May 1, 2007
Law Firm Technology Changes Produce Heroes and Villains
As I headed to Las Vegas for the 2007 ALA conference, I started thinking about the one message I would like attending Legal Administrators to take home to their law firm leaders. My answer came from an e-mail I received that included the following sentence:
My old boss used to always tell me “Don’t try to save money on your attorney, your CPA, or your computer technicians.”
There is a lot of wisdom behind that advice. Attorneys understand the value of their own professional services and the benefit that their clients gain from the attorney’s experience and expertise. When it comes to making changes in the firm’s technology, the services of an experienced technology professional will, likewise, deliver benefits far in excess of their cost.
Law firm leaders, including managing partners, are revenue producers. They ration the non-billable time they devote to administrative and technology areas. While they are producing revenue, they look to their administrator to pull together the details for purchasing and implementing new technology. The administrator thus becomes the project owner. Firm leaders expect the administrator to make it happen. If the implementation is a success and the intended benefits are achieved, the administrator becomes a hero. Unfortunately, they can also become the villain of that story.
The role of hero or villain is cast during the purchase phase. The same project can turn one administrator into a villain while another, at a separate firm, becomes a hero. The difference invariably arises from the amount of training and professional assistance included in the proposal the administrator takes to the partners. The hero opportunity is forfeited when an administrator trims the proposed project costs by cutting recommended assistance and training.
Firms that go through change with ample training and with the guiding assistance of an experienced implementation specialist consistently have positive feedback about both the benefits realized and the implementation process. Firms that opt to “save money” by pushing through change on their own with limited understanding of the new technology or the impact that it will have on the firm often find the process painful and the intended benefits slow to realize. Those firms invariably wind up paying a much bigger project price in terms of disruptions and delayed benefits.
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Filed under Technology by Tom Collins
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