1,145 requests in. 983 out. The rest is still on somebody's list.
No billable hour means no tension: every hour saved is simply gain. The problem is the other one — the business asks for more than 6 people can absorb, and the answer to that is never going to be headcount.
A year of requests, and what stayed open
The gap is small every month and it does not go away.
cumulative backlog
162
requests still open at year end
1.0
lawyers you would have to hire to close it
6
you actually have
One extra lawyer would have cleared the year. That is both the smallest possible ask and, in most organisations, the least likely to be approved — which is why the alternative is making the six absorb more without working longer.
Where the queue actually shortens
Not by doing each request faster. By stopping some of them from reaching a lawyer at all.
- Routine lookups answer themselves
- The same question arrives from three departments a year. An answer with its source ends that, and it is the largest single category by volume.
- Standard contracts triage themselves
- A received draft marked against your playbook arrives at a lawyer already sorted into what needs a decision and what does not.
- External spend gets a category
- Knowing what you send out and why is the difference between a panel review and an invoice total.
- Deadlines stop being personal
- A register derived from the documents rather than held in one person's calendar, which matters most on a team this size.