One year after we published the first two articles in this series ahead of The Economist’s General Counsel Summit, the gap between strategy and execution has never been wider.
Janet Taylor-Hall, CEO at Cognia
Legal leaders know what needs to transform. But who can actually help you design and deliver that change?
This article covers
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Why the design-deliver divide in professional services is holding back transformation
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Why hybrid operating models achieve what traditional approaches cannot
The Summit itself – where I participated in a panel on “Breaking down silos: rethinking relationships across the legal ecosystem” – marked a moment when the conversation about change in legal services moved from theory to action.
The first article framed why the industry needed to evolve: away from siloed, transactional relationships towards collaborative, agile partnerships. The second explored what this looks like in practice: the convergence of legal, technology, and operations functions into a more powerful whole.
This third article examines how. How do you actually design and deliver the future operating model?
It’s here that most organisations fail. They understand the vision. They know transformation is necessary. But translating strategy into operational reality proves elusive.
Our research found that 80% of general counsel cite regulatory complexity as their biggest challenge. In comparison, 60% say their legal function remains divorced from the business context. Most leaders grasp what needs to change. The challenge is the execution.
The role of the general counsel is shifting. There is increasing pressure to demonstrate strategic business value, streamline legal departments and cut costs, in a very unstable macro-economic environment, making execution and even greater challenge.
Why transformation keeps failing
Professional services have a structural problem that rarely gets discussed. Consultancies excel at designing your future. They analyse operations, interview stakeholders, and produce elegant frameworks. The recommendations are often excellent. Then they leave. You’re left holding a blueprint, wondering how to build it.
Service providers occupy the other end. They deliver efficiently within existing boundaries. Ask them to execute your processes more cheaply, and they’ll oblige. Ask them to reimagine those processes, and the conversation stalls.
Technology vendors sell impressive platforms and talk confidently about transformation. The integration complexity, change management, and the gap between demo and reality? That’s your problem to solve.
What general counsel need is a partner who can do both: co-design the operating model and work with you to successfully implement and deliver it with you.
The evidence of this divide is everywhere. Consider what’s happened with AI. According to a a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study published in July 2025, across 300 public implementations, 80% of organisations have explored or piloted GenAI tools, but only 5% reached production and are extracting a measurable ROI. This ‘GenAI Divide’ highlights the gap between experimentation and transformation in legal and enterprise sectors alike.
AI hasn’t failed. The operating models around AI have failed. Organisations adopted tools without redesigning processes. They automated existing workflows without questioning whether those workflows made sense, and bought technology without the partnership needed to implement it effectively.
This is what happens when design is separated from delivery. Strategy documents gather dust. Pilots never scale. Technology solves the wrong problems. Despite widespread adoption, only 24% of UK law firms have a formal AI strategy, according to recent Thomson Reuters research.
What hybrid operating models deliver for clients
Forget where work happens. Focus on building an operating model that innovates and executes to realise enhance, efficient solutions and outcomes for your business.
In-sourcing promises control but often lacks the external perspective needed to drive transformation. Pure outsourcing brings efficiency but creates distance from a strategic context.
Organisations succeeding today build hybrid ecosystems: strategic capability internally, partnered with providers who can design new approaches and operationalise them. What does this actually achieve?
How Cognia clients benefit from meaningful expert partnership
Tier-1 UK headquartered global investment bank:
Faced high costs of onshore internal derivatives and structured products lawyers spending excess time on tasks and work-types which were better suited to an appropriate offshore location. We designed, implemented and managed an integrated shared services operating model, with dedicated teams operating as seamless extensions of the bank’s in-house legal teams in the UK and New York delivering services and supporting automation.
Client business impact:
Achieved £5 million in savings over the first 5 years by transitioning 10 FTE roles to our managed legal services, enabling automation and realising an 80% cost saving per issuance compared to external counsel.
“We have a very positive experience working with Cognia as a seamless extension of our in-house team. The team of lawyers in Cape Town are diligent, bright, professional and efficient. The team can handle a range of complexity of work (in different languages) including complex negotiations on our behalf”
– Director, Legal Function
Global investment bank:
Needed to transform credit and lending documentation work. The challenge wasn’t just cost – it was building a scalable model handling complexity while improving quality and reducing risk. Working with Cognia, the bank co-designed a data driven hybrid model in which specialist lawyers operate as a direct extension of their teams.
Client business impact:
Achieved 85% reduction in senior lawyer oversight time, freeing them for strategic work, and 40% faster transaction processing. Real-time pipeline visibility enables better resource planning and risk management. What began as a pilot is now business-as-usual shared services, extending into trade finance and payments.
A large-listed power systems company:
High contract volumes, complex supplier relationships, and pressure to embed new technology without disrupting operations. The hybrid model went operational in two weeks.
Client business impact:
An impressive 60% reduction in contract cycle time, directly enabling faster deal closure. Additionally, AI-driven heat maps provided real-time visibility into risk across thousands of contracts. The legal team shifted from routine processing to strategic supplier negotiations, thereby improving commercial outcomes.
“The ideas, action, engagement and responsiveness from the team and how you have seamlessly collaborated on the challenges, has been notable”
– Head of GC Capability Centre
Multinational travel technology business:
Fragmented vendor risk management following rapid global expansion across four continents. The hybrid model standardised procurement globally while respecting regional requirements.
Client business impact:
Strengthened compliance, reduced third-party risk exposure, and gained the ability to expand into new markets with confidence, knowing vendor management infrastructure scales with growth.
Partners who sit alongside your teams, use your systems, and experience your constraints develop the context needed for meaningful insight. They spot templates that are beautifully designed for humans but unusable by AI. Further, they identify risk frameworks that apply maximum control to immaterial contracts and bring legal engineering skills to co-develop tools rather than just operate them.
Decisions about operating models carry consequences beyond spreadsheets. Who performs your legal work directly shapes culture, capability, and morale. A well-designed hybrid model protects innovation, creates flexibility, and enables workforce planning aligned with strategic priorities.
The ‘boring’ work that enables transformation
Amid excitement about technology, there’s a risk of forgetting the basics. So many of the recent discussions we’ve had around technology and AI in particular are about getting back to basics.
Yet this is the foundational work. It’s this work that determines whether transformation succeeds or fails. Partners who understand this – who will do the unglamorous foundational work that enables everything else – are rare.
Transformation requires commitment from both sides. The most successful relationships evolve from transactional vendor management into a strategic partnership. The organisations getting this right are clear about what they need to own internally and where partnership adds value. They choose providers based on capability and cultural fit, not solely on cost.
Let’s connect
We’ve spent the past year helping organisations move from transformation strategy to operational reality – beyond just a service or design — a shift in how our client’s people work, manage, and think. We don’t just design the future or deliver the present. We co-design, enable and deliver the future with our clients, as true partners.
If you found this interesting and would like to find out how we can collaborate with you, contact us here
