I recently spoke at the Argyle Corporate Counsel Leadership Forum in Chicago, Illinois. It was a great opportunity to meet counsel from many different businesses, and share some very interesting ideas.

When I attend conferences for law department managers, four themes invariably get top billing: (1) controlling costs; (2) demonstrating the legal department's value to the organization; (3) managing staff and workloads; and (4) technology trends. Often, these themes are discussed in isolation of one another. On a typical agenda, there's a program about outside counsel fees. There's another one open only to chief legal officers about being a better leader. (That's the one they keep sending me to.) There's a program about outsourcing. And there's one about new contract management systems.

Practically speaking, of course, the themes of reducing costs, adding value, managing workloads and using technology are highly interrelated, and taking the time to understand how these themes converge can be quite powerful. When I consider purchasing a business technology solution, for example, I want to know "how will this solution help me maximize the utilization of our resources and deliver results aligned with the company's priorities?" That's a very different approach than asking "what does this thing do, and do I really need it?" If that's how you approach a potential solution, you're failing to consider its context and the broader impact it might have on your department's mission.