The In-house Legal function is in a unique position to be both an enabling business partner and the guardian of the law. Traditionally, it is led with a purely legal focus. Introducing a managerial mindset and leveraging practices from other disciplines can boost operational excel- lence and digitalization.

Process management enables Legal functions to explore how the content, support systems, and interfaces of their work blend to create quality results and relate this to management processes. It is an essential prerequisite for digitalization, as a digitalizing non-structured processes leads to poor digital processes. As Thorsten Dirks, at the time CEO of one of the largest German mobile network operators, puts it:

“If you digitize a shitty process, you have a shitty digital process.”

Crafting a digital-enabled process with clear interfaces and to-the-point descriptions, enables you to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Cou- pled with a human-centered mindset, processes can serve as the basis for better work, and enable data-enabled decision making. In short, process is the foundation for teams to deliver greater value.