In today’s competitive and innovative litigation landscape, legal tech adoption is pivotal for law firms as they work to meet their clients’ evolving needs and develop stronger client relationships. However, despite significant investments in promising tools, many litigation teams struggle with low adoption rates and inconsistent use across departments and teams.
Understanding the barriers legal tech adoption is crucial to overcoming these obstacles. This blog explores the common challenges hindering the successful implementation of legal technology and provides seven practical tips to facilitate smoother adoption within your firm and litigation department.
Unmet legal tech expectations
The vast majority of lawyers responding to a recent Wolters Kluwer survey—85 percent of lawyers in law firms say they expect to make greater use of legal technology to improve their future productivity. But less than half (46%) believe they are fully leveraging legal technology in their daily work today.
Why are expectations for legal tech so far removed from reality?
Often, the problem is poor adoption. While many law firms have eagerly invested in new tools, excited about their potential to make legal work and client service easier and more efficient, continued investments are at risk due to “shelfware”—unused and forgotten technology that never delivers on its promised ROI. Let’s dig into why.
4 common legal tech adoption challenges
The first step in promoting better adoption of legal tech is understanding why adoption so often fails. Here are four common challenges.
1. Old habits die hard
Attorneys’ resistance to change is a significant obstacle to adopting new technologies. The law is based on precedent, so it’s no wonder that lawyers tend to rely on tried-and-true legal case management workflows that have served them well for years. Indeed, the Wolters Kluwer survey said attorneys remaining stuck in familiar ways and slow decision-making are the biggest barriers (44%) to investment in legal technology.
2. Unclear benefits to users
Legal professionals need to understand how a particular tool will make their jobs easier, more efficient, or more effective. If they can’t picture or understand the benefits, new technology simply feels like a burden. And, without this clarity, the motivation to change existing habits is minimal.
3. Time required to learn
About a third of attorneys (36%) in the Wolters Kluwer survey said they lack the requisite skills, knowledge, or understanding of legal technology. But time is a precious commodity for litigation lawyers; few want set aside dedicated time to learn how to use new software, especially when its benefits aren’t immediately apparent.
4. Lack of incentives or accountability
What incentive is there for attorneys to adopt or engage with new technology? And, if senior leaders don’t make it a priority, why would lawyers who prefer their existing (inefficient) processes embrace new technology? Without incentives or accountability, lawyers who don’t feel personally responsible for driving adoption are unlikely to participate. Often, this leaves technology initiatives to fall by the wayside.
tips
7 practical tips to encourage legal tech adoption
Investing in technology—even when the chosen tool seems like a perfect fit for your team—doesn’t automatically compel adoption. To ease the process of legal tech implementation, you have to build a case for change and lay the foundation. Keep these seven tips in mind.
1. Research to find the right tool for your team
Boosting adoption of legacy legal case management software won’t do you any good if it doesn’t match your organization’s current and future needs. The legal technology market moves quickly but many legacy case management systems haven’t offered substantive updates in years. So, it may be time to go shopping and explore best-in-class case solutions.
But, before you buy, talk with lawyers and litigation support to find out what real-world challenges they’re facing. Which processes are most time consuming? Which are most stressful? Look for intuitive, easy-to-use solutions that are purpose-built for the entire litigation lifecycle, minimizing the learning curve and maximizing usability. A user-centered design approach ensures that the technology integrates seamlessly into existing workflows and enhances the overall user experience.
2. Customize the solution to meet your needs
One-size-fits-all solutions rarely work well in the legal field. Identify the key processes that your lawyers are following and break them down into distinct processes, tasks, and workflows. Map each process to visualize its workflow, identifying bottlenecks and inefficiencies.
Then look for solutions that address these pain points and integrate with your existing solutions. Finally, work with the legal tech provider to customize those solutions, making the workflows, dashboards, and reporting outputs mesh with your current operations. That will help your team readily fit the new tool into their daily routine–this is particularly important when considering the value of AI-enabled software.
3. Be proactive with change management
Effective change management minimizes disruption and builds confidence in the new system. Assemble a change management team with representatives from each group of users, including attorneys, paralegals, administrative staff, and IT personnel, to solicit diverse perspectives and ensure buy-in. Identify potential challenges for each group, such as resistance to change, skill gaps, and workflow disruptions. Then, define a roadmap for the transition.
Work with your solution provider to tailor their onboarding process to your users’ needs, creating clear timelines and support mechanisms to keep the process on track. Set measurable objectives and key milestones for the change management process, such as achieving 70 percent user adoption within six months.
4. Focus on pain points, user benefits, and client value
When introducing new technology, highlight how it will address the specific pain points that your team is experiencing. Demonstrating how the tool directly benefits users—and provides more value to clients—can significantly enhance buy-in from your team. Get people excited about the tech by using real-world examples to emphasize how it will improve their efficiency, productivity, accuracy, and client service.
5. Offer a variety of training options and resources
Everyone learns in their own way. Provide a variety of training options such as in-person workshops, interactive demonstrations, online tutorials, and user manuals to accommodate those varied learning styles. You may also want to designate peer mentors to facilitate knowledge sharing and support among your team members and offer ongoing learning opportunities, such as webinars and refresher courses.
6. Ask for feedback and highlight power users
After implementing new technology, regularly seek feedback from users to identify areas for improvement and better alignment with user needs and preferences. Deploy regular surveys and questionnaires to gather structured feedback on usability, functionality, and overall satisfaction. Collect more in-depth, qualitative feedback by organizing focus group sessions where a diverse group of users can discuss their experiences and brainstorm potential solutions.
Leverage power users—those who have successfully maximized their usage of the technology—as a source of knowledge and inspiration. Power users often become the best technology advocates and innovators, influencing their peers and providing informal support and training to their colleagues.
7. Look for opportunities to optimize your technology
Post-legal tech implementation, continuously evaluate the technology’s performance and impact to optimize the value of your investment. Conduct regular performance evaluations to assess how well the technology is meeting its intended goals.
Gather quantitative metrics such as time saved and costs reduced as well as qualitative user feedback about overall efficiency and productivity. Monitor usage statistics to see how frequently and effectively the technology is being used and to detect any underused functionalities. Do your users believe the tech is delivering the expected value? Use this information to identify gaps between the technology’s performance and its potential, then implement any identified improvements and reasonable customizations.
Note that many cloud-based legal case management solutions offer collaborative development processes based on user feedback; stay in touch with the provider to make the most of these opportunities.
You don’t just need legal tech—you need better legal tech implementation
Legal technology is critical to staying productive and competitive in the market. Ultimately, success lies in transforming your legal team’s approach to truly implement your legal technology and use it to deliver better service and outcomes for clients. When you invest time and effort into the adoption process, you can achieve long-term efficiency gains and build a more innovative, responsive legal practice.
Or, if you’re ready to explore upgrading your approach to case management, schedule a demo.
