Legal operations are infamous for being complex, slow-moving, and absolutely riddled with friction. But not because legal teams want to work that way. Most of the time, they’re stuck in gnarly processes that have evolved over years (or decades) of patchwork fixes, siloed systems, and risk-averse decision-making.
Let’s break down what makes legal processes especially gnarly—with real-world examples to prove it.
1. Too many decision points, too little logic
Legal workflows often require approvals and input from multiple stakeholders—legal, business units, compliance, procurement, external counsel… you name it. But the routing rules? Often opaque, outdated, or nonexistent.
For example:
Contract review
A simple NDA can bounce between sales, legal, and finance with no clear routing logic. Is this the latest template? Who signs first? Does this one even need legal review? No one knows, so everyone over-escalates just in case.
2. Document-heavy and system-light
Legal processes are built around documents—but ironically, many teams don’t have systems that manage them well. Tracking versions, redlines, and signatures often happens via email chains and folder chaos.
Example:
Litigation hold notices
Legal needs to issue, track, and follow up on hold notices. Without automation, this means manually emailing custodians, tracking acknowledgments in spreadsheets, and praying no one misses a deadline.
3. Siloed stakeholders and departmental ping-pong
Legal processes often involve cross-functional collaboration—sales, HR, procurement, finance—and each team has their own systems, priorities, and pace. Legal becomes the bottleneck, even when they’re not the blocker.
Example:
Policy updates & compliance tracking
Legal drafts a new policy, but it needs HR to communicate it, IT to enforce controls, and compliance to track training completion. Everyone’s using different systems and timelines, and legal is stuck herding cats.
4. Manual intake = inbox overload
Legal teams often rely on email or generic intake forms to capture work requests. That leads to inconsistent info, duplicated efforts, and serious prioritisation problems.
Example:
Legal intake requests
A request for legal review of a marketing campaign comes in via Slack. Another one comes through a random form. A third one lands in the GC’s inbox. No tracking, no triage, no visibility.
5. Ever-changing regulatory requirements
Legal processes are constantly under pressure from new laws, guidance, and interpretations—especially in regulated industries like finance, healthcare, or energy. That means processes must evolve fast, which is tough when they're hard-coded and fragile.
Example:
Data privacy compliance
GDPR, CCPA, and the multitude of privacy laws all require nuanced workflows. Data subject access requests (DSARs) must be logged, verified, fulfilled, and documented—across multiple systems. And the rules keep changing.
6. High risk, low visibility
Legal processes have a low margin for error, but often lack real-time insight into where things stand. That’s a dangerous combo.
Example:
Third-party risk assessments
Legal needs to vet suppliers for data privacy, ethics, and contractual risk. Without a central platform, this turns into a spreadsheet safari with no easy way to track completion, flag high-risk vendors, or escalate issues.
7. Legacy systems and “We’ve always done it this way” culture
Lawyers are trained to manage risk—not rip up the rulebook. As a result, legal teams often stick with what they know, even if it's wildly inefficient.
Example:
Board governance and entity management
Still using shared drives and Word templates to manage board minutes, entity registrations, and compliance calendars? You're not alone. But it doesn’t scale—and it introduces real governance risk.
8. Tribal knowledge and hidden processes
Many legal workflows live in people’s heads. If Cheryl from Legal Ops is on holiday, the process is effectively paused. That’s fine… until it isn’t.
Example:
Trademark registration management
One person knows all the filing timelines, regional nuances, and lawyer contacts. Nothing is centralised. When they leave, the IP portfolio is at risk.
The bottom line
Legal processes are especially prone to gnarliness because they sit at the intersection of high complexity, high risk, and historically low tech investment.
But that’s also what makes them perfect candidates for process automation.
With platforms like Autologyx, legal teams can:
- Standardise and streamline intake
- Automate repetitive document tasks
- Improve cross-functional collaboration
- Ensure compliance and auditability
- Scale legal support without burning out the team
Next up: we’ll show exactly how Autologyx can be used to de-gnarl legal ops workflows like contract lifecycle management, legal intake, compliance, and more.
Got a gnarly legal process you’re wrestling with? Let’s untangle it together!