Optimising Your Legal Department Processes

A Practical Guide to World-Class Process Design

In the rush to modernise, many legal teams jump straight and look around for a fancy new software system - particularly contract management lifecycle systems - that promises to solve all of their problems. 

And, it seems the larger the organisation - the deeper the pockets - the greater the propensity of this occurring - we call its MNC-CLMSitis - and this “hope as a strategy” is responsible for a substantial amount of work we do at GLS. 

What they skip is the harder — and more valuable — work: designing legal processes as strategic infrastructure. We say more “valuable” as the only viable way to efficiently and effectively scale the operations of a legal department is by leveraging effective processes and procedures. 

No legal team can continue to add expensive legal team member headcount indefinitely. Indeed, as we enter 2026 - most in-house legal teams are subject to meaningful headcount freezes. 

Your underlying process and procedure infrastructure is in arguably the authorative “indicator” as to the performance capabilities of your legal team. Yes legal team members are valuable - but processes and procedures:

• will remain long after legal team members have come and gone; and
• are how you actually scale up the contribution of your legal teams most expensive resource - the legal team member.

So, this Blog represents a tremendously valuable knowledge transfer from GLS to your legal team on key “North Stars” you must observe if you are to optimise the process and procedure infrastructure of your legal department. 

Finally, this Blog also builds directly on the themes explored in our earlier articles on legal intake discipline and Contract Closure Time, where we showed that performance, data, and ROI all depend on what happens before technology is deployed.

First Principles: Understand What Legal Processes Actually Are

Before any optimisation exercise begins, legal leaders must get one thing clear:

Processes and procedures are not bureaucracy.
They are the operating infrastructure of the legal function.

When treated as:

• compliance artefacts,
• internal documentation,
• or “something we need for audit”,

they inevitably become:

• bloated,
• ignored,
• and disconnected from reality.

When treated as infrastructure, they:

• enable scale,
• create predictability,
• protect judgment,
• and unlock performance.

This mindset shift matters because it changes how processes are designed:

• not to constrain lawyers,
• but to amplify their impact.

If a legal team does not genuinely believe its processes are strategic assets, optimisation will always stall at superficial tweaks.

Design Principle 1: Reduce Every Process to the Fewest Possible Steps

The most common flaw in legal processes is step inflation.

Every additional step:

• increases cycle time,
• introduces friction,
• creates handoff risk,
• and multiplies failure points.

A useful discipline is to ask, relentlessly:

• “What would break if this step didn’t exist?”
• “What risk does this step genuinely control?”

If the answer is unclear, the step is a candidate for removal.

World-class legal processes are:

• short,
• deliberate,
• and defensible.

They do not attempt to solve every edge case.
They solve the 80–90% cleanly — and leave judgment space where it matters.

Design Principle 2: Hunt for Bottlenecks, Not Just Delays

Most legal teams can identify that things are “slow”.
Fewer understand why.

True optimisation comes from locating structural bottlenecks, not surface-level delay.

Common examples include:

• concentrated approval points,
• legacy sign-off requirements,
• unclear Delegations of Authority,
• or informal “gatekeepers” created by habit rather than policy.

A powerful diagnostic question is:

“Where does work pile up — and why does it pile up there?”

Often, bottlenecks reveal:

• outdated risk assumptions,
• misaligned authority structures,
• or policy gaps that force manual escalation.

This is where process optimisation quickly becomes organisational design — not just workflow tuning.

Design Principle 3: Start With Apex Legal Policies — Not Procedures

One of the most frequent mistakes in legal process design is starting at the wrong level.

Procedures sit downstream of policy.

If apex policies are unclear, inconsistent, or missing, no amount of procedural detail will compensate.

Before optimising any legal process, ensure the foundations are in place, including:

• a clear legal department mandate,
• a Group Legal Policy (or equivalent),
• a Delegation of Authority framework,
• a contract approval policy,
• and a legal service charter defining scope and expectations.

These documents:

• define authority,
• allocate decision rights,
• and set risk tolerance.

Without them, procedures are forced to “guess” — and guesswork always leads to over-engineering.

Design Principle 4: Design for Automation — But Don’t Let Automation Dictate Design

Automation potential should always be considered, but never lead.

