Staff reductions resulting from law department installing document management (shared services)

As reported in Of Counsel, Aug. 2005, A large technology company had law offices in 11 European locations, each staffed with two or three local lawyers who were only able to carry out very limited assignments, spending most of their time essentially as a liaison between headquarters and the local client.

“By introducing a sophisticated (although inexpensive) document-managed system, the company was able to reduce the number of offices employing lawyers to four. Each one of the four became specialist centers servicing the whole group. As a result of dramatic reductions in both real estate and administrative costs, the company was in a position to spend more on hiring real legal experts in their fields.”

I doubt this account. Technology had only a bit part in a dramatic restructuring that changed much more of this department than gets credit from this snippet.