|
| Charlesworth: firms need clear idea of business objectives |
Talk to legal IT suppliers and you will hear two common complaints about the expectations of senior partners.
First, partners expect an IT system to stay the same for years without modification, as if they had bought a suite of furniture. Second, they expect the system to perform complex tasks peculiar to the firm without significant adaptation.
What follows is a brief explanation of why such expectations are unrealistic, how law firms can best prepare when specifying and implementing systems, and how the dynamic nature of IT is actually beneficial.
First, why is IT in a constant state of flux?
Even a single PC is a many-layered cake of varied flavours. Every hardware manufacturer installs low-level software (the BIOS) that talks to the operating system, and each manufacturer's is slightly different. The Windows operating system is 'standard' but updated automatically online by Microsoft, often weekly or more frequently, mainly for security reasons.
Then there are the applications at a firm: Microsoft Office, with all its components and with frequent updates; a practice management system (PMS), accounts and payroll; and any other application from a customer database to software downloaded from the internet.
Between just these three layers the permutations of interaction are enormous. Network the PCs and add, say, a document management system, and even a relatively small IT network will be so complicated and diverse in origin and function that it cannot possibly be tested for all possible interactions.
This situation may sound chaotic, but the mathematical term is complexity. With sufficient time and computational power, it would be possible to test the set-up. But that would only prove the viability of this moment's configuration. Given the daily proliferation of new variables - in the form of newly installed software, updates to existing software and new functions - such testing is not possible in the real world.
Thus no vendor is 100% sure its system will work under all circumstances. Any that says otherwise is lying. So vendors do what testing they can, but know that only under sustained real-life operations in your firm can the effects of all the interactions be seen and the conflicts resolved.
Security
Day-to-day operation also includes the actions of a significant number of technologically savvy criminals, who earn a living by breaking into (or selling the ability to break into) the networks of businesses like yours.
Among the myriad permutations of interactions will be a weakness that will allow a 'cyber-criminal' unauthorised access to a system. As each weakness is discovered, so it is plugged with a 'patch'. Hence the frequent stream of patches from Microsoft.
Cyber-criminals have three nefarious reasons to break into a law firm's network: to extort money by disabling systems and holding them to ransom; to steal data, such as client details, for fraudulent use; and to steal information to sell to the party a client may have engaged your firm to act against.
Your IT system is in a constant game of attack and countermeasure with cyber-criminals, albeit in all likelihood on a low level. If there is one over-riding reason why IT cannot stay still, it is security.
Business analysis
The PC is a jack of all trades. Connected to the web a PC is a calculator, typewriter, encyclopaedia, communications device, television and games machine, adaptable to the operations of a bank, motor factory, oil exploration company or a law firm.
Consequently, it is unrealistic to expect that complex tasks be executed on a simple substructure. Any system is only as effective as its programmers; any programmer is only as effective as the people who brief him as to what they want the system to do. Thus firms should be involved closely in the design and implementation of their systems. This does not require a technician's knowledge of IT, but it does require two distinct levels of insight into the firm and its operations.
First is at the strategic level: what the overall shape of the legal practice looks like now and how it may change; how many people it employs and what they do; how many it intends to employ next year; how many clients it has; how many it aims to have next year; the types of cases the firm intends to focus on in the future, and so on.
'Align IT with the organisation's business objectives' is the mantra of every IT director. A clear articulation of the firm's business objectives from the partners is the first step to successful systems implementation.
Second is to have a detailed knowledge of the firm's business processes, more often the demesne of staff who execute them day-to-day than of partners. Staff need to be involved intimately in the way software is implemented.
Inevitably, installing a new IT system or radically overhauling an existing one will require a level of business process analysis. This is where firms can derive positive benefit from the dynamic nature of computer systems: IT is a tool of change. Sometimes it is better to junk clumsy business processes that have evolved organically and let software make them simpler or eliminate them (sometimes called business process optimisation).
Don't be afraid to ask: 'Why do we do what we do, and why do we do it the way that we do?'
The practice of law has entered an era of enormous change. The rise of legal 'factories', changes in the ownership of law firms, the types of work firms take on, the charges they can levy, and so on, mean that no law firm can afford to stand still.
The dynamic nature of IT means that systems can be designed to cope flexibly with this changing legal cosmos.
Andrew Charlesworth is a freelance journalist and the Independent View writer in this year's Law Society Software Solutions Guide
No comments yet