Welcome to Legal Ops Briefs—inspired by the mot-r mindset, this blog series of 3-minute reads gives in-house Legal Ops quick, operational insights. Each post will explore the tech, trends, and tactics that boost operational effectiveness and ease legal team stress—without adding to the noise.
LegalTech Spend Is Soaring—But Legal Team Burnout Is Getting Worse
Legal departments are spending more on technology than ever before—yet stress, burnout, and turnover continue to rise. It’s a frustrating contradiction that many in-house teams are living in real time. Despite good intentions, much of the tech that’s being purchased today isn’t reducing frustration, streamlining workflows, or relieving pressure on legal teams.
In fact, it might be making things worse.
LegalTech and Burnout: Industry Data Shows an Alarming Disconnect
According to recent industry data, LegalTech spend reached $29 billion in 2024—up dramatically from $15 billion in 2019. But instead of seeing relief, in-house counsel are reporting record-high stress levels. In 2024, 97% of legal professionals reported job stress or burnout, compared to 78% just two years prior.
Even more alarming, 61% of in-house counsel say they are very or extremely stressed or burned out in their role—up from 47% the year before. And this isn’t just a morale issue. It impacts legal service delivery, decision-making quality, and overall team performance.
Why Legal Technology Often Fails to Reduce Stress
The problem isn’t the idea of technology—it’s the type of tech being purchased and how it’s selected. Many legal departments are investing in tools without aligning them to operational needs. Instead of solving root problems, they add more logins, more complexity, and more confusion.
Here’s what’s driving the disconnect:
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Tools are chosen based on features, not outcomes
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Tech is layered on top of broken or manual processes
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Implementation often lacks change management support
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Internal clients remain out of sync with legal workflows
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Legal teams don’t have the data they need to demonstrate value or advocate for resources
When the tech doesn’t relieve pressure—or worse, creates more—it erodes trust and increases friction. And that’s a fast track to burnout.
Top Stress Drivers for In-House Legal Teams in 2024
Several consistent stressors are now common across in-house legal teams:
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76% say managing current workloads is challenging
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100% have seen a rise in legal volume and complexity
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75% believe workload growth will outpace budget
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41% say they’re overwhelmed by administrative tasks
These aren’t just red flags—they’re signals that LegalTech isn’t solving the right problems. If your tools aren’t reducing administrative burden, improving workflow visibility, or empowering legal to do more with less—they’re falling short.
LegalOps Doesn’t Need More Tools—It Needs Smarter Technology Decisions
The solution isn’t to stop buying technology—it’s to start buying it differently. Legal Ops teams need to build evaluation processes that focus on outcomes and operational impact, not surface-level functionality.
That means:
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Starting with clear definitions of success (e.g. faster turnaround, lower admin burden, improved collaboration)
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Building competency-based evaluation teams that understand both legal and operational needs
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Prioritizing usability, integration, and long-term adaptability
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Thinking through change management before purchase, not after
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Asking tough questions about whether the tech will actually reduce stress or just relocate it
How to Redefine LegalTech Success Around Outcomes, Not Features
LegalTech is supposed to be a solution—but without the right strategy, it becomes a source of stress. When investments are made without a clear path to impact, legal teams are left managing tools instead of delivering value.
Success in legal tech isn’t about dashboards, AI labels, or long feature lists. It’s about freeing up legal to do high-value work, improving service quality, and building a culture that can sustain growth without sacrificing team health.
Legal Ops doesn’t need more tools. It needs tools that work—for people, processes, and outcomes.
Chime In. Be Heard.
What’s your team’s experience with LegalTech—has it eased the load or added to it? Have you found a tool that actually reduces burnout? Or one that promised a fix but fell flat? Your story could help another team avoid costly missteps—or find a smarter path forward. Let’s start a conversation that gets legal going in the right direction.
mot-r is the Work Management System for General Counsel. It is designed to reduce overwork and elevate legal service quality of small to medium sized teams. With workflows, dashboards and granular reporting, it improves operational effectiveness and client service quality. Created by a team of enterprise software experts—who have a passion for reducing the human cost of legal work—mot-r is a trusted supplier to general counsel teams in financial services, healthcare, real estate, sports management and more. When you're ready to modernize how your in-house team works, we're ready to help.
Mike Tobias: Jun 10, 2025 10:45:58 AM