Digitally mature teams have the highest productivity and the lowest headcount, while digitally immature teams have the lowest productivity, largest teams, and most FTEs. The surprising news: the most digitally mature are most at risk for talent attrition.
SYDNEY and NEW YORK, Nov. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Australia’s corporate legal teams are investing millions in legal tech, with the expectation that it will improve productivity, cut costs, and make work easier for their in-house legal teams. New research finds those expectations are valid and legal tech investments are paying off, but with unexpected human costs.
Digital transformation is delivering high productivity and efficiency gains to Australian corporate legal departments, but also leading to higher stress and flight risk among senior leaders and teams. Conversely, legal teams that aren’t on the digital cutting edge report the lowest productivity-but they also have high job satisfaction and the lowest flight risk (just 5% of employees in these firms are actively looking).
And legal teams of all maturity levels are increasing budgets to buy more legal tech-and not just AI-although AI is finding its way into every category of legal technology. In-house legal teams are investing in lawyer power as well as tech power, for a variety of reasons, but all related to their team size and tech savvy.
Those are just a few of many useful insights uncovered by a new Australian national study, The Impact of Digital Maturity on Australian In-House Legal Teams, designed and fielded by InsightDynamo and commissioned by Axiom.
“The data show that the money legal leaders are investing in legal tech is paying off-both in ways they wanted and ways they didn’t anticipate,” said Jacob Flax, Managing Director and Country Head of Axiom Australia. “They’re getting the automation and high output on lower-risk work they wanted, so their teams can focus more on the strategic, higher-risk work that requires human reasoning, creativity, and talent. The unintended consequence: Their small teams still feel overworked, are more stressed out, and most are actively looking for their next job. To counter this, respondents at all maturity levels are complementing legal tech investments with investments in FTEs, outside counsel, and flexible legal talent providers like Axiom.”
The researchers surveyed the use of 16 popular legal technologies across 16 Australian industries, gathering data that represents a cross-section of the Australian in-house legal sector. Researchers looked at the intersection of legal tech, productivity, and efficiency to determine what impact, if any, legal tech was having on Australian legal teams. The data was then used to analyse the digitally mature, digital centre, and digitally immature among Australia’s in-house legal industry.
Metrics reported include productivity, resourcing, stress, flight risk, alignment to the CTO/CIO and other C-suite members, budgets, talent and hiring, revenue, industry ranking, and tech profiles. The results were at times as unexpected as they were insightful. The study shows that in-house teams fall into one of three maturity levels:
“While digital transformation drives efficiency, it can also drive in-house lawyers to the exits,” Flax said. “Transforming legal departments requires more than deploying new technologies. It’s about finding the right balance-using technology to improve productivity, while using legal service providers like Axiom to improve capacity and provide specialized skillsets that improve team success. Putting together the right combination of technology and talent has become critical to building a high-performing in-house team that will thrive over the long haul.”
For more insights, download a complete copy of the The Impact of Digital Maturity on Australian In-House Legal Teams,” suitable for reading on a smartphone, tablet, or desktop computer. It is available at no cost at https://www.axiomlaw.com/en-au/resources/articles/australian-in-house-legal-digital-maturity-report.
For more information or to talk to an Axiom representative, visit https://www.axiomlaw.com. For more information about Axiom, please visit our website, hear from our experts on the Inside Axiom blog, network with us on LinkedIn, and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
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Axiom is where high-calibre legal talent meets full-service law firm work. We invented the alternative legal services industry 24 years ago and now serve more than 1,500 legal departments globally, including 68% of the Fortune 100, with 95% client satisfaction. Axiom gives small, mid-market, and enterprise clients a single trusted provider who can deliver a full spectrum of legal solutions and services across more than a dozen practice areas and all major industries at rates up to 50% less than national law firms. To learn how Axiom can help your legal departments do more for less, visit axiomlaw.com.
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