Peer to Peer Magazine

P E E R T O P E E R : I L T A ' S Q U A R T E R L Y M A G A Z I N E | F A L L 2 0 1 8 41 F or the past several years, law firms have been confronted with a set of disruptive market changes: alternative providers, demands for alternative fee arrangements, and dissatisfaction of staff over difficult work-life balance, to name just a few. Firms have been told it's time to modernize, time to change, but often the response is a version of: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," "don't rock the boat," or "leave well enough alone." Yet, law firms are not immune from the forces that are disrupting other industries like retail, entertainment, and transportation, which have been upended by digital innovators such as Amazon, Netflix, and Uber. These companies redefined the markets in which they operate and the type of value that can be delivered to customers, becoming market leaders in the process at the expense of those who did not. Remember Blockbuster? Barnes & Noble? Hailing a taxi in the rain? As consumers, your clients have seen this transformation and are now asking their key suppliers "How will you transform to serve me better?" A little more than twenty years after the IPO of Netscape (the company that launched the first popular commercial Internet browser, for those of you who don't remember), the Internet is now part of the technolo fabric. Coupled with advances in cloud computing and artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, organizations are better connected and capable of securely accessing and analyzing huge volumes of data, leaving the only question: How will your organization take full advantage of these new digital technologies? Transformation goes well beyond just using them to automate existing processes, to using them to analyze client needs in order to develop enhanced or new services that address those needs and deliver value in ways that are not just incrementally, but radically, better. There is a Way to Go About Transformation Programmatically Forrester Research defines three stages in digital transformation. These provide a road map for thinking about your own organization's path to the future. Phase 1 - Digitization: Despite the proliferation of innovation or transformation officers in organizations, this is where most firms are focusing their attention today. Digitization is the application of digital technolo to existing processes and services with the goal of "going paperless" or reducing costs and improving efficiency through automation. This is the bread and butter of what most organizations consider digital innovation today, yet it provides only incremental benefits. Processes do not really change, they just get faster, and a perhaps bit cheaper. This is not transformation, but it does provide good value in the short term. Phase 2 - Digital Transformation: This is where it gets interesting. Transformation occurs when you use AI, data analytics, cloud and other digital technologies to change how you operate or to develop new service offerings, based on information and insight gleaned from customers. Perhaps by analyzing client downloads from your portal, you uncover content that's particularly popular and downloaded more often. Transforming the process could involve making this content available to your clients at moments when they may specifically benefit from it, for example, by using AI to identify clauses in client documents (like wills or employment agreements delivered in past engagements) that may need to be updated based on changes in the underlying law. This turns a reactive – and potentially overlooked – asset into a key insight delivered to your client right when they need it. It also opens the door to additional revenue, because it is surfaced at the moment when the client is receptive – just like a smart online retailer knows what you are shopping for, and presents you with specific user reviews, photos, specifications, and suggested complementary offerings (those who bought X also bought Y, for example) directly related to that product. Another example would be transforming an existing process such as document review, which is often a part of M&A, real estate, and other transactions. Today this is an expensive, mostly manual task, one which clients are less and less willing to pay for. Some firms are forced to sample large document sets in order to arrive

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