Lawyers 2.0
The new breed of lawyers, who were raised on next generation user interfaces (UI) that allow for self-taught adoption and easily maneuverability, are rising through the ranks of their profession.
They are well poised to adopt new technology and request product improvements based on their understanding of other platforms, both within the legal tech space, but also from other technology.Unfortunately, adoption of new technology by many lawyers with years under their belt is often more challenging. So where to begin? The first step is to closely scrutinize usability. Not every member of the team needs to fully understand all of the features, functions, and behind the scenes programming that goes into delivering important answers. Identify members of your team that have different levels of legal and technical acumen and assign specific user roles. The General Counsel of a large legal department likely does not need to know much more than that the information they seek is readily accessible and that their business intelligence tools can be leveraged to produce cool reports that can be used during executive meetings. However, having that General Counsel actively supporting the use of technology will set the tone at the top. The daily users of the tools will need a much higher involvement in training and interaction with the platform. Overall, determine if you can get to the answers you need within a few clicks. If you cannot, go back and see if there are other configuration options or, perhaps, there may be better software platform for you.
The key to make any lawyer a “Lawyer 2.0” is to eliminate the fear of embracing new technology. Moreover, to embrace new technology, not EVERY member of a group needs to be a super end-user. The key is to ensure that a strategic mix of the team are able to understand and utilize the technology for the benefit of the entire department, thereby ensuring maximum efficiency and ultimate and successful return on investment.
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