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LocalGovernmentLawyer The Legal Department of the Future February 2016 43 Doing more with less has become a clich for local authority staff but for legal departments it is a stark reality as workloads rise and resources fall. One solution to this conundrum for many departments is to reshape their teams. While slightly more respondents to the management survey expect their departments to grow than to shrink 34 v 31 the profile of departments in the foreseeable future is likely to become quite different as more senior roles are cut to make way for more junior lawyers legal executives and paralegals. So for example 51 of the 100 heads of legal that took part in the survey expect the number of paralegals and legal assistants to rise compared with just 13 who expect the number to fall. The numbers of legal executives and junior solicitors are also expected to rise albeit less spectacularly but more heads of legal say they will cut senior and principal solicitors than expect their numbers to rise see chart below. We need to save money without reducing capacity and headcount too much as volumes are not decreasing says one head of legal. Many local authority legal departments are behind the curve compared with private practice in implementing state-of the-art legal technology. Nevertheless case management systems workflow technology and enhanced research tools are beginning to facilitate the reengineering of departmental structures by enabling less experienced lawyers and non-qualified staff to handle matters that would previously have been the preserve Derek Bedlow looks at how legal departments can organise recruit and retain their staff. The shape of things to come