Measuring Success Within a Legal Department
Overview
This article discusses the softer arguments and factors for general counsel and senior lawyers to consider when developing key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of a legal department. A wealth of information already exists within websites, journals and legal publications on the types of KPIs that could be used to measure a legal department. The key considerations are:
Why should KPIs be used to measure performance?
How should KPIs be reported?
How can senior lawyers become more effective at presenting KPIs to the board?
Practical Guidance
Current thinking around KPIs
“A performance indicator can be defined as an item of information collected at regular intervals to track the performance of a system... for every performance indicator questions must be asked about the implied messages, the behavioural implications. In other words, knowing that certain indicators are being collected, and monitored, what implications do people draw?” (“Performance Indicators”, Fitz-Gibbon T., Carol, Bera Dialogues, Number 2 (1990))