At our June 2 EMEA session, Matt DenOuden, Jo Guy, and Jean Yang from Onit joined Tim Strong from Kroll for a conversation that went deeper than the slide deck. Here are the five insights from the speakers’ notes that we think legal ops leaders in EMEA should sit with.
1. The CFO–CLO conversation has fundamentally changed
Tim Strong described it precisely: the shift is from telling the CFO after the fact to bringing them in early. The conversation is now joint, forward-looking, and focused on optimization, not on reporting what happened. It is less about controlling how legal work gets delivered and more about how legal is driving efficiency and managing risk as a business partner.
2. “Legible” is the word—not “rigorously financial”
Legal does not need to operate like a Finance function. It needs to be readable by Finance. Tim Strong’s honest assessment of where most legal teams are right now: a solid B, with real potential to improve. The gap is not technology, because the systems exist. It is adoption, administration, and the willingness to adjust processes continuously based on what is actually working.
3. Surprise avoidance is a budget argument, not just a cultural one
Matt DenOuden made a point that often gets lost: the CFO has a direct vote in what systems Legal procures, because budget is set with Finance. When Legal consistently surfaces early warnings and avoids surprises, it is not just being a good partner, it is building the business case for further investment in its own infrastructure. The CFO rewards the behaviors that make her job easier.
4. Contracting is a CFO issue, not just a legal one
Onit works with more contract management customers by number than any other product. The session was direct about why: a siloed CLM system that solves part of the problem still leaves companies exposed. Slow contracting makes the company hard to do business with and makes Finance look like the bottleneck. The financial case is also clear: WorldCC benchmarks put annual enterprise-value loss from poor contract management at approximately 9%, with another 11% post-signature leakage on the procurement side.
5. AI ROI is the unsolved problem, and the AI Peer Group wants to solve it
The most candid exchange in the session came around the question of how to report on the value of AI in legal operations. There is no standardized methodology. Onit’s Jean Yang put it directly: using AI on the wrong problems will cost you more time and cost. The OnPoint Community AI Peer Group is actively working on this question and has a survey in development. The goal is to build a shared understanding of how to translate AI workflows into measurable business outcomes.
—> Watch the full recording
—> Join the EMEA Peer Group
—> Join the AI Peer Group
