Leap Of Faith Or Planned Success: How To Start Using Legal Automation In Your Law Firm?

Every law firm has advocates for change and improvement. These are passionate people who know they can perform better with the right tools at hand. And while these individuals are usually the driving force behind every significant change in a company, statistics say they are too far and few in between. 

This brings upon a serious question: how does one improve those business processes that have been set in stone for years or maybe even decades? 

You don’t have to worry too much though as this scenario is the norm. People, in general, are reluctant to change. Those innovators who are passionate about trying out new things and the early adopters that follow are more than enough to drive change for the better – if you are willing to play to their strengths while prioritizing business needs. 

The following strategy will help you pave the path in the most efficient manner. 

Unite your visionaries

Most vendors who offer legal automation solutions offer a demo. Make sure that all of your active and influential professionals – be it senior partners or department heads or even proactive attorneys – get their hands on it. 

Look for people who are already looking for ways of improving their daily routine. Listen to their suggestions. Then show them a solution.

Someone who has both seen the tool first-hand and has seen the value it brings will become an excellent advocate for the implementation of new technology. Moreover, that person will be able to explain actual, feasible benefits to the team, rather than relying on corporate and business goals to sell a product. 

Communicate the need for change – and do it well

Now, that you have your small squad of insiders spreading the good word, the time has come to make a case for change to everyone. 

This step can be quite straightforward when you can show that a solution offers an immediate benefit, such as removing the need to waste time on drafting or complex calculations in Excel. 

Introducing a product that offers ROI, in the long run, is somewhat trickier. 

Tech considerations

According to Robert Half Legal’s report, Future Law Office 2020: Redefining the Practice of Law, 34% of lawyers believe emerging technologies will have the biggest impact on the practice of law in the next five years.

Moreover, McKinsey estimates that a whopping 23% of work done by lawyers today can be automated by existing technology.

Facts like these make innovation and automation much more appealing in the eyes of, well, everybody. They also make you forget that you are already using some technology, be it for knowledge management, research, analysis, or data storage. 

A new solution, as good as it may be, must play along nicely with the infrastructure you’ve already developed. Otherwise, the implementation process will be clunky and the odds are the people who are doing the work will revert to methods that have already proven themselves. 

It is your CTO’s responsibility to make sure that the integration of new technology does not disrupt the workflow. And it is the vendor’s prerogative to design, develop, or finetune their software in a way that fits with what your firm has already established. 

Vendor considerations (support is a must)

Any automation solution you consider to be a good fit for your business is more than software. It is a tool people will be using daily. How comfortable will they be using it today? 

And what about in a week, month, or year, when some of your processes have changed or evolved?

We advise against investing in “as is” solutions. Choose a vendor who is willing to continuously support the product with new features, patches, and updates. This approach will dramatically decrease potential vulnerability risks as security protocols are continuously updated. In addition to that, you will have access to new functionality that fits your use cases like a glove. 

Integration into the workflow

Speaking of convenience and integration into the workflow, the force of habit is a much more powerful motivational factor than the desire to change – even if the change is for the better. 

A light nudge in the right direction might not do the trick. You should integrate a new solution into the workflow as soon as possible (given all of the previous stages and tests yielded positive results). You can even go as far as setting a hard deadline. 

Conclusion

Shifting to automation and implementing new technologies into your law firm’s workflows is nothing short of a Herculean feat. That said, it is a necessity in a world where roughly 10% of all LLCs and 5% of all corporations formed in the United States in 2020 were handled by LegalZoom – and that’s just one app out of many. Businesses have lost their right to resort to pen and paper when technology is in direct opposition to the legal industry.