DLA Piper Reports More Than 600 Hours Saved at Half-Year End with BigHand Resource Management

Top five global law firm reports £673,000 in value after implementing BigHand Resource Management.

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, June 18, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- DLA Piper has reported saving more than 600 hours after implementing BigHand Resource Management across its UK and Australian offices. According to the firm, the time saved equates to approximately £673,000 in value at half-year end.

“Most firms now recognize that resource management is strategic,” said Steli Sarac, Senior Resourcing Professional at DLA Piper. “There is a much greater awareness of the link between allocation, utilization, wellbeing, and retention. However, firms still struggle with execution at scale because their resourcing decisions remain fragmented.”

As firms face increasing pressure to demonstrate value while adapting to the impact of AI on legal work, many are re-evaluating how they develop, deploy, and retain legal talent.

BigHand’s recent report, Navigating the Million Dollar Problem, found that associate departures nearly doubled between 2024 and 2025, rising from 9% to 16%. At the same time, 45% of firms report having only partial visibility into associate skill sets, and 43% of resourcing decisions remain lawyer-led. The findings suggest many firms still lack the visibility needed to effectively match skills, capacity, and demand.

Before implementing BigHand Resource Management, DLA Piper relied on a largely relationship-driven approach to allocating work.

“Without a bespoke resourcing tool in place, we found that work was allocated through close day-to-day interaction, which reflected the collaborative nature of the teams,” said Alix Love, Senior Resource Manager at DLA Piper. “As the firm continued to grow, that model naturally relied on partners having full visibility of everyone in the team – something that can become more complex with lateral hires or colleagues working across multiple offices.”

To support a more scalable approach, DLA Piper implemented BigHand Resource Management across its UK and Australian offices, creating a centralized view of lawyer skills, experience, availability, and future demand.

The firm uses the platform’s Skills & Sectors Matrix to identify lawyers with relevant experience and qualifications, an Opportunities Board to align work with development goals, and forecasting tools to better understand future demand and workload distribution.

“Technology is an enabler,” said Sarac. “Its value lies in connecting data that previously sat in different places. Having intuitive software that saves time is essential to our work because it supports better-informed and more consistent decision-making.”

Resource Management has also helped DLA Piper better align work allocation with lawyer career development.

“We have streamlined several KPIs, including the distribution of work and the matching of opportunities with career aspirations,” added Sarac. “Reliable, accurate data enables us to make informed decisions and present clear information to our stakeholders. It has definitely saved time for everyone.”
BigHand believes DLA Piper’s experience reflects a broader shift in how firms approach legal resourcing.

“DLA Piper’s results show what happens when firms expand and elevate a relationship-driven resource management process to a strategic discipline supported by data,” said Alex Tring, BigHand’s Director of Operations, Resource Management. “The combination of experienced resource managers and visibility into skills, capacity, and demand leads to better allocation decisions both for lawyers and for measurable business outcomes.”

To read the full DLA Piper and BigHand Resource Management case study, visit BigHand.com. Firms can also use BigHand’s Resource Management Value Calculator to estimate the potential impact of strategic legal resource management within their own organization.

About BigHand

For over thirty years, BigHand has worked alongside law firms to provide the intelligence needed to improve profitability and client value at every stage of a matter's decision lifecycle. Specialist by design, its solutions act as the performance engine of the modern law firm, built for the business of law and trusted by more than 810,000 professionals across 3,300 firms worldwide.

Gavin Lee
BigHand
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