Aside from working long hours and high levels of stress it appears the next biggest problem facing most lawyers is adopting new technology. Regardless of the extent to which this may be true, like all of us in business, lawyers will be aware that client expectations constantly race ahead of our ability to deliver especially when it comes to technology. Some may well say that lawyers are so hooked on tradition and familiarity they lag behind in the race to adopt technology but there is increasing evidence to suggest the contrary.
A Gartner survey of legal leaders predicts the proportion of legal budgets spent on technology will drastically increase by 2025. Equally, Deloitte’s legal technology insight report has predicted that nearly 100,000 jobs are likely to be automated by 2036. The report also said the use of readily available legal technology now also allows lawyers to reduce their working hours by 13%. Additionally, a study conducted at the McKinsey Global Institute found that 23% of a lawyer’s work can be automated.
So, if we accept that the legal fraternity is heading for a huge technological upgrade if not revolution, perhaps the question is how should they go about it and what should they do? Pretending it is not happening or it will go away is no answer; that will only lead to higher costs and no new business.
The most obvious solution is to choose one of the many proprietary practice management solutions on the market.
The key requirement when introducing any new technology into a business is to minimise the impact upon business as usual. S4E fully recognises this need which is why we design process and organisational solutions along more tactical lines. We strive to replicate existing practices and introduce technologies at sufficient a pace to minimise impact upon extremely busy people. We know many legal practices do things differently for very good reasons and our methodology and solutions account for that. Why not try us out – it will cost you nothing to get an initial high-level analysis of any processing challenge.
