You love your firm's technology tools, but are they what your clients want?

Much of the discourse about new technologies centres on how they can be used within firms, but there is a danger in not being sufficiently client centric in our approaches to such technology, writes Mark Andrews.

If technology helps us to be more efficient in the practise of law, it seems reasonably intuitive that this will benefit clients. If technology makes communication with our clients easier by some objective measure, then surely that is also a positive. Furthermore, if technology demonstrates that our firm is more innovative than other firms, then this is also a strength. As general statements, these are all reasonable conclusions and do hold some truth, but they also contain some assumptions which may not hold in all situations.

Latest not always the greatest

Technology practitioners often encounter situations where our clients come to us with an identified piece of technology and express the view that if only we could install that technology then they would be able to solve a key challenge or provide better service to their clients. When we investigate the issue further, we may discover that there are a range of existing technologies that can solve the business challenge and it is not necessarily the shiny new software that is required. What is more, in cases where new technology is part of the solution, it is never the whole solution as there is always an element of behavioural change.

We can and should accept that technological change is inevitable and delivers more good than bad. However, we also need to focus on the evolution of legal practice to keep in synch with and leverage technological change. How we do this is the subject of the rest of this article.

Clients, clients, clients

It would be hard to find a client of a law firm that is not evolving to take advantage of new technologies. Of course, in a number of cases clients are the ones developing the new technologies. There is much to learn from clients in how they adopt technology and what is important to them. The question is whether law firms are learning from their clients.

Here are some good questions to ask to see how in tune you are with your clients’ use of technology

1. In the past year what aspects of a client’s business have been transformed by technology?

2. How ‘at risk’ is your client in terms of technological disruption?

3. What technologies does your client see as mature, maturing and immature?

4. What are the criteria used by your client to evaluate potential investments/rollouts of new technology?

5. What does your client value in technology?

6. What thought process, models, strategic frameworks and methods does your client use to think about business evolution in the context of sustained technological change?

With a deeper understanding of how technology is evaluated and used in client organisations we can progress to a richer conversation with our clients about what they value in their relationship with their law firms. The temptation is, of course, to try to demonstrate to the client that your firm is a technological leader, but this might not actually be what is wanted. Start with some of the more basic questions about ways you interact with your client and how technology is used.

1. Does the client like email as a method of communication, or would they prefer something else?

2. What tools does the client use within their organisation to communicate and is it possible for you to make use of the same tools?

3. How does your client like to receive advice? In this area you would be well served to show some alternatives such as graphical presentation, recorded audio or video, or presentation/slide-based formats.

4. Is there a way that your use of technology could differentiate you from others in your relationship with the client?

5. Is your client interested in how your firm is adopting new technology?

6. Would your client value your insights and advice in terms of technology adoption for their in-house legal teams (something I discussed in my last article)?

In my own firm there are a number of examples where using the same platform for live conferencing, adopting instant messaging or utilising graphical representation tools have added significantly to the lawyer-client relationship. None of these is revolutionary, but such approaches show that we are adapting to and accommodating the ways clients wish to work.

Understanding how our clients are evolving their business and identifying and implementing practical technology-based changes is an excellent way for us to drive evolution of work practice in law firms.

The value imperative

For law firms to evolve there needs to be a clear understanding of what is valuable. A large part of this comes from client conversations and feedback – from genuinely listening to our clients and gaining insight into what is important for them. The other parts of this are likely to be financial and also people and community focused. A technology may be valuable not only because it allows for more competitive pricing, but because it frees up time which can be deployed to a range of activities, including pro bono work (hence a community value).

Storytelling is one of the most powerful ways to create common understanding of value. If you can tell a story about how you are doing something differently, that is valued by a client, and makes use of technology in new ways then you have gone a long way to helping others rethink the way they practice.

One idea worth considering is a challenge where you identify some technologies of interest and ask people in your firm to come up with ways in which they can create some sort of value for a client, financially, for people or for communities. For the challenge to work it needs some constraints in terms of time, budget, resources etc. So it is best to limit it to a small number of technologies and ideally select something your firm already has or is piloting.

Another idea is to undertake value-chain analysis with the client in mind. If you map out the processes used to deliver service to clients, you can then identify those things that add value to the client (above the line) and those things that do not add value (below the line). For all the steps that are below the line, identify and remove any unnecessary steps. Once this is complete, you have some options as to how you use technology. If you can use technology to perform more of the below-the-line activities then you will have more time to focus above the line and on new services.

Alternatively, you may identify some above-the-line activities you can enhance with technology. Value-chain analysis is particularly useful in getting past one of the main hurdles for technology adoption, which is knowing where to start and finding a good-use case.

When it comes to value, define it, tell stories about it, set some challenges and try value-chain analysis.

Design it together

Bringing together clients and value through design thinking is a powerful step to take and one that can identify those technologies that offer real value to clients. Design thinking is increasingly being applied in law firm contexts, including my own firm.

It is an iterative process that looks to understand a problem, challenge assumptions and redefine problems with the aim of identifying solutions that are not immediately obvious with an initial understanding of the problem. It is a process that brings together lawyer and client. There is a wealth of material on design thinking and significant benefit to be gained by engaging external expertise and/or developing internal capability.

Time to act

Clients do not expect their law firms to stand still – they want them to evolve and use technology wisely. They may not value the ‘shoot for the moon’-type innovation as much as first might be suspected, but they will surely value collaborative efforts to redesign the way service is provided, utilising technology effectively, maximising existing sources of value and identifying new sources of value.

Mark Andrews is Director – Global IT Service Delivery at Baker McKenzie. He has a varied background, including time in the public and private sectors, along with considerable professional services experience. He has held roles ranging from HR to management consulting and has previously been a guest lecturer as part of University of Technology, Sydney’s Executive MBA program.