Blog: Legal Team Metrics to Track & Why
Tracking the right metrics is crucial for legal teams.
Teams are often focused on what is easy to measure: number of matters handled, hours logged, or budget spend. While these metrics describe activity, they don’t reflect value, outcomes, or learning.
Performance Indicators to Consider
Turnaround Time: Average time to complete a task or matter. This indicates operational responsiveness and efficiency.
Matter Complexity Scoring: Classifies work by complexity to ensure tasks are matched with appropriately skilled resources. This helps to optimise resource allocation and prioritisation.
Client Feedback Scores: Structured feedback after legal support delivery. This highlights service quality, stakeholder satisfaction, and areas for improvement.
Self-Service Utilisation: Percentage of matters resolved via portals, playbooks, or automated tools. This indicates how well legal enables the business and reduces low-value work.
Knowledge Reuse: Frequency of templates, clause banks, or precedent use. This demonstrates how knowledge management drives efficiency and consistency.
Cost Avoidance: Estimated financial impact of legal advice or proactive risk management. This connects legal activity directly to business value.
Why it Matters
These KPIs shift the narrative from "how busy are we?" to "how effective are we?".
By focusing on impact rather than activity, legal teams can:
Free senior lawyers for strategic work.
Identify areas for outsourcing or automation.
Demonstrate measurable value to the business.
Improve operational efficiency.
Use Case
A multinational in-house legal team introduced matter complexity scoring and discovered that 40% of work could be reassigned to ALSPs. This freed senior counsel to focus on strategic, high-value matters. It improved both efficiency and business impact.
Instead of reporting volume, legal leaders can demonstrate impact, optimise resources, and align performance with business objectives.
