Technology in legal management Why is it so hard to embrace change?

As technology continues to act as a change agent in the legal industry, a large number of legal managers are daring to embrace innovation with technological solutions applicable to legal processes that help capitalize on efficiency opportunities, increasing the value of the legal department in the company.

However, according to the survey carried out in Corporate Legal Operations Survey Report, 71% feel that the infrastructure of their legal technology does not meet the needs and expectations that their legal departments have.

What is the reason for the gap between the enthusiasm about the potential of technology and the reduced satisfaction once it has been implemented for use?

Some of the obstacles that arise at the time of implementation are:

• Resistance to change members of the legal management.
• Non-knowledge of time required for implementation of a technological project in legal management.
• Incorporation of technology when processes are inefficient.
• Implementation of different technological products that do not talk to each other.
• Lack of knowledge of technological tools available for the legal industry.
• Lack of knowledge of the state of maturity of legal management and the relationship of this to activities and objectives in technology management.

In addition, we can identify that the main inconvenience associated with this disconnection between enthusiasm and post-implementation satisfaction is due to the lack of a technology management and process supportsince this is one of the main competences that any legal management must possess from its foundational level.

Technology and process support

As we have already raised in our previous article, increasing efficiency and productivity by optimizing the delivery of legal services to the company is a real possibility.

The convergence of technology and processes It is a critical success factor in any process of systematization and automation, but also of information management. The first is due to the second, that is, that without processes it will not be possible to identify and deploy technologies in general. As legal management progresses to implement its strategic objectives, they will find themselves with drawbacks, gaps, problems and tasks that can be resolved with the correct implementation of processes on technological solutions.

In turn, this competition is the one that provides support through collaboration tools, file sharing, intranets, process automation, report visualization and workflow management to the 12 key competences identified by CLOC.

So... What's the use? With the mastery of this competition aims to ensure that the legal equipment has the right tools and processes to perform your work in the most efficient way, reducing manual work where possible.

What do we recommend in Alster?

Using technology in a legal department is no longer a luxury, but a duty.

On the market there are countless products that can offer improvements and efficiencies for one of the central competenciesbut we recommend that when choosing technology a flexible tool be sought to cover more than one competition and increase efficiency in most of the activities of the legal department.

Some products that can help in the performance of a legal department at a foundational level, for example, are those included in the Microsoft Office for the processing of documents, template and spreadsheets. In addition, centralize information in a single document repository for all department members, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, One Drive – Sharepoint or specialized tools such as Webdoxor similar.

Legal technology exists to make work easier and more efficient. In our years working with legal teams, we have found that assessing the level of maturity of a department or legal management is the best way to decide which technology will best be adapted and meet the team's expectations.

That is why we believe that the implementation of good technology management involves the development of a road map containing at least the following steps:

1. Assess the maturity level of legal management.
2. Make an inventory the current state of technologies and processes.
3. Identify gaps between the current state and the state you want to reach.
4. Identify and prioritize the steps to be followed in the definition of processes and technology to be incorporated.

For the identification of gaps we recommend the use of AS IS - TO BE methodologies. Where the primary step is identify the current reality of the legal departmentin terms of processes and technologies in use, level of adoption, dependence on the IT area, etc.

After that, it is defined how the legal department is to be in the future, the objective state to which you want to reach, identifying technologies and process redesign. From the comparison of the states defined above, the gaps can be identified and a road map proposed to reach the target.

We invite you to perform our Madurez Index Test so you can know how prepared your legal management is to meet the challenges of the future to take the first steps in the management of technology and processes.

By Guillermo Teibo, CIO Alster.