Managed Legal Operations for a Global Legal Department
Swiftwater ran the day-to-day legal operations of an American-Asian global technology company as an extension of its internal Legal Operations function, across its regions and time zones. The arrangement gave the department capability it would otherwise have had to hire several specialized roles to obtain, and it held through changes in legal operations leadership.
At a glance
- Service
- Managed legal operations (legal ops managed services)
- Scope
- Recurring operations across multiple regions and time zones, from strategy to invoice payment
- Outcome
- Enterprise-scale capability without equivalent growth in permanent headcount; continuity through leadership transitions
What the problem looked like
The internal team did not have the capacity to run operations consistently across regions. Workflows differed by team. Escalations had no clear owner.
Each leadership change took institutional knowledge with it, and the department had to rebuild context on its own platform, vendors, and workarounds.
Services Swiftwater provided
- Legal operations strategy and org design. Operating model, governance, decision rights, and the roadmap, kept current through every reorganization. Read more
- Program and workflow management. The legal operations program, operational workflows, initiative tracking, and coordination across Legal, Finance, Procurement, AP, and IT.
- Matter administration and invoice review. A seven-person team covering every step from matter setup to invoice payment and reconciliation, which delivered $60M in outside counsel savings. Read more
- Onit implementation and administration. Migration from an aging eBilling system to Onit across four continents, then administration, configuration, and expansion. Read more
- Law firm and vendor support. Firm onboarding, billing support, and day-to-day coordination with law firms and legal vendors.
- Issue and escalation management. One owner for issues and escalations across functions and regions.
- Reporting and governance. Recurring spend, matter, and operational reporting, and governance material for legal leadership.
- Investigations playbook. One global investigations framework, deployed through a proprietary tool built within Onit. Read more
- Systems integration. Onit connected to finance, procurement, AP, HR, and reporting systems through proprietary middleware. Read more
What Swiftwater did
Delivery model
The team paired experienced legal operations leadership with specialized operational and technical resources. The client got a broader range of capability than a small number of individual hires would have provided, with the flexibility to shift effort as priorities changed.
Coverage
The team covered regions, time zones, internal teams, and external providers, so work kept moving across the dual-headquarters structure.
What changed
- Capability that would have required multiple permanent hires was delivered through one coordinated model.
- One escalation path across functions.
- Institutional knowledge of the operating model, platform configuration, approval structures, outside counsel relationships, regional billing practices, and historical decisions stayed with the function.
- The model held through changes in legal operations leadership, internal ownership, and team composition.
Best for
- Departments that need legal operations capability now and cannot hire fast enough
- Global departments that need cross-time-zone coverage
- General Counsel who want the right level of experience at the right cost, backed by a team and a method
Frequently asked questions
What does a managed legal operations team actually do day to day?
It runs the recurring functions: program and workflow management, escalations, matter administration and invoice review, vendor support, reporting, and platform administration, under an operating model the department owns.
How is managed legal operations different from legal staffing?
Swiftwater does provide fractional staffing, and the managed model builds on it. What differs is the selection and the backing: Swiftwater picks the right level of experience for each function at the right cost, and each person works inside Swiftwater’s frameworks with the broader team behind them. The client gets accountability for defined functions and outcomes, and institutional knowledge that carries from one leadership team to the next.
How did the model survive a change in the legal ops leader?
The operating model, platform configuration, vendor relationships, and workarounds were documented and run by the Swiftwater team, so a new leader inherited a working function on day one.
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