Defensibility: The Overlooked Goal of Legal Technology Solutions
When you look at the price tag associated with investments in legal technology, it's safe to say that having clear-cut goals is a necessary component of any purchase. There are a variety of goals that enterprises who take the plunge have in mind. Maybe increasing the efficiency of your team or reducing long-term costs is the priority. Maybe it's the tactical goal of imposing a consistent process around key operational tasks. Or perhaps the goal is to ensure that legal matters are handled in a defensible manner.
Exterro and the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) conducted a survey of 250 in-house counsel and legal operations professionals across 18 countries, representing companies from under $100 million to over $1 billion a year in revenue. The resulting report, the 2021 Legal Technology Report for In-House Counsel, dug into the factors organizations had in mind when making technology purchases—and the results were interesting, to say the least.
The Hierarchy of Purchase Decisions
When it came time to make a decision, consistency and particularly defensibility simply did not rank as compelling reasons for a purchase when compared to the twin business imperatives of efficiency and cost reduction.
Decision Factor% of RespondentsKey StakeholderIncreasing Efficiency64%General Counsel & CLOs (88% at $1B+ firms)Reducing Costs27%Legal Ops & In-House CounselConsistency & Defensibility<10%E-Discovery & Compliance Specialists
At one level, it's just common sense. It's easier to conduct a cost analysis based on increased efficiency or a straightforward cost reduction than to quantify the benefits of process consistency or legal defensibility. But those goals are also important. A little deeper examination of the data and critical thinking is revealing.
Increasing Efficiency with Legal Technology
The top factor in organizations' decision to invest in technology was efficiency, with 64% of respondents. For enterprise-scale organizations—with multiple matters ongoing at any time, relationships with multiple law firms and legal service providers, and complex in-house data sources to manage—efficiency rather than 1-for-1 cost savings are paramount. This is reflected in the fact that 75% of General Counsel (GC) and Chief Legal Officers (CLOs) ranked efficiency first, including 88% of GCs and CLOs at companies with over $1 billion in revenue.
Thinking about building a business case for a purchase, the math is straightforward. If a hypothetical SaaS solution costs $100,000 a year and it can save approximately $1,000 in costs per matter (whether employee time or something else), then it makes sense if the company has more than 100 matters per year.
Reducing Costs with Legal Technology
Reducing costs is the secondary most common goal identified by respondents in the report, with 27% of responses. Counsel and legal operations professionals cited it at rates significantly higher than GCs and CLOs (in the mid-30% range vs. approximately 12%). Most likely this is reflective of their more tactical perspectives—saving a direct cost on a project or discipline they are concerned with, rather than a broad-based efficiency gain shared among many members of a team.
2026 Shift: Closing the "Defensibility Gap"
While the 2021 data showed defensibility as a "low" priority, the landscape in 2026 has shifted dramatically. As we navigate this year, the novelty of "efficiency" has worn off because nearly every legal department has already implemented basic automation.
The new frontier in 2026 is the Defensibility Gap. With the rise of "Agentic AI" (AI that acts autonomously), the primary concern for legal leaders has moved from "How fast can we do this?" to "Can we explain the logic of this outcome to a judge or regulator?"
- Traceability over Speed: In 2026, saving a penny is less important than having an auditable trail. A single failure in process defensibility—such as an unverified AI-generated legal hold or a mismanaged data breach notification—can result in fines that dwarf five years of cost-savings.
- Institutional Integrity: Legal departments are realizing that you cannot "cut your way to growth." By focusing on a consistent, defensible process (leveraging tools for E-Discovery, Privacy, and Cybersecurity), the legal team becomes a shield that enables the rest of the enterprise to take calculated risks.
Conclusion
The incremental gains achieved by saving money and increasing efficiency are important, but they can all be undone by a failure to act in a defensible manner in a single legal matter or privacy breach. Efficiency gets the budget approved, but defensibility is what keeps the General Counsel employed.
For more insight into legal technology for in-house teams, download the 2021 Legal Technology Report for In-House Counsel today!
As your department looks at technology in 2026, are you finding it harder to justify "efficiency" gains now that most basic tasks are already automated?
