SPRING 202 0 TODAY’S GENER AL COUNSEL
WORKPLACE ISSUES
Managing Law Departments With Lower Budgets By Scott Forman
W 26
ith a possible global recession looming, signs of caution from corporate legal departments are emerging. For instance, in Altman Weil’s 2019 Chief Legal Officer Survey, 38 percent of respondents said they decreased their total budget last year, up from 29 percent in the 2018 survey; and only 36 percent plan to add in-house lawyers in the next 12 months, down from 42 percent in 2018. These trends will almost certainly accelerate if broader economic worries turn out to be well founded. That’s grim news for in-house counsel who are already struggling with workloads and pressure to increase operational efficiency. The volume of legal work is not decreasing, so how will that work get done amid declining budgets and decreased in-house hiring? This article considers two key management challenges for in-house labor and employment attorneys, both of which can be heightened for employers during an economic downturn: the stream of HR-related questions they must now manage on a daily basis and the continued rise of employment-related
Scott Forman is a shareholder with Littler. He focuses on solutions for clients including Littler onDemand for employment law advice and counsel, and Littler CaseSmart for managing employment litigation. sforman@littler.com
litigation. It then focuses on two ways in-house legal departments can navigate these conflicting forces. TECHNOLOGY AND DATA ANALYTICS
Combining the vast data an organization already has about its own business with available technology is one way to combat the pressure to operate more efficiently and effectively. When it comes to managing employment-related questions and responding
to the myriad of issues that arise in the workplace, technology provides an opportunity to create a knowledge bank that can be harnessed to provide more consistent and high quality counsel. Promptly answering each question that arises in the workplace in a one-off fashion uses up vast amounts of time and resources. However, capturing those questions, which often follow similar themes, and the answers provided in a single online platform creates a
