How to get more out of your IT

The Gazette’s legal business expert sets out his stall: over the next six months he will help Gazette readers get more out of their IT

As a lawyer turned geek, I can’t help but worry about a particular type of law firm. Much has been spoken and written about the sort of firm that will or will not survive the post-reform world. Some speculate that only the large firms and small niche practices will have a chance, while the generalists in the middle will lose out.

This may or may not be true, but it is not what I would like to explore over a series of articles. My concerns apply as much to a large City outfit as they do to the small specialist, or the typical high-street firm.

My particular neurosis concerns solicitors all over the country who have bought the IT-shirt but chosen to wear a tie with it. Firms are persuaded to look at the benefits of IT and often invest heavily in it, but then carry on practising law as though nothing has changed.

It is fairly common to see a balance sheet showing substantial IT investment, but alongside a level of staff fulfilling traditional secretarial functions unchanged in relative terms from five or more years prior to the firm acquiring IT systems it has spent so much on.

I do not advocate that you absolutely must invest in IT. However, you either need to commit to a strategy not to have much in way of IT, because, for example, you are and are likely to remain the only experts in a field where the cost of your service is not an issue for your clients or, on the other hand, you do make the investment – but it is vital that you make it work and remove all duplication of effort and expense.

I practised law for more than 20 years without much technology and around six years with rapidly increasing use of IT. For the last five years, I have devoted my time to tailoring case management systems and helping firms reap the benefits of all kinds of IT. I have been an equity partner in private practice and involved in law firm management, so I have a reasonable insight into the workings of a law firm.

Given this experience, the Gazette asked me to offer some practical advice on mining the remarkable technological resource located in solicitors’ offices. Advice of this kind is often pitched at a macro level and sometimes in a fairly abstract way – and this has its place. But I would like to drill down to specific steps that can be taken and which I believe will deliver tangible benefits.

I will kick off in September with an introduction to case management, what it is all about, and why it is often not used to its full capability and sometimes not at all. I will suggest ways through these barriers, and explore the opportunities that case management presents for changing working practices for greater profit. I will also offer my top ten tips for getting the technology off the ground and developing it.

Month two will delve into communications methods. I am fascinated by the lawyer’s addiction to post or, if feeling racy, fax, when email, for now at least, should be the norm.

Commercial lawyers have been email junkies for some time now with their BlackBerrys, but without always taking advantage of integrating these emails fully with case management and other applications to automate the process.

Text messaging is still used surprising little, yet the goodwill that can be generated through the judicious use of a text to break anticipated news at the first opportunity (such as an exchange of contracts on a house sale and purchase) far outweigh the modest costs involved. And no one at the firm need even fiddle with those tiny keys on their mobile phone to compose and send the text – it can be converted automatically from an email, which can itself be automated.

In the third month I will demonstrate how technology can be used to delegate work to the most appropriate level, and how this can increase processing and marketing activity and accommodate competitive fixed pricing.

After that, we can look at how IT systems can be used to ensure compliance with quality standards such as Lexcel, ISO and the LSC requirements without the need for manuals big enough to sink a ship. This article will also describe how important information can be captured and reported on for management (whole-firm and individual matter management) purposes, including the automation and delivery of these reports.

Finally, I will explain how web tracking can be made available to your clients and referrers, so that they always know what is going on, and will experience the delivery of legal services in a way that many assume is the preserve of corporate giants.

In all this I will try to avoid talking in headlines, as my aim will be to share practical steps that virtually anyone can take to get a real return on their IT investment.

Martin Langan is a former practising solicitor and founder of Legal Workflow, www.legalworkflow.com