Les Legal KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) have become essential tools for managing and optimizing the performance of legal departments. Faced with the evolution of the role of the corporate lawyer, it is essential to measure the effectiveness of teams and the added value of the legal department.
Discover the 7 key performance indicators to follow to assess your legal department and identify the levers for improvement.
Like any strategic department, the legal department must follow the evolution of its expenses in order to ensure a budget management effective. This KPI makes it possible to identify the most important cost items and identify possible areas for optimization.
Comparing the evolution of internal and external legal expenses from one year to the next makes it possible to assess the relevance of the control measures put in place and to identify the missions likely to be internalized.
This monitoring also promotes a better evaluation of the law firm productivity partners.
The Average processing time for a file is a central legal KPI for measuring team performance. It makes it possible to assess the responsiveness of the legal department and the proper allocation of resources.
This analysis must be conducted taking into account the nature and complexity of the cases. It helps to distinguish interventions with low added value, which can be automated, from high-value missions where legal expertise is decisive.
This KPI also contributes to improving the internal customer satisfaction, often perceived through the speed of processing requests.
The number of files processed reflects the operational capacity and productivity of the legal department. A continuous increase can signal increased load or improved efficiency, but it can also indicate an overload of work.
Analyzing this KPI helps to identify reinforcement needs, to automate certain recurring tasks and to deploy tools for legal digitalization.
The aim is to optimize processes without compromising the quality of work provided by lawyers.
La internal customer satisfaction is a key indicator for evaluating the quality and perception of legal services within the company. It is based on several criteria: reactivity, clarity of advice, quality of support and understanding of business challenges.
Setting up regular satisfaction surveys makes it possible to have an objective score and to better align the legal strategy with operational needs.
This KPI favors a culture of service oriented towards performance and inter-department collaboration.
The annual activity report of the legal department is a retrospective and prospective analysis tool. It highlights the main trends of the past year: typology of cases, new risks identified, geographical or sectoral evolution of interventions.
This KPI allows the legal department to enhance its strategic role and to communicate effectively on its impact to managers and other departments.
It is also a decision-making tool to anticipate future challenges.
La Measuring the level of legal risk is at the heart of the mission of legal departments. This KPI aims to identify, classify and assess the risks to which the company is exposed, whether contractual, regulatory or litigation.
Thanks to analysis tools and artificial intelligence, legal departments now have efficient means to anticipate risks and strengthen their prevention strategies.
This follow-up promotes better proactive management and reduces litigation costs.
La legal department is now playing an increasingly strategic role in the development of the company. Follow the detection of business opportunities makes it possible to measure the contribution of the legal department to the growth of the organization.
By identifying contractual levers, securing new partnerships or by promoting innovation, the legal department is demonstrating its ability to create value beyond its compliance role.
One Isolated legal KPI provides only a partial vision of performance. The challenge lies in combining and correlating the various indicators to obtain a complete and actionable vision.
Setting up a coherent measurement system, regularly monitoring results and adjusting corrective actions are the keys to a efficient management of the legal department.
Download the Checklist of the 7 legal KPIs to effectively assess the performance of your department and strengthen the strategic contribution of your team to the success of the company.
