Peer to Peer Magazine

PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGA ZINE OF ILTA 74 What types of businesses should law firms look to when shaping an innovative technology agenda? Law firms have often been in the mindset of a "me too" reaction to innovation and change, typically wanting to know where in the legal community innovative products and services have been adopted. As the pressure on law firms increases to adapt and change, driven primarily by their clients, one of the first places they can look is to their clients for help in the adoption of new, relevant technology. Obvious companies come to mind — Amazon, Google, Salesforce and many of the larger pharmaceutical companies. Many firms looking to innovate represent the very technology companies that can help them with this migration. What is changing with the delivery of legal services that will necessitate faster technology adoption among attorneys? Clients' expectations of the speed of delivery have been altered forever. We live in a world where a wealth of information is at our fingertips, and we have an expectation that service providers will deliver at a competitive speed. This can be the expectation of a global Fortune 500 company or the construction firm that a law firm may have been representing for decades. As businesses become global, clients will naturally have an expectation that their lawyers can help wherever and whenever an issue arises. In addition, many basic legal services have become commoditized, and clients expect they will be able to procure these services quickly, cheaply and easily. That might be a real challenge to traditional service delivery methodologies of many law firms. What are tech-progressive law firms doing differently from other firms? There is a good amount of innovation around how firms are communicating with their clients — from shared extranets to project dashboards. Firms are consolidating (and perhaps outsourcing) back-office services regionally and globally. Tech-progressive firms are driving unprecedented client access to information, be it case information, billing information or access to general legal content. It is interesting that the "game changing" fixed-fee firms like Riverview have advanced IT systems at the forefront of how/why they can deliver what they claim is legal representation similar to an Am Law 200 firm for a fraction of the cost and with a fixed-fee billing structure. That might say a lot about how important progressive technology is going to be in keeping firms competitive in the coming years. What makes some law firms more tech-progressive than others? I think it begins with firm leadership. If the partners who run a firm are progressive in their thinking around technology, naturally the firm moves in that direction. Firms that view technology as an enabler to future success versus a necessary cost center tend to be more progressive. What kinds of technology products and services will become most important to law firms in the next five years? Technology around communication and mobility will be a key focus. Law firms' clients are expecting quicker access to decisions and information. Big data and associated analytics will continue to garner attention. We have already seen the effect this has had in e-discovery, and I am confident the use of predictive analytics is only at its earliest stages in how it can impact the legal profession. We know some firms have developed models to predict case outcomes and allow their customers to use this data to help them make decisions when weighed against potential costs of the case. We are only scratching the surface of what this could all mean to the legal industry. QUICK CALLS on Firms, the Future and Innovation by Eric Wangler of BigHand

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