The Evolution of the Legal Ops Department

Lucy Bassli, assistant general counsel of legal operations and contracting at Microsoft Corp., calls herself "an attorney who loves process and efficiency."

She joined the company in 2004 as a senior attorney working on contract negotiations and procurement policies, eventually taking on a half-legal, half-operational role by providing both legal support and by helping the contracting team with automation for tools and processes.

In October 2016, Bassli left behind the half-legal part of her job and went full operational. She now oversees records management, contracting, legal procurement and technology support for the Redmond, Washington-based company's legal department. She is the only lawyer on her team of about 15, which includes managers in operations, programs and records.

Kevin is a Managing Director and the leader of HBR’s Law Department Consulting practice. He has over 17 years of experience providing strategy and operations consulting focused on the alignment of people, processes, and technology. He has led legal transformation efforts for some of the world’s leading legal departments and is a frequent speaker on legal operations, benchmarking and analytics, technology, and change management.

Prior to HBR, Clem was a Managing Director and founding member of Huron Consulting Group and a Senior Consultant with Arthur Andersen.

He holds a BS in International Business from Pepperdine University and a MBA from New York University with specializations in organizational change management and the intersection of law and business.

Pratik leads the global legal business solutions practice, which focuses on helping law departments and law firms innovate around the operations and the business of law. More specifically, Pratik leads a team that focuses on legal analytics, spend management, legal project management, outside counsel management, lean for legal and strategy development. Pratik is part of Elevate’s executive management team, has been recognized by ILTA as the most Innovative Legal Consultant in 2015, and is a Fellow of the College of Law Practice Management.