Chapter 3: Architecting Maturity — The Frameworks

Why Frameworks Matter

Legal Ops without a framework is a collection of ad hoc projects. Frameworks provide three things that ad hoc approaches cannot: a common vocabulary for communicating maturity across the organisation, a diagnostic baseline for identifying capability gaps, and a sequencing logic for prioritising investments. In 2026, two frameworks dominate the Legal Ops landscape: the CLOC Core 12 and the ACC Maturity Model 2.0.

Neither is perfect. Both are essential. The critical skill is knowing when to deploy each.

The CLOC Core 12: The Macro-Alignment Tool

The Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) defines twelve interconnected competency areas that collectively describe the scope of a mature Legal Operations function. These are systemic rather than hierarchical — strength in each area amplifies the performance of all others.

The Twelve Competencies

The Compounding Value of Data

The most underappreciated aspect of the CLOC Core 12 is the data thread that runs through every competency. Financial Management produces spend data. Firm & Vendor Management produces performance data. Practice Operations produces workflow and cycle-time data. Technology produces adoption and utilisation data.

When these data streams are normalised and connected, they create a compounding intelligence layer that enables predictive analytics, automated triage, and evidence-based strategic planning. Integrated data streams unlock the ability to answer critical cross-domain questions like: "Which firms deliver the fastest turnaround on our most common matter types at the lowest cost?" — insights that drive performance and inform strategic decisions.

Using the CLOC Framework in Practice

The CLOC Core 12 excels at macro-level alignment — ensuring your Legal Ops strategy covers all the necessary bases and identifying which competencies are underdeveloped relative to your organisation's needs.

A practical deployment approach:

Step 1: Self-Assessment. Rate each competency on a 1-5 scale (1 = non-existent, 5 = optimised and data-driven). Be honest. Most legal departments in 2026 average 2.1-2.8 across the twelve areas.

Step 2: Prioritisation. Identify the three competencies where improvement would generate the greatest impact on your organisation's specific pain points. A company scaling rapidly through M&A will prioritise differently than one facing a regulatory compliance deadline.

Step 3: Interdependency Mapping. For each priority competency, identify which other competencies must advance in parallel. Technology investments require Training & Development. Analytics requires Information Governance. Vendor Management requires Financial Management data.

Step 4: Roadmap Construction. Build a 12-18 month roadmap that sequences investments across the priority competencies and their dependencies. Present this to leadership as a phased business case, not a wish list.

The ACC Maturity Model 2.0: The Micro-Diagnostic Tool

The Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) Legal Operations Maturity Model takes a different approach. Where CLOC provides a broad competency map, the ACC model offers deep functional benchmarking within specific operational domains. The 2.0 iteration, updated to reflect the AI era, adds explicit dimensions for innovation management and technology-enabled service delivery.

The Maturity Stages

The ACC model defines five maturity levels that apply across each functional domain:

Innovation Management: The 2.0 Addition

The most significant evolution in the ACC Maturity Model 2.0 is the explicit inclusion of Innovation Management as a maturity dimension. This reflects the recognition that in 2026, a legal department that is "managed" (Level 3) across traditional operational domains but "ad hoc" (Level 1) on innovation is strategically exposed.

Innovation Management maturity encompasses:

• Horizon scanning: Systematically monitoring emerging legal technologies, regulatory changes, and service delivery models
• Experimentation capability: The ability to run controlled pilots of new tools or processes without disrupting BAU operations
• Adoption discipline: Structured rollout processes that move successful pilots to full deployment with change management support
• Measurement rigour: Quantifying the impact of innovations against pre-defined success criteria, and killing initiatives that do not deliver

Deep Functional Benchmarking

The ACC model's strength is granularity. CLOC provides a broad competency assessment; the ACC model goes deeper to reveal that your accruals process is at Level 2 (basic), your e-billing adoption is at Level 3 (managed), and your spend analytics is at Level 1 (ad hoc). This diagnostic specificity is invaluable for building targeted improvement plans and pinpointing exactly where to focus your efforts.

Comparative Matrix: CLOC vs. ACC

The two frameworks are complementary and gain power when used together. Deploy them in tandem to get both strategic clarity and operational precision.

