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The in-house legal function is at a pivotal moment. Boards and C-suites want clear answers: How fast does legal respond? What does it cost? How does it help the company grow? They want to know more than what a legal department delivers; they care about how the work is driving the business forward. The increased scrutiny is pushing legal teams to go beyond trust and focus on performance data. KPIs, once internal-only, now shape conversations with finance, boards, and executive teams. As the pressure to scale mounts, legal leaders rely on time, cost, and scale data to justify budgets, make sharper decisions, and explain their value in business terms.
Siobhan LaForte, Head of Segment Marketing at LexisNexis, has watched the transformation reshape legal departments in every industry. She partners closely with inhouse teams as they shift from implicit trust to data-driven accountability. For years, inhouse legal teams operated in the dark, with little transparency. Now, as the need to scale intensifies, legal leaders use performance data to back up budget requests and make smarter decisions.
The shift mirrors what’ s happening across any business as every department needs to prove its value with measurable results. Legal cannot claim an exception due to the specialization of its work; Siobhan sees teams embracing this new reality instead of resisting it.
From protection to partnership
The conversation about measurement has moved beyond simple tracking. Crafty Counsel
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