Technology

Why I Am Trading #Legaltech For #Legalinnovation

There is a simple truth that most people know but don't internalize: technology is NOT the same thing as innovation.

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Have you seen the hashtag #legaltech? This might be a little inside baseball, but I’ve always used #legaltech when I share my posts on Twitter and LinkedIn, not because I really think it helps give my posts a bigger audience (the fact that it’s on ATL pretty much solves for page views) but because it was this sort of geeky secret awkward hand shake between the people involved in the current growth of disruptive legal businesses.

But, following this post, I’m going to stop using #legaltech and begin using #legalinnovation (wayyy less catchy for sure, but as you’ll see that’s kind of the point).

I was evangelizing about #legaltech start-ups before it was cool and I take a lot of pride in that fact that I’ve introduced a bunch of these start-ups and their stories to ATL readers. The problem with #legaltech is that it is simply too narrow a term for what’s going on right now in the legal industry. Second, I think a lot of people confuse the term technology with innovation, and this can lead to some not so great results.

There is a simple truth that most people know but don’t internalize: technology is NOT the same thing as innovation. Technology, when it’s built and designed right, can be innovative, but innovation doesn’t always depend on technology.

Huh?

To illustrate the difference, I’ll use an example from the world of education. Around the time the iPad came out, schools quickly got excited because they saw that kids love iPads. So a bunch of progressive schools invested in iPads and new software that would revolutionize the class room. This is a good example of TECHNOLOGY. To date, the results of iPad based learning have mixed, and I know Silicon Valley executives who insist on their children attending technology free schools because they think iPads make you dumber.

And now an example of educational INNOVATION. Schools in Japan have gotten rid of their cleaning services and now have the students clean everything in the school right down to the latrines. The goal was to teach the students important life skills, but they’ve seen all kinds of ancillary benefits from higher test scores to a complete transformation in how the students relate to and respect their schools.

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Why does this difference matter?

Ask any law firm about the new shiny TECH they bought but never use — it can be expensive. iPads in the classroom can be expensive too:

  • iPads for 30 students: $5,000.00
  • Software and training the teachers: $10,000.00
  • (Playing Candy Crush during civics? Priceless.)

INNOVATION on the other hand doesn’t have to cost you anything. In Japan, INNOVATION actually meant the school was spending less money because they got rid of their cleaning crew.

Now consider a couple of examples of innovation from the legal space.

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1. Rimon P.C. ICYMI, yesterday I interviewed Rimon P.C. founder Michael Moradzadeh (sponsored by Planet Data). Rimon is a GREAT example of an innovation first mindset. They saw that the Biglaw model had flaws and they recognized that Biglaw wouldn’t change, so that, if you wanted a better result, you would have to build a firm from scratch. Moradzadeh and his partner Yaacov Silberman (who I just found out is a brother of a college classmate of mine) recognized that with some basic technology that had really improved in the last ten years, like email, cloud storage and video chat, you could now build a firm designed for 2017 without all the trappings of the Cravath model. Michael didn’t create any sexy new technology. If anything he stripped down law firms to the basics and asked, “What do our clients REALLY care about?” But, tech or no tech, the movement of what he calls “nimble white shoe law firms” is going to be highly disruptive.

2. eScribers I’m going to tell you more about eScribers in an upcoming article because what they do is so boring, but boring in the way that Warren Buffet loves companies that are “boring,” so like the “sexy boring.” Consider that we are in 2000 *bleeping* 17 and we’re still using old school court reporters who use some sort of typewriter thingy I last remember seeing in My Cousin Vinny.

eScribers hasn’t built some next generation voice recognition technology, they did something simpler: they built a network of people who would, get this, place recording devices inside of courtrooms and then upload the recording making it available for eScribers’ human cloud of transcribers and then ultimately to all the interested parties through a client portal. Justice can be inefficient and expensive when you’re paying stenographers, eScribers built an INNOVATIVE solution with some great supporting technology that lowers that financial burden. And, as I’ll tell you in an upcoming story, They. Are. Crushing. It.

3. Ruby Receptionist I’ve mentioned them before but they are one of my favorite examples of innovation first companies. Now, to be fair, Ruby has built a good amount of technology on their back end, but the reason Ruby is so disruptive is because they realized that it no longer makes sense in 2017 to pay a full time receptionist to sit around all day handling 10-12 calls. So they built Ruby, the human cloud of receptionists always there to take your calls — and they are GREAT at it. You can literally hear their receptionists smiling through the phone and just waiting to help you. Lawyers need their clients to feel secure and calling and getting a voice helps (last I checked ~40% of Ruby’s customers are lawyers). Ruby allows you to share receptionists the same way you would an Amazon server. INNOVATIVE.

I could go on and on with examples — but, often, what separates the legal companies that make it (even the ones who are building awesome tech) from those who don’t can often be tied to whether or not they are focused on building amazing tech, or focused on creating outside the box innovative solutions that help lawyers immediately. Many lawyers come to me and ask how they can get more involved in legal technology — a question for an upcoming post — or what tech they should buy. My response is always the same: say why don’t you first see whether or not you can be innovative in your own practice? There’s some great tech out there, but, first, have you experimented with alternative fee arrangements, outsourcing grunt work to alternative legal service providers or engaging in creative business development?

Innovation doesn’t have to cost you a dime, but it can be the difference in whether or not you have a successful, sustainable and fulfilling practice — or, if you’d decided to go this way, a start-up business. #legalinnovation doesn’t have as nice a ring to it as #legaltech, but that’s okay, it’s kind of the point right?

Zach Abramowitz is a former Biglaw associate and currently CEO and co-founder of ReplyAll. You can follow Zach on Twitter (@zachabramowitz) or reach him by email at zach@replyall.me.

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