In-house lawyers and big tech projects: at sixes and sevens

After years of having to do more with less funding, and regularly wading through mountains of complex documents, many legal departments have welcomed technology transformation with open arms. It is now widely recognised that technology can transform a legal department by creating efficiencies and relieving pressure to help ensure that senior lawyers can do senior jobs, focusing on more complex and strategically important work (see Know how “The rise of the LawTech hub: blazing a trail”). However, there are seven common mistakes that often rear their heads when legal departments embark on big technology transformation projects.

Technology does not work in a silo; it needs people to use it and embrace it. Too often, departments embark on a technology transformation project without involving the whole team. This leads to a lack of buy-in, and gaps across the business quickly emerge where people are unsure of the value that the technology provides and as a result, it is not used. Behavioural change is a huge element to successfully implementing any kind of new process (see box “Five-step methodology”).

Generally speaking, a technology solution will be adapted by a business en masse and will be expected to be used in the same way across the company. However, in practice, how the Chicago office does things may be different to the London or the Brazil offices. And there are often important reasons why things are done differently, such as local law and regulations. Being aware of these differences is key. Spending time assessing how a broad range of stakeholders from across the world actually do their day-to-day jobs is vital in ensuring that any new technology can be adopted to suit everyone.

It has been difficult to miss the constant slew of news stories about artificial intelligence and ChatGPT recently. And it is hard not to feel pressured to embrace these new and hyped technology solutions, especially if it feels like everyone else is using them. People do not like to be left behind. However, legal departments often ask for technology solutions that they already have: they are just not leveraging the technology they have already invested in, perhaps because they are unaware of the capabilities available. Offering additional training to unlock latent potential is a terrific way to leverage investments.

Some technology transformation projects fail simply because someone forgets to send an email telling everyone that the project has been implemented, and explaining what it can do. Technology can easily sit dormant, wasting hours of time and investment. Communication is key to a successful change and the process is usually not going to work if only a couple of people on the team know about the technology and are brought up to speed with how it works. Spending time communicating and training the wider team, at all levels, is essential to ensure that there is not a knowledge bottleneck. Establishing an ongoing and evolving training plan is also important. This involves communicating the change and overall vision, beginning to create ownership of the solution in the first instance and then ensuring that there is capability to sustain the change.

Technology helps to create piles of incredibly useful data which can be used by legal departments to course correct in real time and model possible outcomes, creating efficiencies and cost-savings. Setting metrics is important to ensure that data can be used properly and many legal departments are already doing this: statistics from Hyperion Research show that 63% of corporate legal departments have formal metrics and analytics programs (https://insights.hgpresearch.com/legalops-benchmark-metrics). However, in the same survey, only 9% strongly agreed that their metrics are well-defined, curated, and are easily accessible, with audience-specific dashboards. Identifying metrics that will help benchmark the department, and create targets for the future is important. These can include financial, operational, service performance, outcomes and risk management measures. For a legal department, measuring more nuanced and specific areas is also important. For example, measuring the most and least litigated contracts and clauses will inform policies, and litigation return on investment and trends in disputes will inform future litigation strategies. It is important that these metrics keep evolving as the department and wider business change.

Data without explanation and a narrative are just numbers on a page. Once it is clear what data will be valuable to the department, and the best way to collect and present this information, the next step is bringing it to life and making it work for the team. This can also be really useful in encouraging buy-in, both in the legal department but also across the wider business. Data visualisation and dashboard tools can be hugely helpful here. Storytelling and weaving a narrative through the data is also essential to ensure understanding and appreciation of the nuance and meaning of the metrics and how they demonstrate the value of the legal department. Only then can the true value of data be realised.

Embarking on any type of change, especially involving technology, can be overwhelming and all-consuming. For legal teams, this type of transformation can feel particularly new. There is a whole market of alternative legal service providers to offer advice and resources, as well as legal expertise and knowledge of the wider market. Going it alone could mean that any of the seven common mistakes become more likely.

In any transformation process, people, process, technology and data have to be considered together and it is with this holistic overview that change management should be approached. Technology offers huge opportunities for legal departments to improve efficiencies in both the short and long-term, but successfully implementing new technology is a challenge. Being aware of the seven common mistakes should offer a helping hand to anyone considering beginning this journey.