be structured for maximum clarity and utility:

Here is another example of how legal ops can use dashboards built into in-house legal software, such as Checkbox, to examine and track metrics such as legal turnaround and sub cycle times:

How Can Checkbox Help

Checkbox is a leading legal analytics and dashboard software that gives legal teams a single source of truth by unifying intake, matter management, and reporting in one platform.  

With Checkbox, instead of tracking work across email chains and spreadsheets, every request is captured, logged, and tracked through to resolution—automatically.

Additionally, built-in dashboards and configurable views give teams the ability to monitor key metrics like matter volume, cycle time, and workload in real time. This makes it easy to identify bottlenecks, balance resources, and report on performance without chasing down data.

For legal ops, it means better control and efficiency. For GCs and CLOs, it means having the insights to make strategic decisions and clearly demonstrate legal’s value to the business.

Want to learn more about Checkbox’s features and capabilities? Schedule a call with one of our technology consultants today.