Nobody's Got Time For That! General Counsels' and LegalTech.

LexisNexis has released a new report regarding the adoption of legal technology by general counsels. Three of the top four reasons that general counsels are not attempting to integrate legal technology into their departments according to their research are:

• Lack of time (67%)
• Lack of resources, ex-budget (63%)
• Lack of understanding (60%)

This result is unsurprising. AngelList is now up to nearly 900 legal technology startups. That does not even include the established major players like Thomson Reuters, LexisNexis and Wolters Kluwer. Nor does it consider the well-established providers that are not behemoths but nevertheless have decades-plus track records, like Intralinks. All of this choice is daunting and does more to confuse a consumer than persuade them to embrace more technology tools into their department. Even after investing the time and the resources to understand the market, it takes even more time to actually configure, test, launch and adopt a new technology tool. This journey also requires skilled human resources, such a project management leader, change management leadership, and IT resources. Even the most polished vendor demonstration does little to actually empower a general counsel to execute on a technology implementation.

None of these findings are a surprise, but there are solutions.

The LexisNexis report focuses on depending on your outside counsel to assist. While this approach has delivered for some legal departments, most law firms are not structured to make technology recommendations in a profitable way for them. Another solution is to borrow resources from your company’s IT department. They will have the technical know-how to implement and integrate a solution, but it will still be your team’s responsibility to configure the tool and identify its requirements. You may also consider creating working groups within your department charged with innovation and identification of technology solutions. By spreading the work across several lawyers it is possible to build momentum and make impactful change. Finally, consider whether external resources are needed.  Companies, such as KorumLegal, that offer a technology consulting service to specifically address these problems.  KorumLegal has expertise in the best solutions on the market that work in the APAC region. It also focuses on process identification and change management to ensure that the tool selected is the right one for your team and is actually adopted by your stakeholders.

To learn more, please contact us.

Also check out Bill's recent article on Legal Operations - Law as a Process: How Process Design Defines Value, Delivers Efficiency, and Drives Business Strategy.