The biggest challenge law department administrators see is to bring about change

One of the questions on the Third Annual Law Department Operations Survey asked respondents to “rank the top three challenges of managing law department operations.” Where three points went to a first place choice, two points to second, and one to third, “Driving/Implementing change” led the pack. It collected 95 points, whereas the next most acute challenge, “Identify opportunities for business improvement & cost savings,” lagged far behind at 56 points. The third-ranked choice, “Document ROI of the position to the corporation,” at 47 also has to do with change. For these respondents, their hardest task has to do with pushing colleagues to improve.

By the way, the total points allocated to the 10 choices was 448. Since each respondent could assign 6 points and perhaps a couple did not allocate all of their points, that suggests 75 respondents,

All ten choices, except “Other” that only got 5 points, were upbeat, success-oriented and high-level activities. Ordering supplies, planning meetings, preparing PowerPoints for the General Counsel, finding replacements for ill secretaries and other, more mundane demands did not make the challenges list. They also take time and attention but making the trains run on time is not a challenge.