Baskerville Drummond on the strategy challenge: part one

In the first of a two-part article, David Baskerville at Baskerville Drummond explores the challenges around making technology central to the strategic management of law firms.

We’re at that point in the legal profession where you’ll find few dissenters to the view that technology should sit at the heart of the practice. It’s the ‘great enabler’ and, more than that, it’s increasingly pivotal to survival as both competition and client demands intensify.

But sharing a view is one thing. It’s quite another to effect the cultural and management changes required to embed technology, and make technology central to the management of law firms where a more traditional culture still enforces a divide between lawyer ‘owners’ and ‘other staff’. In this two-part article, we will touch upon the obstacles to placing technology at the strategic core of law firm decision-making, and suggest a few measures that may go some way towards overcoming them.

One of the main problems is communication. Many senior lawyers and law firm managers matured in a world ‘without tech’, which has impacted understanding of, or interest in it. They may now use it – because they have to – but they are using it by rote and without understanding the underlying complexity of the technology.

Being lawyers, they are busy with lawyering, and may be impatient with (or even hostile to) something they don’t really relate to. Technologists, on the other hand, use their own jargon and are focused on technology rather than the business outcomes that are the concern of managers and owners.

There is no quick fix. It requires patience and understanding from both sides. As a first step, it may help to promote the IT director/ IT manager to the main board, or management committee of the firm. It’s vital that IT has a seat – and a voice – at the top table, and should be involved in all the firm initiatives. However, the entire IT team should be encouraged to emerge from the basement and take an active interest in what lawyers do, how they do it and the pressures they face.

This will not always be easy. IT leads and their teams may be outstanding technically and operationally, but may not have the business awareness. That’s fair enough, there’s enough work in deploying and managing the tech, without asking themselves what the purpose of it is.

Key takeaways

1. IT needs a seat and a voice at the top table.
2. IT must take an active interest in what lawyers do and how they do it.
3. Additional resources and support for the IT head should be considered.
4. Cultural change has to be planned for just as much as technological change.
5. Technology, process and people have to be far better aligned and integrated than at present.

Continue the investigation by reading part two here.