The practical handbook Legal Operations Management was published by Springer in 2017. The editors, Roman P. Falter and Christian Dueblin, have compiled an impressively comprehensive work, which deals in eight sub-chapters with the challenges of legal operations, their identity, positioning and leadership, structures, resources and processes. Despite the involvement of various authors from practice and theory, the book bears a clear signature of the editors. They succeed in transferring models of business management consulting to the work of legal departments. This remains partly theoretical, such as the attempt to adapt the SACA model (Statistical Activity Cost Analysis) to the main process of Legal Risk Management. In some cases, a stronger operationalisation of general business approaches for the legal department in the company would have been desirable, such as in the development of strategies for general counsels. In some cases, the book provides very concrete assistance in relevant topics, such as for the additional process Document Management.
Even if the concept of the book remains somewhat unclear – the contributions vary from concrete process descriptions to general observations to insight-oriented interviews – the book provides a great deal of valuable suggestions. For example, the examination of other legal cultures (in contrast to a certain focus on the Swiss market) in the Middle East, China and the USA is just as helpful as the many and varied observations on the challenges facing legal departments in general and in particular.
