Law Technology

The Five B?s: The Right Reasons for Technology in Your Practicew

By Ross

This year marked MicroLaw’s 25th anniversary – we’ve been providing legal technology and law practice management guidance for more than 25 years. Sometimes, it’s hard to believe so much time has passed. Other times, it feels like it was just yesterday that I started this company in a bedroom of an apartment with $100 in a checking account and a lot of enthusiasm . . . the year Novell Netware first appeared.

Lately, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out, while after five or more technology life cycles, so many law practices still are barely scratching the surface in terms of really integrating technology into the flow of their practices. All of this thinking has led me to draw some conclusions I’d like to share over a series of posts. I’ve been calling the idea, “The Five B’s: The Right Reasons for Technology in Your Practice.”

On the surface, the “Five B’s” might seem wholly unrelated to technology, but that couldn’t be further from reality. The central idea here, which hit me like a ton of bricks literally late one night recently, is that technology in a law practice shouldn’t be about technology at all. In other words, practices that acquire and deploy technology systems – hardware, software, etc. – because they feel they’re “supposed to” or just because “the old stuff is dying so we need new stuff,” or “because it will solve all our practice problems,” most often accomplish little other than spending a lot of money and becoming much more efficient at being as inefficient as they’ve been for years.

Why don’t more firms feel motivated to really push the capabilities of their shiny new document, email and paper management tools? Their practice management systems – why are they often barely used for anything other than perhaps docketing? Why are so few firms using document assembly systems – which have been around for decades? Why is it so many firms just quietly struggle with only rudimentary knowledge about the utterly ubiquitous daily tool, Microsoft Word? Why are so many practices still dangerously and cumbersomely straddling their paper and electronic files – neither of which represents a complete and contiguous case file for working client matters competently? Why do I find relatively few firms who make use of established, even venerable, litigation technology tools such as Summation, the CaseSoft Suite and Sanction?

Why do so many firms do things the hardest, most expensive, most frustrating way?

Why do so many practices try and do what amounts, all too often, to automating chaos?

I think it’s because technology is implemented for technology’s sake and NOT for the right reasons.

The right reasons, universally applicable to all practices, of all sizes in all places on this planet are:

• Best Practices – finding ways to let technology help achieve the highest quality client work product and the best possible client responsiveness.
• Better Profitability – pushing the profitability envelope outward through a double whammy combination of maximized revenue generation, cost reduction and recapturing and converting other lost time into billed time – via intelligent application of technology tools and processes.
• Battling Malpractice – being aware of the risks to confidential client and practice information created by modern technology and using the right technology tools and systems to plug the security and exposure gaps.
• Brainy Ethics – technology used unwarily can propel any lawyer into deep, dark ethical chasms. Using technology responsibly can provide an ethical safety net every day, protecting firms and clients.
• Blissful Life – law practice is stressful and aggravating enough – technology shouldn’t exacerbate the situation. Rather, the right technology, well-implemented can improve your quality of life in law practice markedly – heck, it might actually even become fun again.

These Five B’s should be the motivating and driving elements behinds decisions, to add, remove, change, update, upgrade, modify and augment technology systems, not just “because the old crap died and we had to get our work done.” In this series, we’ll explore each of the Five B’s, looking at how specific categories and types of technology systems, tools and approaches can be harnessed to enable every practice, in-house or private practice, to accomplish so much more, often with less effort and much greater financial rewards as well as thrilled clients.

So watch for the upcoming Five B’s posts! Solo and small firm lawyers in Wisconsin can see the first CLE program built on the “Five B’s” approach at the annual Wisconsin Solo & Small Firm Conference October 29-30th here. If you’d like to see this CLE program in your state or online, just ask your local CLE director to contact me. You can preview the “Five B’s” CLE materials here.

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Full post as published by Ross Ipsa Loquitur on October 25, 2010 (boomark / email).