Digital White Papers

I L T A W H I T E P A P E R | K N O W L E D G E M A N A G E M E N T & M A R K E T I N G T E C H N O L O G Y 17 Get Your House in Order New legal technology needs to integrate with other technologies already in use and the overall IT platform. Fortunately, many document management solutions ("DMS"), client relationship management tools, content management systems, and intranet platforms commonly found in large commercial firms work well together, and play a significant role in the way many law firms operate. Before considering whether to embark on a new document assembly project or implement an AI analysis tool, review how your firm is using other technologies that may need to integrate, or at least play nicely, with the proposed new solution. Begin this review by going to the project documents associated with the tools to understand why the firm decided to implement them at the time. How did the firm envisage using the tools and how did they communicate that vision to the firm? Compare the use cases outlined in the project documentation with the firm's actual use in practice. You can expect to discover differences. Just how substantial these differences are will reveal how thoroughly the "why" was considered at the project's outset. It will also reveal how well the project was run and how effectively the use cases were communicated to the firm. The quality of the project planning also can be measured by how widely adopted the tools are. Now, some of these differences will be helpful augmentations of the use cases developed through usage and others will be net new use cases, both excellent results and signs of successful adoption. On the other hand, many of the differences will fall on the other end of the spectrum and reveal deficiencies in the original implementation and planning. Those too are fine, as they will help you formulate your new project plan. Unfortunately, with some solutions you will find they are not being used at all, or only minimally. This issue must be addressed head- on and constructively. Evaluate why the solutions are not used. Many possible reasons lead to low adoption, including a poor user experience, poor training, lack of awareness, little or no integration with the practice, too many options within the platform, resistance to and fear of change, and difficulty pricing the work produced through the solution (this is a common one). Whatever the reasons, investigate them transparently and thoroughly to learn what can – and what cannot – be remedied. You may discover mistakes made during the implementation or assumptions that did not pan out, both unfortunate realties that are to be expected. Do the work now needed to make those solutions useful in practice. Take the lessons from that project and incorporate them into your new project plan. Getting your house in order makes you more likely to integrate the solution successfully into your firm or business, and you certainly will generate some goodwill with your users in the process. "Do the work now needed to make those solutions useful in practice."

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