There was once a time when lawyers were criticised for being behind the rest of the world when it came to the adoption of technology. I always thought this unfair and more reflective of the failure of the technology industry to provide products that lawyers, not back-office teams, wanted to engage with. Indeed, the transformation of the legal technology industry has been led by lawyers seeking innovation by themselves.

Mike-McGlinchey

Mike McGlinchey

The growth in legal-oriented technology providers in recent years has led to new problems though. First, the number and variety of products on the market are simply overwhelming. Second, it has led to a perception that technology is always the answer. Spoiler alert, it is not.

So, how do you know when you need technology and what technologies might be appropriate?

First, there will not be a single technology that you require so you must prioritise and focus on those areas that need it most. This needs to be done in a considered way.

Developing a roadmap, where you have a big-picture view of what is ultimately required, will help that prioritisation and identify where overlaps might exist. Roadmaps are often presented in a timeline view, but a different style of roadmap can be useful to show that high-level visual perspective. Grouping initiatives by focus area, such as knowledge management, risk and compliance, better contracting and spend management, can help show your vision, the capabilities you have, the capabilities you need and the benefits to be gained. Colour coding can help quickly identify progress and maturity in each area.

While the roadmap is aspirational, you are hardly likely to have the budget to do everything, so you need to match each area to your organisational maturity, budget constraints and appetite for change.

Having constructed your roadmap, you should now have a much clearer idea of the biggest problem areas and where the benefits will be greatest. Now you need to match these to your key business drivers. Are you under pressure to reduce costs, support greater demand or move into more diverse and strategic areas? Of course, it may well be a combination of these and other factors, but highlighting a primary driver will help focus on where to start.

And the answer might not be technology. Some questions that are worth asking before you start looking at technology options:

  • Is this work that needs to be done?
  • Are the right people doing this work?
  • Can we stop doing or outsource this work?
  • Are we doing more than is needed (gold standard when bronze will do)?
  • What does the client or customer really want?

Having identified areas that need improvement, it is time to do a deeper analysis of what is involved. Mapping out the key processes and the parties involved will help identify those areas of delay, duplication and of inefficiency. There are many ways of doing this and we favour applying Lean Six Sigma tools with a focus on the ‘voice of the customer’. Because that is why we are here – to ultimately serve either internal or external clients. Do not lose sight of that when in among the detail.

Flexible resourcing

If you need to support greater workloads then the answer might be technology, but it could be more people, flexible resourcing or outsourcing some elements to providers who specialise in that work and who can do it better, faster, and cheaper.

But, of course, technology is often an element of the solution, so where can technology best support legal teams? Several core technologies are mature and can be deployed with relatively low risk that give immediate benefits:

  • Document management: a centralised legal department-owned repository with labelling and controls to support good governance.
  • e-Signature: you are using this already, right?
  • Request management (legal front door): traditional help desk or service-management tools can be retasked to support work requests to the legal team.
  • Document automation: it has been around for years and should be used to replace flat file precedents. The cost of entry is often low, and the advantages are many.
  • Spend management: tools to manage your external legal spend from selection through to panel management and e-billing.
  • Case management: includes matter management and project management features.

Each of these will still require proper analysis, design, implementation and resourcing to be successful and ensure the product does what you expect and can grow with you. Do not mistake mature with easy, but good project and change management will help deliver good outcomes.

Once you have the basics in place, then it is time to explore more complex technology products:

  • Contract lifecycle management (CLM): while this could be considered in the above category, the reality is that many implementations to date have not been overwhelmingly successful. Good CLM implementation should extend beyond the legal department and therefore can be more challenging to achieve.
  • Document review technologies: AI and machine-learning tools are often integrated into CLM. Understanding when pre-configured review tools are sufficient or when custom-built AI models are needed is important.
  • Process and workflow automation: getting into the detail of core activities and automating these takes time and hard work.
  • Self-service tools: when you are comfortable with automation and automated content consider making this available to your business customers.

There are many tools available to today’s legal teams. So remember, technology might be the answer – but reviewing processes always is.

 

Mike McGlinchey is head of client consulting at Pinsent Masons Vario, Glasgow

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