Future Proofing Your Business in the Digital World Going Beyond Technology to True Digital Transformation
From meeting client expectations to recruitment to billing, technology plays a well-publicized and critical role in the legal world. Investing in different types of technology will only get you so far. Digital transformation is necessary, Sarah Morgan reports.
It will come as no surprise that the legal industry has not historically been considered technologically cutting-edge. Thankfully, times are changing and the industry has begun to recognize that to survive and, even, to thrive in the future, technological transformation is not an option, it’s an imperative.
Panelists on today’s session, Future Proofing Your Business in the Digital World (10:15 am–11:15 am), will explore how technology can future proof a business and provide insight into best practices and real-life examples of digital transformation.
As the moderator of the panel, Orietta Blanco Minino, Managing Partner, Minino (Dominican Republic) sets the stage, “Law firms must embrace digital transformation to stay competitive and meet client expectations in the digital age. Ultimately, the failure to transform can put a law firm's future success at risk.”
Panelist Kevin Hartley, CEO, Trust Tree Legal (USA), adds: “Digital transformation has been slow to reach the legal world, but it has become such a routine part of human life that law firms seem archaic in comparison to even the most low-level businesses.”
“This is not just about cutting-edge technologies. Law firms have failed to embrace even the most rudimentary technological advancements. Law firms which, at minimum, embrace technologies that clients have come to expect in their everyday lives will prosper and law firms that do not will fail,” he says.
“Law firms must embrace digital transformation to stay competitive and meet client expectations in the digital age. Ultimately, the failure to transform can put a law firm's future success at risk.”
- ~ Orietta Blanco Minino, Minino
(Dominican Republic)
Not surprisingly it is evolving client demands and expectations that are partly accountable for the increased drive for a more technologically sophistication in the legal field. According to the 2022 Future Ready Lawyer: Leading Change (2022) report by Wolters Kluwer, 91 percent of corporate legal departments say it is important to have a law firm that fully leverages technology in the next three years.
“We are a service industry after all. Automating certain functions to help reduce the administrative load (intake, billing, budgets, email, etc.) and allow us to be nimbler, streamlined internally and externally, and cut costs,” Mark Jansen, Partner, Fenwick & West LLP (USA) explains. “In today's digital age, clients are accustomed to and expect law firm innovation.”
Ms. Blanco Minino adds: “Digital transformation can improve the way legal professionals offer services to clients and how clients consume those services, through increased accessibility, innovative billing solutions, improved collaboration, and the implementation of AI tools and other technologies that support the practice in more efficient ways.
“This can help legal professionals meet the evolving needs of clients, drive efficiency and profitability, and ultimately grow their business.”
However, simply buying and integrating new technology is not the end of the process. True transformation of the business of law can only take place when the mindsets of all those involved are changed. As Kathryn Szymczyk, Global Business Development Senior Manager, IP, Gowling WLG (Canada), frames it, “Lawyers expect themselves to be the smartest person in the room and they function in silos.”
““[I]t is the firms that are not just embracing technology but are also starting to organize themselves around it that will get ahead of the competition.”
- Kathryn Szymczyk, Gowling WLG (Canada)
“Creating a business that is innovative and uses technology to meet clients’ growing expectations requires lawyers to learn from and collaborate with the best in IT, change management, communications, and administration. Only through this integrated approach to people and systems will a law firm truly transform itself into a modern business with client expectations at its core.”
The message is clear: embrace digital transformation to enhance the client experience and your service delivery, all while building a culture of innovation and improvement. “Now it is the firms that are not just embracing technology but are also starting to organize themselves around it that will get ahead of the competition. There will not be much in the future that cannot be tech-assisted in some way,” adds Ms. Szymczyk.
Echoing the sentiment, Lewis Whiting, Co-Founder and CEO at iaidō (United Kingdom), says, “Your contribution today, this month, this year is essential to ensure that the tools of the future are rooted in the expertise of our industry.”
He concludes with a call: “Our industry will not be passed by when it comes to technical and digital transformation. It is on us all to make sure investment is deployed in the right areas. This can bring real progress and further the effectiveness of the various IP systems globally which, of course, have such a critical importance to the business of innovation.”
