An inside guide to buying legal tech.
With the promise that the nature of legal work is changing, expectations for efficiency and quality are being pinned to tech. The challenge for firms is to discover which tech can provide them with the most value and how they can deploy it, to the backdrop of client expectations.
Lawyers seek out software that reduces their cognitive load and time commitment. In every instance, software should enable them to accomplish their goals as easily as possible. The best software can sustain a user's interest by mere virtue of its availability and ease of use.
When firms already have lawyers interested in tech, they are already well positioned to test and deploy tools. If not, they might consider kindling that grassroots interest first. Particularly if the firm is onboarding a comprehensive software package. There are many approaches to this, including ringfencing dedicated learning time, or providing access to Continuing Professional/Legal Development (CPD/CLE).
Strategy
Software will always be deceptively time-consuming. Discounting low-level administrative work, a firm should only invest in automation that will make a substantial difference to one of two things:
- The amount of time spent on specific tasks, or;
- The achievable improvement in work quality.
It is important to ensure that any tech provider has a policy in place to protect client data, and that it explicitly complies with practice regulations. There are consequences to mishandling client Personally Identifiable Information (PII) that should be considered for both software selection and employee training.
Many legal tech companies operate under a zero data retention contract (meaning that client data does not persist on their servers after use). This is difficult for a law firm to acquire directly, which is part of the motivation for transacting with legal technology companies. Technology companies want either usage data or money, and it may be cheaper to pay in money.
Legal technology also often directly integrates with software tools like Microsoft Word, or document management programs like iManage. It's actually not trivial for an LLM to interact with the office suite, so programmes with specialised agents are preferred for document redlining and analysis.
Vendors
There are two key considerations to working with any vendor.
- Their ability to provide hands-on support;
- The scope of their software.
The vendor relationship revolves around leverage. The dynamic shifts depending on the profile of the vendor and the firm. For example, a large vendor transacting with a small firm is unlikely to prioritise the needs of that firm.
Generally, the most comprehensive solutions are created by legal tech companies with hundreds of engineers. If a firm has advanced governance and audit requirements, these are the best bet.
Smaller vendors can move comparatively much faster, as they have fewer legacy costs, and greater unity. Decision makers can also be more accessible at a smaller vendor, such as booking a call directly with the CEO, which gives buyers security.
For a specialised requirement, like an integration with a complex internal system, a legal consultant can make sense. The key is to scope the work clearly, and set expectations from the outset on both sides.
Every vendor will behave impeccably during the sales cycle. It is safer to judge them by intangibles like:
- Do they communicate quickly, clearly and honestly?
- is it easy to get in touch with decision makers?
- Can they explain their product clearly, and specify its limitations?
In summary
Firms should feel like they've gained an advantage through their choice of legal tech provider. Legal tech has never been more capable than it is now, and it's well worth investing the time into selection and adoption processes.