Aligning Legal and Strategic Objectives

The role of the legal team is not only to provide legal services in the most efficient and effective manner, as it is monitored by specific operational KPIs. The LD also needs to demonstrate that its organization, as well as its overall operations (which are guided by the LD's missions and objectives), are entirely focused on achieving the top priorities of the company and driven by the achievement of its strategic goals.

The legal performance of a company can be understood in two different ways. In a narrow sense, it refers to the performance of its LD, in other words the capacity of that department to achieve its own missions and objectives. This aspect is at the core of the present chapter. A broader—and perhaps more appropriate—under­standing is to see legal performance as the company's ability to deploy legal resources (especially intangible resources such as a specific legal capability) and combine them with the other types of resources at its disposal in order to achieve its objectives, in particular its strategic objectives. In this sense, legal performance can be considered as an important factor in the overall performance of the company. And the performance achieved by the legal team significantly contributes to the legal performance of the company as a whole.

In view of the above, and as already highlighted in this Section, the correct use of metrics by Legal seems to trigger a common effect: it contributes to reinforcing the role, positioning and influence of the LD as a key player, influencer and business partner within the company.

This Section has helped us understand Why measuring is important, which in turn helps to identify What should be measured.

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