How to pick the right legal tech and get lawyers to adopt it

Go to any legal technology event and the massive scale of the market is sure to impress. From start-ups to long-established giants, the array of companies pitching innovative ways to support lawyers in their work is seemingly infinite — which can feel overwhelming and confusing. 

• How do you separate the genuinely useful from the shiny objects that look good at first glance but provide limited practical value
• How do you know who to speak to about the specific problems your legal team is facing and learn what might be available to help?
• Assuming you find a solution that promises to address all of your lawyers’ pain points, how do you convince them to adopt it?

Choosing a new technology to solve an issue that keeps people from doing their best work can feel like crossing a minefield. It requires one strategy for sorting through the options to decide on the best one, and another strategy for encouraging lawyers to adopt it.  

Deciding which legal tech will do the job

First, identify the problem your lawyers are facing, and be specific. Spell it out. Next, define success. What is your end goal? What outcome do you want your new tech to achieve? It might be something like:

• Make the due diligence process more efficient for the M&A team
• Automate email and document filing
• Summarize all the decisions in the Commercial Court last month

Focusing on a single problem narrows the field of possible solutions. And, by being clear from the outset in what you expect to achieve, you can eliminate any contender that won’t produce that outcome.  

Your budget can also help you narrow the field. There is no sense in evaluating a solution that your firm won’t approve the funds to buy. How much support do you need? A fledgling start-up might have a lower price tag and fewer customers to support; that could earn you more of their attention as you roll out their product. They’ll be keen for you to see their product as successful and refer other business. 

The downside is they’re untested. Does what they have seem highly likely to solve your problem, or is it all window dressing? No matter how cool the technology is, if there’s a mismatch between the tech you choose and the outcome it delivers, you may not want to take the risk. You should also consider whether their support is lean or able to handle your needs, take on board feedback, and innovate and develop the product further based on your usage. 

Lack of time in the market can be a risk, as well. Many startups fold after a few years, and their customers are left to find a new solution. Alternatively, you could roll out an application only to see its development stagnate or change when a bigger firm acquires the company.

An established company often has a track record you can verify via sites like G2 and Capterra to see how well users say their products work, and the overall customer experience, including of support. They should have referrals you can contact. But the price tag generally reflects high marks in customer experience, so adjust your expectations accordingly.

Ultimately, your budget may force you to accept some trial and error. Just remember the flip side of that argument — that the less you have to spend, the less room there may be for error in your choices. A trial of new software might be the right compromise to find out what you need without going too far out on a limb. 

The more IT can experiment — or run pilot test groups — the more it will teach you about the technology that is out there and how it works in practice. And what you learn is often as important as the tool you choose. 

Okay, let’s say you’ve found the tech that your lawyers need. What’s next?

Why lawyers may not rush to adopt new tech

You found it, you bought it, you rolled it out to the target users. You even set up training opportunities so they can learn to use it. And yet … uptake is minimal. 

Why?

Resistance from lawyers against adopting legal tech is not a new phenomenon. The “this is how we’ve always done it” mindset is familiar to lawyers everywhere. Although the legal industry has made large gains in this area, there may be some resistance to change itself. The real issue, though, is that lawyering is demanding work; the prospect of carving out time to learn any new system or tool, however worthwhile, feels exhausting. 

This should really have been part of the new technology selection process, but if it wasn’t, consider what task the tech is trying to solve. Lawyers get paid for how well they think. 

• Writing is thinking
• Reading is thinking
• Even reviewing disclosure is thinking 

They’re learning the context and background of a case. And to do their best thinking, lawyers have processes. If you’ve implemented a solution that circumvents or replaces an essential step in the lawyer’s thought stream or in building the logic of a case, a good lawyer is likely to see that as an intrusion rather than a help and reject it. 

Lawyers also don’t want to spend time using a new tool only to find that it’s unworkable or unreliable. Tried-and-true methods may not be blazingly fast, but they are known and trusted.

Finally, many lawyers in private practice have billable hours targets for which efficiency is not necessarily the goal. If you adopt a new technology that makes you more efficient and you are consequently berated in your annual review for missing your targets, how is that better? 

How to get lawyers to adopt legal tech

Lawyers are intelligent people who can make any change happen if they want to. How do you motivate them to adopt a change? 

Partners need to be on board with the tech from day one. Messaging and actions that come from senior partners can be very persuasive. Young trainees may understand new tech and take to it faster than more experienced peers, but it’s everybody’s responsibility to learn new ways of working — a firm is only as good as its collective intelligence. 

• Give your lawyers opportunities to learn more about tech
• Peer-to-peer discussions (a monthly meeting might go a long way)
• Attend external events (and bring back news of what else is out there!) 

Networking with people from other firms can lead to fruitful discussions about what they’re using and why.

You can also celebrate people who embraced a new technology and made a big difference in their work. Lawyers are competitive and want to find ways to stand out. Promote new ways of working to the rest of your team by highlighting them in a newsletter or calling them out in a team meeting. Show that tech adoption is applauded, and others will follow.

Finally, navigate the billable hours conundrum. The most obvious counterargument is that greater efficiency should open the door to taking on more clients, not decreasing billable hours. However, you can also brainstorm other ways to approach the problem and prevent it from being an obstacle to success. 

For example, your organization or department could allocate a percentage of the week or month to learning new technology as a non-chargeable time code or even make learning a separate target. Lawyers are more likely to adopt and use a new technology regularly if they are encouraged to play around with it and become familiar with its benefits. Support them in this endeavor, and the results may surprise you. 

The takeaway

Both private practice firms and in-house teams face pressure to invest in efficiency and increased value for money. Testing new tools and using the results to refine your requirements is an essential part of that process. But when it comes to adoption, it’s not enough to have only new hires and associates using new tech. If all the partners understand the tool, use it, and encourage others to do so, the path to adoption is much smoother for the rest of the team.