Legal Technology: Focus on the Process not the Tool
Everyone Agrees: Legal Tech is Key to Law Firm Growth
If you search “Legal Technology Trends,” you will find dozens of articles, like this one from the National Law Review, and others from vendors like Clio and NetDocuments. Perhaps not surprisingly, these articles identify many of the same areas of innovation and growth through technology, including:
- Automations, particularly of administrative tasks
- Cybersecurity
- Artificial Intelligence
- Modernized Communication
Each of these focuses on the digitization of, well, just about everything. Undoubtedly, technology can help law firms address the increasing pressure from clients to control costs and the post-pandemic pressure to meet the human needs of their attorneys, staff, and clients. Software developers have been busy creating solutions for the legal industry and there are hundreds of products vying for the attention of managing partners, chief innovation officers, and others tasked with modernizing their firms.
Some services promise to be the “all-in-one” tech solution lawyers must have, and others guarantee that they’ll save firms and their clients time and money. While technology can do all of these things and more, law firms will get more out of their technology by doing one of the things lawyers do best – asking the right questions.
Where Should Law Firms Start?
In one of the most watched TED talks of all time and in his book that followed, Simon Sinek encouraged all of us to “Start with Why.” He posited that great leaders inspire action when they can clearly communicate the why behind what their organizations do. “Why” is what motivates us to take action – who wants to do something if there is no purpose behind it?
Sinek may not have had legal tech trends in mind when he delivered his talk, but starting with why works here too. What are the benefits your law firm expects to receive from its technology?
Why + What
As essential as purpose is, law firms need to build on that purpose by asking what they need technology to do. Just as we learned in law school about taking depositions, lawyers can start broad and then narrow down to really get to the specifics of what they need. One need that often comes up when talking about change is to “save time.” Then we can narrow the issues such as what is taking up too much time and for whom? Take the “deposition” of the people involved (minus the adversarial manner, of course!) Doing this allows law firm leaders to understand what is needed and brings the added advantage of building buy-in before introducing something new.
One way to solicit details from lawyers and staff is to map out the internal processes and workflows. For example, what needs to happen after a client signs an engagement letter? Which departments are involved? What steps are required and what order? Where are the bottlenecks? What is working well? Understanding the answers to these questions will guide the evaluation of the myriad of available tools.
Better Information Leads to Smarter Choices
Technology has already had a positive impact on the legal industry. From remote hearings to cloud-based collaboration, access to legal services is getting faster and easier. And new tools and services continue to enter the market. Some are marketed specifically to law firms and it may seem natural to turn to those first. Making that tool-based choice, however, does not necessarily lead to the best solution. By taking a process-based approach, firms are free to choose the tool that best serves their needs.