Anyone who thinks that data analytics isn’t necessary is in a legal department needs to think again. Legal professionals must collect and analyze many types of data from department tools and industry sources. After this analysis, they can define objectives to provide metrics and dashboards that drive efficiencies and optimize spend. Simply put, it’s important for legal departments to analyze data about different trends to determine how to become more efficient, cost-effective and organized.
This buzz phrase is all about capturing data and turning it into analytics. This means that a database alone is not data analytics. A department needs a way to not only store the data, but also to analyze and make sense of it.
Two types of legal users can benefit from data analytics. The first is the “worker-bee” who use the legal matter management system on a daily basis. Through daily use, they get immediate value. The second is an attorney who may or may not use the system regularly and may or may not be tech-savvy. Although they aren’t using the system every day, they see the value in it when they can look at the data that other employees in the department compile. This includes information about who handled what matter and how long it took as well as data on legal spend and projections. This information helps the attorney see where the department is going and why, which relates back to staffing and other issues.…show more content… Legal matter management software can meet both of these needs. With a well-organized, user-friendly database reports and the ability to easily generate reports for the non-technical person, this type of software allows legal professionals to view data in a way that makes sense to
