Agenda

An introduction to the COO Network Half Day Conference, and using the information - insight - impact modelling.

In an evolving legal landscape, the shift to a sustainable financial model is more critical than ever. This plenary session will share key insights from the 2025 BigHand Annual Law Firm Finance Report, offering an exclusive look at the headline trends shaping the next decade.

This session will highlight the challenges and opportunities for C-Suite leaders in driving financial sustainability. Gain practical insights into how law firm leaders can balance profitability, operational efficiency, and client expectations to ensure long-term success. 

For many law firms, Resource Management may still be in its infancy, but for Norton Rose Fulbright, the framework and the technology have proven to be an investment that has delivered on its promise – and more. Retaining talent is critical, losing them not only disrupts client relationships but creates a massive cost to the firm. Norton Rose Fulbright is leading the way in using technology to safeguard their talent. 

As Sam concludes, “In addition to addressing what we would call Resource Management 101 – getting the right person, with the right skills, on the right matter and at the right time – we have proven that there is so much more to this function as a value-add to any law firm. 

NRF’s new technology platform helps the Resource Management team to quantify future capacity and predicted activity levels by team and location, search for capacity and capability and ensure the firm can both anticipate, and react quickly to, fluctuations in resourcing requirements on its clients’ matters. 

The rapid ramp-up of data-first generative AI is only the latest, but perhaps the biggest, disruption to the conventional law firm operations & support organisation in recent years. It follows the accelerating digitisation of paper-based processes, outsourcing and relocating, introduction of lawyer self-service tools and the multiple impacts from Covid-19. With many experts predicting that firms will find it easier to deploy AI - and displace tasks and roles - in operations functions, C-suite leaders now have to grapple with a potentially revolutionised support landscape within just a few years’ time. These two parallel sessions look into the dimensions of that impending revolution.  

Choose from two workshops:

Workshop A - Operations & Support in single-site and regional firms

Workshop B - Operations & Support in highly distributed national & international firms

Truly embedding and then leveraging data assets and the tech tools that unlock them can be a struggle in an industry that has been reluctant to embrace new insights or re-tool leadership skills. As we enter the 2nd half of this decade firms need to rethink management decision making and execution in order to compete. This short session offers COOs and other leaders a model for connecting technology investment, data architecture, analysis and BI, partner and manager skills, decision rights and effective change management. This session sets up and flows directly into the Insight Panel up next….