Lawyers, Technology and Practice Management

A new study conducted by Andrew Adkins of the Legal Technology Institute (LTI), the Case, Matter and Practice Management System Study, takes a detailed look at lawyers' use of technology. Technolawyer^* subscribers can obtain a free copy of this lawyers and technology study here.

As Bob Ambrogi noted last week in his post about the study on Law Sites, lawyers who do not use practice or case management software generally don't do so because they think their current system is working just fine - essentially, they subscribe to the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' mentality.

The problem with this mentality is that these lawyers don't know how much better or more efficiently they could be working if they had better systems in place. In my experience, the lawyers who are the most resistant to technology and the most insistent that their systems work well are the very lawyers who complain that they work too many hours, are overwhelmed, or have clients who are overly demanding.

The most popular complaints lodged against lawyers involve a lack of responsiveness, poor business management, failure to return telephone calls, billing problems, lack of proper control of finances or failure to keep track of calendar and to do items. Many of these problems can be reduced or eliminated through proper use of technology.

More and more legal business is being conducted through the internet and email. Lawyers now need to keep track of electronic documents and paper documents, which has led to a reduction in productivity; many firms are now juggling two separate file systems - a 'hard copy' file and the electronic file, neither of which is fully complete or fully reliable.

The use of the internet and electronic creation of documents means most documents include some metadata, and yet according to the LTI study, less than 40% of small firm and legal department respondents use metadata cleanup software, and only 25% of respondents overall use encryption software although almost all lawyers send sensitive documents and information to clients via email.

One of the most popular objections I often hear from lawyers about using Saas (software as a service or cloud-based software solutions) is security of data - and yet those same lawyers think nothing of sending their clients' sensitive data over the internet through unencrypted email, or fail to install firewalls or other security protections on their existing technology systems.

Survey respondents said that the biggest obstacles to their adoption of case management solutions were the costs involved (both at startup and for maintenance) and the learning curve of integrating such a system into their existing business, and yet one must wonder how many of these same firms have calculated the costs of failing to implement this kind of technology.

The electronic mail program used most widely by survey respondents (over 83%) was Microsoft Outlook - and yet, in my experience, most lawyers barely scratch the surface of Outlook's functionality.

The results of the study reinforce the idea that lawyers who embrace technology are still ahead of the curve - more lawyers need to see the value of not only implementing available technology, but maximizing the functionality of their existing technology. A breakdown isn't the only reason to make a change or try something new - a horse and buggy can still get you from one place to another, typewriters still type and carbon paper can still make copies - but how many people are still using them?

^*Technolawyer subscribers can also obtain other useful research through their library, along with their numerous helpful newsletters on various topics of interest to lawyers in all areas of practice, at all sizes.

Comments

[Jon D.]

Hi,

I think SAAS is excellent but I also think there are 2 other reasons lawyers resist it:

1. They already invested heavily in desktop practice management software and don't relish another tech change (it's a big job); and

2. Desktop practice management software still has more bells and whistles. I've done demos of several SAAS software options yet they don't quite manage documents like Time Matters and Amicus. That will change for sure, but it was a sticking point for me.

That said, SAAS ease-of-use is second-to-none and you can buy dedicated document management software to offset the SAAS limitations.

[Project Management Software Tools]

I am a software developer and I read your article. This is really informative to me. Now I am waiting for your next post.

[london solicitor]

Technology is made for one thing, to make our lives easier and more effective. As it grows and companies continue to grow with it, these companies who are reluctant to using it are going to fall behind.