Why legal operations is essential: lessons from Arla Foods’ Kasper Riis Hansen
Most in-house legal teams pride themselves on precision yet operate with surprisingly little clarity about how their work gets done. Processes grow organically, knowledge gets trapped in inboxes, and decisions rely more on experience than insight. It’s not a failure of effort – lawyers are working harder than ever – but a structural blind spot. And it’s this very gap that legal operations aim to close.
As legal departments evolve alongside the rest of the business, the need for dedicated operational capability has become increasingly clear. Organizations are discovering that without someone focused on improving the systems, data, and processes behind legal work, the function struggles to scale or demonstrate its strategic value. Legal operations is stepping into that space, offering a way to bring structure, transparency, and business alignment to a discipline that historically relied on expertise alone.
This shift is reflected in conversations happening across forward-leaning legal departments, like at Arla Foods, where Kasper Riis Hansen leads legal operations for one of Europe’s largest dairy cooperatives. In a recent episode of The Legal Leaders Podcast, he and host David Lancelot, LawVu’s EVP Advocacy and Chief Legal Officer, explored what modern legal ops looks like in practice and why its impact is becoming impossible for legal teams to ignore.
The accidental legal operator: building a different kind of legal career
Hansen didn’t set out to lead legal operations – mostly because the field barely existed when he began his career. His early interest in engineering gave him a natural inclination toward problem-solving and efficiency, and even after shifting into law, his analytical mindset stayed with him.
His first post-university role blended legal counselling with supporting the CEO of an IP consultancy. The hybrid nature of that job pushed him into unfamiliar but valuable territory – financial reporting, strategic planning, data analysis. Instead of specializing, he developed a broad operational lens that would later become foundational to his legal ops’ leadership.
That curiosity for “how things work” eventually evolved into a dedicated operations role at Arla, where modest workflow improvements he once made on his own became part of a broader transformation agenda for the entire legal department. His journey reflects a wider trend: the rise of the T-shaped legal professional – someone who combines legal depth with the breadth needed to understand systems, processes, technology, and business context.
What legal ops means and why it matters now
In many European legal departments, legal ops is still a relatively new concept. At Arla, the purpose of the role is both simple and transformative: it’s the part of the team dedicated to understanding how legal work is done – and finding ways to do it better.
While lawyers stay focused on advising the business, legal ops examine the mechanisms that enable that advice: workflows, technology, knowledge sharing, and operating models. Hansen describes the essence of legal ops as ensuring the team “works smarter” not harder. It offers visibility where legal work might otherwise remain opaque – a “black box” of activity that’s difficult to measure, manage, or improve.
Lancelot observed that legal leaders are increasingly expected to understand how to build and scale modern legal functions. The operational mindset is no longer confined to specialists; it’s quickly becoming a core requirement for leadership across the legal profession.
The skills modern legal teams need (that law school never taught)
A recurring theme in Hansen’s experience is that the legal profession is undergoing a cultural shift – and not always a comfortable one. Many lawyers hesitate to step into roles that require project management, change facilitation, or process redesign. Yet these skills are becoming essential for anyone working in-house.
Hansen highlights several traits that modern legal teams need:
- Curiosity: a willingness to question how things are done
- Empathy: understanding stakeholder needs and user experience
- Service mindset: recognizing that legal work is a service delivered to the business
- Proactivity: identifying inefficiencies and acting before issues escalate
He also stresses the importance of thinking about legal work through the lens of user experience. Legal services must not only be correct – they must also be delivered in ways that are clear, efficient, and accessible.
Lancelot echoed these observations, noting that lawyers’ natural strengths – rigor, attention to detail, and respect for precedent – can make change difficult. That’s precisely why legal ops professionals play such a critical role: they help guide the team through transformation without expecting every lawyer to become an operational expert.
Data is the hidden superpower legal has been missing
Perhaps the most powerful insight from Hansen’s journey is the centrality of data. Without it, legal teams lack the visibility required to improve performance or make strategic decisions.
Before Arla invested in legal ops, the team, like many legal departments, had no reliable way to answer foundational questions:
- Which matters take the most time?
- Where are the bottlenecks?
- What should be automated, outsourced, or redesigned?
- How should headcount or resources be allocated?
Hansen’s early exposure to data analytics shaped his belief that legal can’t improve what it can’t measure. With structured, high-quality data, legal teams can articulate their value, justify new investments, identify opportunities for optimization, and make better decisions across the board.
Lancelot reinforced this point, noting that even in mature markets like the US, many legal functions still lack clear visibility into what they do and how they do it. Once data becomes part of the operating rhythm, the entire narrative of the legal function changes.
The AI moment: why structured data is mission-critical
Generative AI is accelerating the need for legal operations. Both Hansen and Lancelot underscored a critical truth: AI is only as powerful as the data behind it.
Many legal teams still operate with siloed documents, inconsistent processes, and unstructured information scattered across shared drives and inboxes. Without foundational data discipline, AI cannot deliver meaningful value in drafting, summarizing, analysis, or workflow automation.
Hansen emphasized that structure and accuracy are the prerequisites for leveraging AI. Improving data quality isn’t glamorous work, but it’s essential – and it is precisely where legal operations play a central role.
As Lancelot noted, other business functions have long had operational infrastructure to support data-driven decision-making. Legal is now catching up, and AI presents an unprecedented opportunity for legal teams to redefine how they operate.
From legal silo to integrated business partner
Another powerful advantage of legal ops is its ability to connect legal to the wider business. With better systems, clearer processes, and shared data, legal becomes part of the organization’s operational fabric rather than a standalone advisory unit.
Arla’s legal team interacts with every part of the company – from raw milk collection at farm level over product development to when the products reach the fridge of the consumers. Legal ops help transform these data points into data and eventually into actionable insights, enabling legal to support strategic goals more effectively.
Lancelot observed that legal ops effectively plugs legal into the operational infrastructure of the business, much like HR, sales, or finance already enjoy. When legal adopts shared language, data models, and outcomes-oriented thinking, it becomes a driver of progress, not just a guardian of risk.
Legal ops is no longer optional
Hansen’s experience makes one point clear: legal operations is not merely an efficiency project – it’s a strategic capability that helps legal teams evolve with the business and prepare for the future.
Legal ops empower lawyers to focus on high-value counseling, equips teams with data to make smart decisions, and builds the foundation needed to harness AI responsibly and effectively. In a business environment defined by speed, complexity, and digital transformation, legal ops has become essential.
To hear the full discussion and explore more insights from modern legal leaders, listen to the complete episode of The Legal Leaders Podcast and join the Legal Leaders community.
