Corporate Counsel Must Redesign the Legal Function Before Buying More Technology
Digital transformation has moved from a boardroom slogan to an enterprise expectation, and corporate legal departments are now being pulled into the same mandate that has already reshaped finance, operations, and customer-facing functions. In multinational companies, the pressure is especially strong: legal teams are expected to work faster, contribute more visibly to business strategy, and do so with tighter resources. The article argues that many legal departments are approaching that shift in the wrong order. Technology is often introduced first, while the organizational structure, service model, and behavioral habits that determine whether digital tools succeed are left for later.
The central warning is blunt. If the legal department is not transformed first, digital tools become expensive overlays rather than engines of change.
Based on interviews with 25 general counsels and chief digital officers from S&P 500 multinational companies, plus secondary research and the authors’ professional experience, the article maps a common Three-Phased Digital Maturity Framework. The trajectory is familiar: first comes enthusiasm for new tools, then a push to digitize existing processes, and only afterward a belated effort to fix the underlying operating model. In practice, that sequence can create friction instead of value. The department may automate inefficient workflows, replicate old habits in new software, or burden teams with tools they are not prepared to use effectively.
Why Technology-First Legal Transformation Breaks Down
The article places unusual emphasis on what gets postponed when digital initiatives start with software. Client-centric design, change management, workflow redesign, governance, and cross-functional alignment are frequently treated as secondary tasks. In reality, those are the foundations that determine whether a legal department can absorb new tools and convert them into measurable value. A contract management platform, matter-tracking system, or analytics dashboard cannot compensate for unclear service delivery, inconsistent intake practices, or a legal team that still defines success only by internal legal efficiency.
This is where the article’s clinical logic, borrowed from transformation thinking more broadly, becomes useful: the intervention has to match the underlying system. If the system is structurally misaligned, the technology will not behave like a cure. It will expose the dysfunction faster.
The Five-Step Model Reverses the Sequence
As an alternative, the article proposes a Best-Practice 5-Step Model for general counsels. The sequence begins with the service delivery model and internal operating design, not with technology procurement. Only after the department has clarified how it serves the business, optimized its processes, and aligned itself with the broader strategic context of the multinational company does technology enter the picture. Even then, the model remains iterative rather than linear. Each step is paired with deliberate change management, so the transformation is not treated as a one-time installation but as an ongoing organizational adjustment.
That sequencing matters because legal departments are not simply repositories of documents or approvals. They are advisory systems embedded in a larger enterprise, and their value depends on whether they can move information, manage risk, and support decision-making in a way that fits the business rhythm. A digital system imposed on an outdated service model will not create that fit. A redesigned service model, by contrast, can make digital tools materially more useful from the start.
Change Management Is Not an Accessory
The article repeatedly returns to change management because the hardest part of digital transformation is rarely the software itself. The harder work involves behavior, incentives, role definition, stakeholder trust, and culture. In legal departments, those elements can be especially resistant to change because the function is often built around precision, caution, and risk avoidance. Those traits are valuable, but they can also slow redesign if transformation is framed as a technology project rather than an organizational one.
The proposed model treats change management as a constant thread rather than a final implementation task. That approach is intended to reduce disruption and avoid the common problem of introducing new tools before users understand why the department is changing, how their work will shift, and what value the business should expect. Without that preparation, digital transformation can feel like an additional burden layered onto the existing workload.
Value Creation Replaces the Cost-Center Mindset
A particularly important claim in the article is that digital transformation can push the legal department beyond the traditional cost-center narrative. When executed well, the function can generate data, insights, and operating discipline that help the wider multinational company make faster and better decisions. The legal team becomes more integrated with the business and better positioned to contribute to revenue generation, not just cost containment.
This is a meaningful reframing. A legal department that uses data to anticipate risk, streamline response times, and improve the quality of advice can influence outcomes well beyond its own silo. It can shorten product or market launch delays, improve coordination across business units, and create a more predictable operating environment. Those effects do not come from technology alone. They emerge when the department’s design, processes, and culture are built to extract value from the tools.
Broader Relevance Beyond Multinational Legal Departments
Although the article focuses on multinational corporate legal teams, its framework is presented as portable. Law firms and other legal services providers may also benefit from the same logic, especially as their clients undergo their own digital transformations. The real challenge is not whether legal services should modernize, but whether modernization will be designed around the work itself or simply grafted onto it.
The article leaves little room for a superficial interpretation of digital transformation. Tools are necessary, but they are not the starting point. The department’s structure, workflow, and culture have to be ready first, or the digital layer will arrive before the organization can use it well. For general counsels, that means transformation begins with service design and cross-functional alignment, not with software demos or procurement timelines.