How Legal Teams Should Calculate and Showcase ROI

Across industries, legal demand is outpacing resources. Workloads are growing, regulatory requirements keep fluctuating, economic uncertainty is increasing, and the volume and complexity of data continue to rise exponentially, driven by AI, cloud collaboration, and the proliferation of data platforms. As legal departments face challenging workloads and budgets, leaders must demonstrate measurable return on investment (ROI) to secure resources and drive modernization.

These constraints are pushing general counsels to rethink how they measure legal’s contribution — moving from a cost center to a value driver.

The Opportunity: Turning Legal Data Into ROI

GCs and CLOs meeting the challenge of data overload are reframing it as a business intelligence asset rather than a liability and using it to sharpen decision-making, streamline operations, and strengthen security. By modernizing data practices to manage the data flood, bringing eDiscovery in-house, leveraging unified analytics and AI-powered dashboards to uncover insights, benchmarking spend, and delivering tailored, board-ready reporting — as well as leading on cybersecurity risk — they are positioning themselves at the heart of business growth through steps such as:  

Uncovering Advantage in Legal Data

• Replacing outdated workflows and siloed data with unified analytics.  

• Using AI-powered dashboards to generate insights and benchmark spending.  

• Delivering tailored, board-ready reporting that demonstrates legal’s value.

Modernizing for Efficiency and Value  

• Automating and centralizing manual tasks to reduce friction and increase scale.  

• Adopting cloud-based platforms for compliance, contracts, and collaboration.  

• Forecasting risks and generating competitive intelligence to shift from reactive to proactive.  

Bringing eDiscovery In-House   

• Deploying data analytics tools that defensibly reduce the scope of data using early case assessment (ECA) techniques.

• Cutting vendor costs and accelerating reviews with secure, internal platforms.  

• Strengthening compliance and safeguarding sensitive data through internal control.  

• Detecting patterns and emerging risks to support investigations and regulatory challenges.  

• Fostering collaboration between legal, compliance, and IT, bolstering readiness for regulatory challenges and internal investigations.  

Leading Cybersecurity Risk Management   

• Translating regulatory requirements into business practices and embedding compliance into culture.  

• Driving governance, validation, and crisis response to strengthen resilience across the organization.  

• Overseeing sensitive processes like eDiscovery in-house to bolster defenses and regulatory alignment.  

The “Assert” Pillar: Leveraging Data-Driven ROI To Build the Business Case 

Five pillars enable legal leaders to turn data overload into an operational advantage, as described in our whitepaper. The final pillar emphasizes how showing ROI is only the beginning. 

Use results as leverage to secure the resources, budget, and influence to drive momentum across the business. By tying faster decision cycles, regulatory readiness, talent retention, and board-level insights to business outcomes, legal leaders can build an evidence-based case for investment. The message to the C-suite is clear: with the right support, legal is not just keeping pace with risk and regulation — it’s helping lead the business forward. 

Making the Business Case – 4 Proof Points

Building the business case is about momentum: taking today’s ROI and turning it into tomorrow’s investment. With evidence on their side, legal leaders can secure the resources that transform the department from operational necessity to strategic driver.  

 Learn more about how GCs and legal operations professionals can streamline processes, forecast risk, and strengthen business alignment with data.