Practices which ignore digital technology are at risk.
The commoditisation of legal services is a continuing challenge for small to medium-sized practices.
It creates dual pressures as clients have an expectation that services will be delivered faster (and cheaper), and that those services will be comprehensive in terms of easily applicable legal expertise.
While experienced practitioners know that a significant part of legal service delivery revolves around the correct strategies, methods and timing of applying legal knowledge, many clients believe that the legal knowledge alone is the essential deliverable.
Lawyers may understand the extent of these underlying complexities, but clients – or potential clients – have service expectations that are built around their own generic information mining experiences.
Expectations about the timing of service delivery are also affected by personal web history.
When it is possible to locate and purchase a cereal packet plastic toy from the 1970s in less than 20 minutes, why is it not possible for a lawyer to download a ready-to-go template for a Magistrates’ Court statement of claim in the same amount of time?
In many respects, the digital divide within the legal profession appears to be taking on age-based characteristics.
Older practitioners (with exceptions of course) tend to rely on their personal relationships with longstanding clients to carry them through without having to swim in the deep pond of committed technology exposure.
Signposts of this are such things as manual, or near-manual internal systems; most notably an absence of practice management and document management systems.
Other signposts are a lack of knowledge about the extent and quality of legal tools and information available on the web, as regularly reported in this journal for many years now.
A key question about being on that side of the digital divide is “Does it really matter?”.
Well, yes – it does. It can adversely affect staff retention and motivation, valuation of the practice as part of an exit strategy, profitability and client retention.
The digital divide is not an insurmountable barrier, and with a planned strategy involving several key areas, significant advances can be made, even for the small practice.
Each practice will have its own “hit list” of technology objectives, but it is suggested that the ones which have the highest level of client visibility or service delivery will have a downstream effect that will add to the impetus for change.
A good example lies in the billing process that a practice uses. Turning this into an “e-billing” system is usually possible, regardless of the current technology in use.
A staff member will need to be made responsible for the basics of this project – possibly liaising with the practice management software support staff, acquiring a PDF document generator, collecting the email addresses of client accounts payable staff, revising form layouts, and dealing with the timing of the rollout.
After the initial processes are complete, other staff members should become involved in the e-billing processes so that it becomes ingrained in the fabric of the practice – it becomes part of its “corporate knowledge”.
As an alternative, a practice may wish to experiment first with a system that is not “client-facing”. An example may be the bank interface.
A colleague related the story of a client who has the last cheque book the firm ever used mounted in a frame and sitting in its reception area, being used as a marketing tool to show clients that they are dealing with a firm that is comfortable with technology.
Moving away from the cheque and deposit books, and into the full suite of online banking tools will introduce efficiencies while retaining tight control over funds.
Again, a list of tasks would need to be formulated, mostly revolving around acquiring supplier banking details, and encouraging clients to deposit directly into the practice’s bank account(s).
Methods for dealing with larger funds transfers will also need to be discussed with the bank, and (again) software support staff may need to be engaged to discuss automatic statement transfers, or remittance runs.
The introduction of new technology is not an event; it is a process.
Firms which are successful in this area have post-implementation reviews to use lessons learned as they launch into the next project, and also look at completed projects from time to time to see whether further advances can be introduced.
“To do” List
- Identify the top three areas where technology could be introduced or improved, and consider what effects may result for clients.
- Confirm that any ethical and practice (e.g. trust account) obligations will still be satisfied through the adoption of technology.
- Specify which staff member will be responsible for any technology initiative introduction.
- Expect hiccups along the way, and support troubleshooting measures.
Law Institute Journal Victoria (2008) 82(1&2) LIJ, p. 86
Author ADAM REYNOLDS is the principal of Proficio, an independent IT consulting firm.
No comments:
Post a Comment