Program

Fractional Legal Technology Leadership

The legal technology leader you need two days a month, not five days a week.

The problem

You have a roadmap, a renewal, three vendors and a team already at capacity. Hiring a legal technology leader takes six months and a headcount you may not get.

The evidence

  • 48%

    name staffing as their top constraint. Budget is 24%. Technology limits are 8% — the tools are rarely the problem.

    Thomson Reuters Legal Department Operations Report, 2026

  • 36%

    say the strategy was never translated into priorities.

    Thomson Reuters Legal Department Operations Report, 2026

  • 28%

    of general counsel name technology and AI their top priority for 2026 — double the 14% who did in 2025.

    Thomson Reuters Legal Department Operations Report, 2026

What you get

  • A named person accountable for the technology agenda, in your governance
  • Roadmap kept current, with priorities the business can see
  • Vendor and renewal management, including the conversations you would rather not have
  • Build and pilot oversight against the method
  • Reporting to your executive on progress and spend

How it works

  1. MONTH 1

    Evidence and baseline

    Inventory the estate, the contracts and the commitments. Establish what is actually in flight.

  2. ONGOING

    Run the agenda

    Fixed days each month: governance, vendor and renewal work, delivery oversight, and the reporting your executive sees.

  3. QUARTERLY

    Prove

    Report against the baseline and reset priorities with the GC. Increase, reduce or end the arrangement on the same cadence.

Every engagement leaves an instrument behind. Here it is: A live roadmap and technology register owned by the department.

How it runs in practice

Illustrations of how the program typically runs. Not accounts of client engagements.

Illustration

A mid-market department of about a dozen lawyers, an ELM contract renewing in five months, two stalled pilots, and no technology owner since the operations manager left.

  1. Month 1Inventory the contracts, licenses and commitments. Establish what is actually in flight versus what is on a slide. The renewal date goes in the GC's calendar with the decision points working backwards from it.
  2. Month 2Test the incumbent's AI module against real matters and price the alternatives. The two stalled pilots are assessed against data readiness — one restarts, one is closed with the reasons written down.
  3. Month 3Take a recommendation and a negotiation position to the GC and finance, with the cost of staying stated alongside the cost of moving. Roadmap published to the business with owners against each item.
  4. OngoingTwo days a month: vendor and renewal work, oversight of the restarted build against the method, and a quarterly read-out to the executive.

Signals it is working

  • The renewal is negotiated from evidence rather than accepted at the vendor's number
  • A pilot is closed deliberately instead of drifting for another year
  • The GC can answer "what are we doing about AI" in one page

Illustration

A department whose executive asks for a technology plan every quarter and receives a status deck. Budget exists; nobody owns the agenda.

  1. Month 1Baseline the spend and the demand: what is licensed, what is used, and what the business is actually asking legal for.
  2. Months 2–3Translate the strategy into a sequenced quarter with owners and dates — the step that most often never happens — and kill the items nobody will staff.
  3. OngoingRun the agenda at a fixed cadence, report against it, and reset priorities with the GC each quarter.

Signals it is working

  • The quarterly executive conversation moves from status to decisions
  • Spend maps to a named priority rather than to renewals
  • Work that nobody will staff is removed from the roadmap, on purpose

What it costs

Scoped range

Ongoing, monthly

Scoped on days per month and a minimum commitment of three months. Most departments start at two days and adjust after the first quarter.

What it does not include

Fractional means fractional: this is not on-call support, and it does not replace an operations team. Delivery work identified during the engagement is scoped and quoted separately — we will not quietly bill the roadmap we recommended.

What it typically leads to

  • Program

    AI Build — pilot to production

    One use case, built and put into production, with evidence it works.

    Read more →

  • Program

    Platform Reckoning

    Decide what to do about the platform you are about to renew.

    Read more →
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