Legal leaders, it’s time to get real. You've been doing more than putting out fires and reviewing endless contracts. Your role has evolved. Today, chief legal officers (CLOs) and general counsels (GCs) are strategists, peacekeepers, and, at times, the unsung heroes of the boardroom.

But here’s the challenge: Despite your heavy lifting, the legal team is still often viewed as a cost center rather than a driver of business value. Without the right tools and data to demonstrate your impact, showing your C-suite peers exactly how legal contributes to the bottom line can be a challenge. 

Consider this your playbook. We’ll explore how legal teams can utilize data, technology, and strategic processes to elevate their voice, secure their seat at the executive table, and transform their perception from cost center to essential business partner.

The evolving role of legal teams

Once upon a time, legal departments were where good ideas went to get told “no.” Thankfully, those days are behind us. Legal teams today are integral players in driving business growth. According to the 2025 ACC Chief Legal Officers Survey, nearly 44% of CLOs highlight their largest impact as shaping business strategy and advising the CEO.

Legal leaders are no longer passive participants in organizational decisions; they’re increasingly pivotal in closing deals faster, reducing risks, and boosting overall efficiency. To succeed in this modern role, you need more than gut instincts and intuition. You need hard data to show how the legal department is making measurable contributions to company-wide goals.

Legal’s growing influence in the boardroom

Several CLOs report directly to the CEO, with a global majority of 79% operating under this reporting structure. You’re already in the big leagues, but it’s time to start playing like it. What’s holding legal teams back? Often, it’s a lack of visibility into their achievements. Legal needs the same metrics and analytics that other departments rely on to demonstrate ROI, whether it’s sales’ revenue targets or marketing’s lead conversion rates. Led by data, legal can elevate their insights into decisions that matter at the board level.

Proving legal’s value through data

The pain points of data deficiency

Without data, proving your department’s worth can feel like shouting into the void. Data-deficient legal teams rely on anecdotes when the language of the boardroom demands numbers and KPIs.

Metrics can clarify where legal is making the most impact:

• Contracts closed per quarter: The speed and efficiency at which deals are closed.
• Cost savings from risk mitigation: Quantifying the dollars saved by reviewing contracts and renegotiating risks.
• Cycle time for contract approvals: Showing your bottlenecks (or, ideally, lack of them).

Data also shines a bright light on inefficiencies. Maybe your team is taking too long to turn contracts around. Identifying that issue through metrics not only helps improve but builds credibility when you show you’ve fixed it.

Making data actionable

Tim Parilla, CLO at LinkSquares, puts it best: "The better the data you have, and the more you use it for decisions, the more consistent your outcomes. Every other part of the business has recognized that to be almost an absolute truth." 

The opportunity here is huge. By leveraging data tools, legal teams can precisely measure their contributions and then translate that story into a language that resonates with board members.

Consider just a few possibilities:

• Internal case study: Show how you cut the average contract approval time by 20% last year.
• Budget justification: Make the case for more headcount by correlating your growing workload with additional support needed.
• ROI in real time: Present savings realized after switching to automation technologies.

From reactive to proactive legal processes

The issue many legal teams face isn’t that they’re working hard (because they are). It’s that they’re working in reactive mode. Sound familiar? Teams scramble to respond to urgent needs rather than strategically addressing priorities ahead of time. Tools like AI-powered Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) platforms offer a way forward.

Many companies still store contracts as PDFs in a shared drive, which is not just inefficient, but it also wastes opportunities to uncover key insights lying dormant in these static documents. By shifting to proactive processes with AI and automation, legal teams free up time to focus on high-value work.

Examples of proactive processes

• Obligation tracking: Use AI tools to automatically monitor contractual deadlines and compliance.
• Risk analysis: Identify risks in contracts faster with AI-powered redlining and flagging.
• Data mining from agreements: Extract key clauses to inform better negotiations company-wide.

Procurement and legal alignment can also play a huge role. For example, unifying under a shared CLM platform ensures transparency and streamlines collaboration between departments. With everyone working from the same source of truth, processes like vendor management or compliance reviews become smooth and less error-prone.

The ROI of transitioning to a strategic partner

Being perceived as strategic isn’t just about looking good (though that doesn’t hurt). It’s about driving tangible ROI in terms board members care about.

Consider this:

• Faster cycle times = more deals closed: Show how reducing contract processing time by just a few days means more deals can close by end-of-quarter deadlines.
• Proactive risk mitigation = cost savings: Preventing missed obligations and penalties saves the company money before it’s lost.
• Improved efficiency = budget justification: The cost of new tools like CLM is far outweighed when paired with increased throughput and time saved.

Companies leveraging a data-driven approach to contract management have reported 30%reduction in contract completion time and 50% reduction in sales contract time to close. Yes, you read that right. Scaling legal’s impact with the right processes and tools is not just a “nice-to-have” — it’s a business imperative.

Wrapping it all up

The modern legal team is no longer passive, nor should it accept a supporting role. Today, CLOs and GCs lead, inspire, and drive business strategy. But doing so effectively means shedding the old image of legal as a cost center and stepping into the limelight with hard numbers and proactive, tech-enabled processes.

This isn’t just a trend; it’s your competitive edge. With the right data, tools, and mindset, you can show the boardroom exactly why legal belongs there. After all, when legal thrives, the whole organization benefits.

Stop waiting for permission to lead. The boardroom is ready for you. The question is, are you ready to take your seat? If the answer is yes, reach out to us and get the conversation started.