Obligations to the firm’s Partners and Management

Are you meeting your obligations to your firm’s stakeholders?

Until relatively recently a law firm’s management committee typically only got involved with IT when the management wanted to proceed with a major capital investment – a system refresh, new practice management, document management or archiving software or a similar project. You could expect a debate around budgets, timelines and risks, and of course management would provide all the necessary assurances.

In most cases, these projects run extremely well, achieving budget and timeline. A small number don’t, and these can become massive distractions, but fortunately these are in the minority.

But Governance is Changing

It makes sense that, as with any investment, the partnership needs to know that it is getting value from their technology, and have undertaken reasonable measures to reduce risk.

Today’s partners are more invested in IT than ever, and they are asking tough questions. They appreciate that IT has become even more central to business operations, and that IT threats continue to escalate. That’s become especially true over the last couple of years.  They are more focused on risks, and cyber-security has stepped up and grabbed their attention. It’s a big topic, and a frustrating one because it is all about the downside of technology rather than the upside.

There’s inevitably still a few firms looking for absolute assurance about cyber protection, and of course, that’s completely naïve and impossible – practices can only limit and mitigate risk.

But legal practices also need to think about disruption, and in this case, digital disruption. 

At the extreme, I’ve seen cases where partners have asked management to create the ‘uber app’ of the legal industry. The reality is that organisation strategy does have to think about the potential impact of IT on their sector and how they can harness it.  

What firms need to be is as efficient as possible, from recruiting staff to interacting with clients, from communicating with clients to managing their files and work product.  Time is precious in law firms!

At the simplest level, firms can’t afford to be overtaken by a competitor.

Monitor the trends

Literally every day, things that used to be impossible become possible.  NZ Law Firms have the benefit of being able to observe overseas trends.  Whether its follow the last tools in improved digital dictation or discovery management, to using tools to automate legal research.  We don’t need to invent tools like Watson, Alexsei or Ross – we can just follow along anf learn and apply them when it is appropriate.

Or we can automate smaller processes to transform a practice and enjoy the cumulative effect of many smaller steps that add up to a substantive change:

• Engaging customers in new and more compelling ways (eg how we share product with them)
• Optimising operations to become more nimble and efficient to create product faster
• Empowering users to do more