Look to the moon: managing and monitoring the legal function

A legal department’s objective is to support an organization in reaching its objectives, by seizing legal opportunity whenever possible and identifying and mitigating legal risks intelligently. To do this effectively, a proactive and structured approach is essential. Although times are changing, many legal departments still have a long way to go. Developing and maintaining a legal dashboard, in some shape or form, should be one of the first steps in taking a more structured approach to managing the legal function. Where the term legal dashboard is currently used mainly for tools to control legal spend, a complete dashboard should also encompass sources of legal risk and legal opportunity. Only if a legal department has a clear and shared view of the current and, as much as possible, future status of the legal function can there be sensible discussions on setting legal priorities and directing limited resources to where they are most needed. A legal dashboard will facilitate discussion not only within a legal department, but also with other organizational departments. The central idea of this article is that collaboration and structured discussion are essential for legal quality to emerge.