Processes designed for tools tend to:

• mirror system constraints,
• embed vendor assumptions,
• and calcify bad logic.

Instead, the sequence should be:

1. design the optimal human process,
2. simplify it as far as defensible,
3. then assess what can be automated.

This approach ensures that:

• automation accelerates good design,
• rather than hard-coding inefficiency.

Well-designed legal processes are:

• automation-ready,
• but not automation-dependent.

This distinction is critical for long-term adaptability.

Design Principle 5: Map Cross-Departmental Dependencies Explicitly

Legal processes almost never live entirely within legal.

They typically traverse:

• commercial,
• finance,
• tax,
• procurement,
• risk,
• compliance,
• and operations.

Ignoring these dependencies is one of the fastest ways to design a process that looks elegant on paper — and fails in reality.

Effective process design requires asking:

• Which departments does this process touch?
• At what points?
• What do they need — and what do they provide?

Clarity here:

• reduces friction,
• shortens cycle time,
• and prevents downstream rework.

It also makes it much easier to have informed conversations about accountability when delays occur.

Design Principle 6: Understand System Dependencies Outside Legal

Closely related — but distinct — is the question of system traversal.

Legal processes often intersect with:

• ERP systems,
• procurement platforms,
• finance approval tools,
• CRM systems,
• and enterprise workflow solutions.

Each system introduces:

• data requirements,
• timing constraints,
• and sequencing logic.

Optimisation requires understanding:

• where data is created,
• where it is reused,
• and where duplication or manual intervention occurs.

This is why process optimisation cannot be done in isolation from:

• data flows,
• intake discipline,
• and downstream analytics.

Processes are only as efficient as the ecosystem they move through.

Design Principle 7: Anchor Processes to Measurable Performance Outcomes

Every material legal process should be traceable to:

• a performance metric,
• a cycle time,
• or a cost implication.

If a process cannot be linked to:

• faster execution,
• reduced effort,
• or improved predictability,

it is likely over-designed.

Processes should exist to:

• shorten time to outcome,
• reduce internal cost,
• or improve decision quality.

Anything else is ornamental.

As an example, processes relating to the Contracting Line should relate/contribute to Contract Closure Time.

Design Principle 8: Build Intake Discipline Into Every Process

No legal process starts in the middle.

They all start with instruction.

This is why the Legal Service Request Form is such a critical dependency:

• it defines the start point,
• captures context,
• and anchors every downstream step.

Optimising processes without intake discipline is like:

• redesigning a factory line without controlling raw materials.

The process will always be unstable.

Design Principle 9: Preserve Judgment Where It Matters Most

The purpose of legal process is not to eliminate judgment —
it is to protect it.

World-class process design:

• removes routine decision-making from lawyers,
• so that expertise is reserved for:
  • risk trade-offs,
  • negotiation strategy,
  • and genuinely complex issues.

Over-proceduralisation is just as damaging as under-design.

The aim is balance.

Design Principle 10: Optimisation Is an Ongoing Capability — Not a One-Off Project

Finally, the most mature legal teams recognise that:

• process optimisation is not a project,
• it is a capability.

As business models change, volumes shift, and risk tolerances evolve, processes must adapt.

This requires:

• periodic review,
• performance data,
• and a willingness to revisit assumptions.

Legal teams that get this right build resilience — not just efficiency.

Why This Matters to the Business

Optimised legal processes:

• reduce friction,
• accelerate deal velocity,
• lower internal cost,
• and make legal support predictable.

They also:

• improve internal client experience,
• enable data-driven decision-making,
• and underpin credible transformation investment cases.

This is why processes and procedures sit as a core Station on the Legal Operations Line of the  GLS Legal Transformation Tube Map.

They are not an internal housekeeping exercise.
They are a business performance lever.

Final Thought

Legal teams that treat process design seriously gain something rare:
control over how their function actually operates.

Without it:

• performance discussions remain subjective,
• transformation investments are hard to justify,
• and legal remains difficult to value.

With it:

• legal becomes legible to the business,
• improvement becomes measurable,
• and authority follows naturally.

That is the strategic potential of process — when it is designed properly.