From Proving Value to Delivering It: Building a Modern Legal Portfolio Strategy

Last year, Paragon Legal surveyed 150 legal leaders to find out what metrics actually matter to their business partners. The answer was almost unanimous: legal needs to stop measuring activity — and start measuring outcomes. The harder question is how. Most legal departments are still operating with staffing and delivery models built for a different era — a binary structure of in-house teams and outside counsel that wasn’t designed to flex with today’s volume, specialization, AI adoption, regulatory complexity, and budget reality. The teams getting it right are shifting toward a modern legal portfolio strategy: intentionally allocating each piece of work across in-house teams, law firms, flexible legal talent, technology, and AI based on the nature of the work itself, not the org chart. Join us on Wednesday, July 15, 2026, at 3:00 PM ET / 12:00 PM PT as Jessica Nguyen, President, Chief Strategy and Legal Officer at Sandstone, Ilan Hornstein, Vice President, Deputy General Counsel at 8×8, and Meredith Gordon, Director, Head of Corporate Legal and Commercial Legal at Mozilla, sit down with moderator Tracy Scanlan, VP of Client Development & Legal Affairs at Paragon Legal, to discuss why the traditional legal operating model is breaking down, what a modern legal portfolio looks like in practice, and how intentional resourcing connects directly to measurable business outcomes — with a practical playbook attendees can take back to their own department. What You’ll Learn: Why traditional in-house and outside counsel staffing models are breaking under modern pressure — including workload growth, rising specialization, AI adoption, and budget constraints What a modern legal portfolio looks like in practice — how leading teams match in-house, law firms, flexible legal talent, technology, and AI to different kinds of work based on complexity, volume, risk, and strategic value How portfolio strategy translates into measurable business outcomes — faster deal cycles, reduced outside counsel spend, increased strategic capacity, and risk reduction A practical four-step playbook for redesigning how legal work gets delivered: audit the work, identify misalignment, reallocate intentionally, and measure business impact The metrics that actually resonate with executive leadership when reporting legal value, and how to frame legal’s contribution in business language rather than activity counts Who Should Attend: This program is designed for general counsel, deputy general counsel, legal operations leaders, contracts managers, and senior members of corporate legal teams responsible for staffing, vendor management, budget, or how legal work is delivered. It will be especially useful for legal and ops leaders evaluating their outside counsel mix, building a business case for ALSPs or legal AI investment, redesigning intake and triage, or working to translate legal team activity into business-language outcomes that resonate with the CFO and CEO. There is NO COST to attend this program! This program is FREE, thanks to our gracious sponsor, Paragon Legal! If you can’t make it to the live program, the recording will be available for viewing via our paid CLE library, In-House Connect On-Demand.