Digital White Papers

38 WWW.ILTANET.ORG | ILTA WHITE PAPER LITIGATION AND PRACTICE SUPPORT Litigation Support in a Municipal Law Department Building a Healthy Relationship Between Legal Services and IT: Peg Neuhauser spoke at ILTACON years ago about tribal warfare in organizations. IT folks, she remarked, have a natural affinity for precision and detail; while lawyers want cogent, concise remarks. An IT person responding to a question about PCs might begin with the BIOS loading, but the lawyer is looking for "press the F8 key." Keeping these differences in mind was half the bale for us. Sharing links on the psychology of lawyers (from Dr. Larry Richard and others) with the IT side of the house helped them understand their internal clients. Our team discovered values in common, including a thirst for excellence. Recognizing and acknowledging that built respect, good will and a mutual sense of expertise. Working together toward a common goal (and keeping a sense of humor) developed a deeper and broader relationship that continues to bring massive returns. Changing Lawyers' Behavior: Embracing change is difficult for many people. We (gratefully) applied many insights and approaches shared in the ILTA online communities, including: » Short training sessions repeated frequently or provided on demand » Training to solve problems » Desk-side support and reinforcement 2 3 DAVID HILL David Hill is a lawyer for the City of Vancouver Law Department. After several years of practicing law, David became a technology educator for a local continuing legal education provider. He worked as a technology consultant and then as both a lawyer and the technology director in a large Vancouver firm. He has since moved back to practicing law, and he is involved in departmental and city-wide technology initiatives. David has made numerous presentations about the use of technology in law for legal associations, law schools and law societies and at national and international conferences. David is a keen ILTA supporter, and he promotes free and open-source software and their use in practicing law. Contact David at david.hill@vancouver.ca. The views expressed are solely the writer's and not those of the City of Vancouver. We also reasoned that there was no harm in using lawyers' innate competitiveness for good by pointing out what technology the opposition was using –– especially when ours was beer! We expect this to be a multi-year journey and realize that some of the behavioral changes will take time. Looking over the whole process now, I have to wonder how much of our success has been due to serendipity. Superb IT talent, a lawyer with a background as much in IT as in law, being rolled up into a much grander project with lots of resources –– all of these factors contributed to success. Whether through planning, good luck or a combination of the two, the result is bringing real returns to the City of Vancouver and, ultimately, the taxpayer. ILTA

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