The Integration Playbook

Use CLOC for strategic planning conversations. When presenting to the CEO or board, the CLOC Core 12 provides a comprehensive, easy-to-communicate picture of where the legal function stands and where it needs to go. A radar chart showing maturity across twelve competencies is immediately legible to non-legal executives.

Use ACC for operational execution. When building quarterly improvement plans with your Legal Ops team, the ACC model provides the granularity needed to assign specific initiatives to specific gaps. "Move accruals from Level 2 to Level 3 by Q3" is an actionable objective. "Improve Financial Management" is not.

Synchronise annually. Once per year, run both assessments. Use the CLOC assessment to validate strategic direction. Use the ACC assessment to calibrate execution priorities. Where they diverge — for example, CLOC suggests Technology is a strength but ACC reveals that adoption rates are at Level 2 — the discrepancy surfaces issues that neither framework alone would catch.

Building the Maturity Roadmap

A maturity roadmap that survives contact with organisational reality has three characteristics: it is sequenced (not everything at once), funded (each phase has a defined budget and resource allocation), and measured (each phase has clear success criteria that determine whether to proceed, pivot, or stop).

The Three-Phase Model

Phase 1: Foundation (Months 1-6). Address the competencies that unblock everything else. Typically, this means Financial Management (you need spend data to justify future investments), Knowledge Management (you need documentation to scale beyond tribal knowledge), and Practice Operations (you need baseline process consistency before you can optimise).

Phase 2: Acceleration (Months 7-12). Deploy technology and advanced service delivery models against the foundation built in Phase 1. CLM implementation, vendor panel rationalisation, and analytics deployment are typical Phase 2 initiatives. These require the data, processes, and documentation established in Phase 1.

Phase 3: Intelligence (Months 13-18). Activate AI-augmented workflows, predictive analytics, and self-service platforms. This phase succeeds when Phase 1 and 2 have produced clean data, stable processes, and an adoption-ready culture. Organizations that sequence investments this way report 4-5x higher ROI on technology deployments, as discussed in Chapter 10.

In the Trenches

The Framework That Exposed the Gap

Sarah Okonkwo, Head of Legal Ops at a European pharmaceutical company, believed her department's technology maturity was strong. They had a CLM platform, an e-billing system, and a recently deployed AI document review tool. When she ran a CLOC self-assessment, Technology scored a 4 out of 5.

Then she ran the ACC deep-dive.

The ACC assessment revealed that while the tools were deployed, adoption was at Level 2. The CLM was used by 40% of the legal team, with others preferring traditional email workflows. The e-billing system held 18 months of untapped data — valuable information that could drive spend optimization if actively analysed and owned by a dedicated analytics function. The AI review tool was underutilised because the team lacked training on optimal deployment scenarios and usage patterns.

Sarah's CLOC score of 4 had masked a critical reality: the technology existed but wasn't delivering proportional value. She restructured her roadmap to prioritise Training & Development (CLOC competency 12) and change management alongside technology. Within nine months, CLM adoption reached 85%, the e-billing data produced quarterly spend analytics reports, and the AI review tool became integrated into standard due diligence workflows.

The lesson: the ACC model revealed adoption gaps that the CLOC strategic assessment had missed, demonstrating the power of combining macro-level strategy with micro-level operational diagnostics.

The Monday Morning Checklist

• Run a 60-minute CLOC self-assessment with your legal leadership team. Score each of the 12 competencies on a 1-5 scale. Do this collaboratively — disagreements about scores are more valuable than the scores themselves, because they reveal where perceptions diverge from reality.
• Select one functional area for an ACC deep-dive. Choose the area that scored lowest on CLOC, or the area most critical to your current strategic priorities. Use the ACC maturity levels to diagnose specific sub-function gaps.
• Identify your "Phase 1 blockers." Which foundational capabilities (data, documentation, process consistency) are currently absent and blocking progress on higher-value initiatives? These blockers are your immediate priority, regardless of what the strategic roadmap says.
• Document your interdependencies. For each planned initiative in the next 6 months, list the one or two capabilities it depends on. If those capabilities are not yet in place, either sequence the initiative later or add the dependency to your current sprint.