Anatomy Of A Winning Tech Rollout: How Law Firms Can Define Success

Ed. Note: This is the second article in a series. Read the first installment here.

Never underestimate the importance of precedent in the legal profession.

It’s important advice for legal technology as well as legal practice. 

When rolling out a new technology project, you should look to a company’s track record of success, which will ease the process at any firm. 

In a recent CLE webinar sponsored by iManage, a panel of lawyers and tech professionals described successful tech adoption at Holland & Knight and Gunderson Dettmer. 

iManage offers Closing Folders, a Cloud-based transaction management solution that automates the repetitive, often tedious tasks associated with closing deals, from creating checklists and managing versions, through to capturing signatures and creating final closing books.

Brett Young, an iManage representative, noted that implementation often involves a decidedly piecemeal approach, starting with just the closing book or the signature pages. 

Eventually, the lawyers and paralegals see the advantages a centralized solution can provide, Young noted. 

It particularly allows them to avoid juggling disparate items — static documents, a DocuSign account, a document management system, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets. 

Once the system is live, it will cut down on mistakes while creating efficiencies that ultimately result in client satisfaction. 

“I think eventually there’s a lightbulb that goes off and it’s like, ‘Oh, I can do all of this right here,’’’ Young said. 

(Register to view the full presentation on-demand here. CLE credit is available.)

Defining Success

Of course, the definition of success regarding a law firm’s internal clients can be trickier.

The panelists had a few unconventional KPIs to note. 

For iManage’s Young, defining success involves taking a step back and looking at the big picture. 

How is a firm benefiting from the software? How are lawyers and staff using it? How is it affecting the final work product? 

From there, it’s possible to drill down into more granular metrics in each category.

“Over the longer span that’s really setting the firm up for a successful rollout — a successful life cycle with whatever platform that might be and whatever problem, not just transaction management, it’s trying to solve,” he said. 

For Naveen Pai, the Gunderson Dettmer Chief Knowledge Officer, there are more subtle signs of success.

He knows a new tool is successful when: 1) he gets complaints the moment it goes offline, and 2) when the lawyers who use it know it better than the IT department does. 

“When they’re telling us how things work,” he said, “that’s when we know we’re onto something.”