2025 Predictions: Brightflag’s Kevin Cohn on Legal Ops & Legal Tech – Legal Reader

Shohei Ohtani I’m not.

Editor’s observe: Annually, Kevin Cohn, Brightflag’s Chief Buyer Officer, presents his predictions for the approaching 12 months. Atone for his 2022 predictions, 2023 predictions, and 2024 predictions.

I’m again for a fourth consecutive 12 months to supply my predictions. Learn on for my self-scored 2024 predictions, and my 2025 predictions.

Scoring My 2024 Predictions

Authorized ops hiring (re)heats up: Unclear. Extra authorized ops positions are being created now than a 12 months in the past, and extra of them are to originate authorized ops features. That’s nice. On the similar time, they’re extra junior on common, and subsequently pay much less.
Authorized ops compensation normalizes: Miss. Our authorized operations compensation report is the definitive benchmark for the career, and whereas this 12 months’s highlighted numerous vital traits, normalization of compensation wasn’t considered one of them.
Authorized seems for out of doors assistance on AI: Hit. A current survey by Deloitte Authorized. discovered that 95% of Chief Authorized Officers are utilizing generative AI, a lot of it constructing on instruments and use circumstances which are already deployed elsewhere within the group.
The AI craze dies down (a bit): Miss. A baseline understanding of and luxury with how AI works is a prerequisite for shifting right into a enterprise as ordinary mindset. If 2024 has taught me something, it’s that many individuals aren’t near having both.
Company authorized’s remit expands: Unclear. That is powerful to pin down, partly as a result of the US presidential election has turned ESG, till not too long ago a fast-growing space of focus for Chief Authorized Officers, into the third rail of company governance.
Am Regulation 100 fee will increase sluggish: Miss. Based on Brightflag’s current report, Am Regulation 100 corporations doubled their common fee improve to 10% in 2024. Sooner or later these aggressive will increase are going to backfire in spectacular trend.
LinkedIn launches neighborhood options: Miss. There hasn’t been any motion in direction of this in any respect; LinkedIn has saved its deal with the e-learning market, decimating Udemy’s inventory value (down greater than 40% this 12 months) within the course of.
SaaS proliferation resumes: Miss. Zylo noticed a continued shrinking of the common company SaaS footprint from 291 to 269 functions. Their traits report, which is a good learn, has a speculation about what’s driving this…
The CFO stays within the driver’s seat: Hit. CFOs are in search of each alternative to shift to accountable development, making it all of the extra vital for authorized ops leaders to write down rock-solid enterprise circumstances for his or her authorized tech investments.
Brightflag has an important 12 months: Hit. Our development will probably be about the identical as in 2022 and 2023 mixed. That’s on high of improbable enhancements like our all-new bill evaluate expertise and Ask Brightflag, the primary AI assistant for authorized spend and issues.

Three hits, 5 misses, and two unclear. Shohei Ohtani I’m not. Okay, let’s transfer on to my 2025 predictions (and hope I fare higher!).

2025 Predictions

Flight to purpose-built AI: We had a laughable expertise asking a general-purpose AI product to show an outline of a workflow right into a diagram. In distinction, a purpose-built AI product was capable of do it flawlessly. Count on extra deal with the latter.
The 12 months of AI assistants: Salesforce, crucial SaaS firm on the planet, goes lengthy on AI brokers. Brightflag presents an AI assistant for company authorized groups, and we make use of a number of internally to make us extra productive, too.
Prompts grow to be core IP: Writing a immediate is the act of constructing one thing on high of an LLM. How good the factor is that you just construct relies on your understanding of the use case and the way successfully you translate it right into a immediate. That’s IP.
Cloud laggards transfer: SaaS spending surpassed on-premises software program spending for the primary time in 2022, however there’s nonetheless a big portion of spend—round 35%—that isn’t on the cloud. Partly pushed by AI, many laggards will transfer to the cloud in 2025.
CLOs and ops come collectively: Traditionally, Chief Authorized Officers have gone to sure occasions (e.g., ACC and TechGC) and authorized ops to others (CLOC, Authorized Operators). In 2025 we’ll see extra mixing of those teams, with LegalOps.com main from the entrance.
Group is in: Throughout all software program classes, patrons more and more choose to find out about options from specialists. Group-oriented leaders like Matt Wheatley, Tyler Finn, Jason Smith, and Bernadette Bulacan are nice examples of how to do that nicely.
Customer support shines: Flying solo as a authorized ops skilled may be overwhelming; you should be a strategist, tactician, trainer, and troubleshooter unexpectedly. That’s why so many are catching on to the significance of their distributors having nice customer support.
CLM consolidation continues: Docusign acquired Lexion in Could and Workday acquired Evisort in September. Though not a consolidation (but!), KKR acquired Agiloft in Could. I anticipate to see much more M&A exercise within the CLM house all through 2025.

Brightflag has an important 12 months: Success compounds; with every passing 12 months we have now a good larger proper to win out there. That mentioned, we by no means take something with no consideration and can proceed to do our best possible work for our prospects.

I hope you’ve got a protected and completely satisfied vacation season.