Legal data has long been treated as a defensive necessity: something to preserve, collect, and review to avoid penalties. Considering the regulatory environment, that mindset is understandable. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a record-breaking $8.2 billion in financial remedies for fiscal year 2024.

Staying compliant isn’t the whole story. Modernizing legal data practices unlocks far more value, letting it become a source of competitive intelligence, early risk detection, and operational efficiency.

Cost Center or Strategic Asset

A cost center mindset revolves around basic obligations. If legal data is viewed as an operational requirement, the work often follows in a similar, reactive fashion.

Manual tasks and disconnected systems absorb hours and create slow response times. Budgets focus on reducing spend instead of improving capability.

What’s happens in the end? Legal is viewed one-dimensionally, separated from its clear potential connection to business value. But something else is also true: everything becomes less effective. Manual tasks, disconnected systems, and bargain-rate budgets undermine the very things they promote.

There’s no progress. Legal data becomes a liability because the processes, systems, and mindset are fundamentally broken. The result is the inability to succeed as even a cost center — it’s a self-defeating concept.

A strategic asset mindset treats legal data as information that can guide the business.

  • Patterns in investigations, communications, and workflows highlights risks early.

  • Visibility across repositories supports quicker decisions and more effective compliance operations.

  • Technology helps teams analyze larger volumes of data with better accuracy.

This approach raises the value of legal work and makes outcomes faster, clearer, and more predictable. Teams are able to leverage data instead of simply managing it.

3 Strategies for Making Data a Strategic Asset

Here are three approaches for moving out of the cost-center category and into the strategic asset mindset.

3 Strategies for Making Data a Strategic Asset

  1. Reframe the Transformation Narrative

    Most organizations believe they have “too much data,” but in reality, their data holds untapped intelligence. Reframing data volume as opportunity helps legal teams identify patterns, accelerate investigations, and spot risk early.

    Starter actions: Map key repositories, run a high-value pilot (e.g., frequent custodians), and use those insights to improve policies and workflows.

  2. Treat Modernization as Urgent, Not Optional

    Regulatory expectations change rapidly. Being reactive already means being behind. Modernizing your approach to legal data — with better visibility, automation, and cross-functional alignment — reduces exposure and strengthens defensibility.

    Starter actions: Conduct a gap assessment, create a cross-functional task force, and build a phased roadmap focused on quick wins and long-term integration.

  3. Use Technology as a Force Multiplier

    Technology shouldn’t be seen as only a time-saver. It’s a compliance engine, a risk-reduction tool, and a way to free teams for more strategic work.

    Starter actions: Identify manual workflows for automation, define clear KPIs, and evaluate solutions that unify data sources and support AI-driven analysis.

Unlocking Real Business Value — Where To Go Next

Legal teams that embrace this shift reduce risk, increase speed, and unlock real business value. The key is pairing modern technology with intentional strategy, clear KPIs, and processes that support defensibility and growth.

Want to go deeper? This blog builds on themes from our whitepaper about modernizing data compliance. It expands on the three strategies outlined above.

Get the practical tools and frameworks to make legal data a strategic asset.

Legal Data Management: Cost Center or Strategic Asset?
Amit Dungarani

Author

Amit Dungarani

VP of Product Marketing and Revenue Enablement

Amit Dungarani serves as Vice President of Product Marketing and Revenue Enablement at Casepoint, where he leads strategic initiatives to align the company's comprehensive portfolio of enterprise solutions with the complex needs of large corporations and government agencies. With over 23 years of leadership experience spanning enterprise…

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