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Optimizing IP Operations and Benefiting from Benchmarking

Business Management | Cost Management
Tags: AQX Law Firm

by: Joe Bichanich, Client Director, Law Firms, and Co-Host of the ongoing Law Firm Webinar Series

Law firms are under pressure: client expectations are changing, new forms of competition are entering the market, and legal technology is gaining importance. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, these developments, and many more, were pressuring on law firms to transform their business. Now, the global pandemic has fortified these pressures, accelerating the need for change. Critical to this transformation is three critical areas: optimizing IP operations, managing data, and benchmarking results.

Optimizing operations can mean many different things to different law firms—the majority (67%) of firms are investing in new technology to support firm operations and client work, according to 2020 survey from Wolters Kluwer. Others are undertaking process optimization projects or creating a dedicated innovation function within their firm. However, despite the critical need for it, many firms face challenges in both change management and data management when trying to optimize operations.

Resistance to change is cited in the same Wolters Kluwer study—while lawyers could readily predict where they expected pressure to come from in the next three years, they don’t believe their law firms and organizations were prepared. For law firms, the difficulty of change management and leadership resistance to change are the biggest barriers to implementing change.

Change management can be a difficult endeavor in law firms for distinct reasons. In the legal operations function, docketing and data managers raise concerns over job loss due to automation. For a partner five years away for retirement, a push to change their practice can often fall on deaf ears.

Unfortunately, for firms looking to hone their legal operations, resistance to change is not the only barrier. It’s no surprise to learn that if you want to optimize your operations, benchmarking is an excellent place to start. But, benchmarking often requires data and that creates its own set of difficulties.

So how do you overcome these challenges? And how do you empower your team to move forward with these changes? Watch our panel discussion “Benchmarking IP Operations and Managing Data” with IP Watchdog to find out the key traits of successful IP operations teams.

On October 27, we will have a follow up webinar to share practical tips to take back to your firm and how our software for law firms can help you optimize operations and better manage data. Click here to find out more and register.


These webinars are part of a two-month series that will provide you with practical skills to take back to your firm and learn from diverse law firms on how they are moving forward during these challenging times. View the full calendar here.