Managing Change

Strangely and, yet, writing as someone trained as a lawyer, predictably the legal industry has long behaved with steadfast and fervent devotion to history and tradition without any regard for the world as it exists today. Technology’s impact upon both the practice and the business of law, once resisted, is now being embraced by more and more within the legal industry.

Technology can often be exciting. Take the rise of generative artificial intelligence, for example. In the past interacting with or using artificial intelligence required some degree of technical expertise (e.g., coding or a tech background), now you can simply ask any number of solutions a question in plain language and receive an answer in plain language.

However, things get a lot more complex and challenging when you see the benefit of a technology and want to implement it into your company’s business. Perhaps it is a contract management solution or maybe it is a workflow management solution. Whatever it is, the technology seems like just the thing you need, and your business needs to thrive.

The challenge is not the technology. The challenge is people. Your users. Those who will be on the front lines of using the technology solution you want to put in place. You need them to want to use the solution, to use the solution, and to see this change in how they work as something that is for their benefit and in their best interest and not just as something their boss is telling them that they need to do.

How do you engage in this critical work? In managing this change?

It starts before you even begin looking for a solution. It starts with understanding the current state of play. Who are those who will be using a new technology you see as benefiting them? How do these individuals currently work? Why do they work the way they do? What do THEY see as current roadblocks and hindrances in getting their work done? Getting clear and thorough answers to these questions will help you get a sense for what to look for in a potential solution.

Bring along the users for the journey to find a new solution. Have them be a consistent part of the search for a solution. Have them provide feedback and ask questions about potential options. It’s critical to ensure that they have a vested interest in this potential change and want to be a part of it. Equally critical is the users having the support of leadership to be fully engaged in the process. The last thing you want when engaged in change management work is for the users to feel disengaged and unmotivated to be an active part of the process.

Legal tech at its core is not about technology, processes, or people. It is an ecosystem of all three that depend on each other to survive and to thrive. People are the foundation of the ecosystem. Forgetting about them, leaving them behind, or considering them secondary to other things is at best misguided and at worst utterly disastrous for whatever you are trying to do.

There’s a lot more to change and managing it than what I have written here. But hopefully this provides a glimpse into some of the considerations involved and how to address them.

And remember, I am always at your service, your friendly neighborhood legal tech maven, Colin.