Felecia Hickey

Title: U.S. Legal Department Legal Operations Administrator

Company: Equifax Inc.

How did you get into legal operations? 

I started my career as a litigation paralegal and then an M&A Paralegal. I was asked to join in-house with an attorney that I had worked with at the law firm and we started working on projects that were top priority for the company, first being e-billing. Once that was complete, we looked at the IP portfolio because it was a technology company, they had a lot of IP, and not really a process to organize that. My second position was a truly legal ops position that was newly created at a private bank. Currently, at Equifax, where I’ve been for about three and half years, this was a newly created position and the original thought for the role was to work specifically on the e-billing system that was in place which was not working well. We have since implemented a new tool and come up with some best practices.

When did you join CLOC? What was your main reason for joining?

I joined CLOC to be part of a community. I thought it was fantastic that there was an organization that had people who were doing similar projects and had similar responsibilities. They may have started their legal ops role, like me, in another role or organically because there was a need for somebody in the legal department to do other things besides legal work. What I have loved the most is the collaborations with others, the learning element of CLOC, and networking at both the regional level and at the CLOC meeting in Las Vegas. The west coast had always been so much more advanced in legal ops in having much broader legal departments. It’s been interesting to see what they’re doing on the west coast and how you can roll that into your structure or not. The east coast has picked up speed in the last couple of years.

What has been your biggest legal ops challenge and how did you overcome it?

Due to the cybersecurity incident, priorities have shifted since 2017. There have been a lot of things taken away and reorganized with the legal department. My position has changed a little bit where I am also managing the administrative staff while rolling out a new e-billing system. We may be able to use our e-billing system data to work on better pricing and fee arrangements. Since the data breach, most big decisions have been made at the executive level while the legal ops role has diminished although when decisions are made, we are in charge of rolling it out and getting involved in that process. This will continue to be a challenge partly because of changes in personnel in our legal department and from a budgeting perspective.

What is the one thing you would say to inspire your fellow CLOC Members to become more involved in the development of the legal operations role and profession?

One of the great benefits of joining CLOC is that you get to hear what others are doing, you don’t feel alone, and you can see if you’re further or not behind others. It’s a great information sharing opportunity. If you were a small company or small legal ops department, it might be hard to justify the time to put into reading the emails and staying abreast of what’s going on in legal ops, but it’s really worth it and it really isn’t expensive. From a budget perspective for a company, it’s well worth the investment.