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IT in Legal Services: Keep Taking the Tablets

Posted: 29 January 2014

I went to the Lake District recently. It was wet. Wetter than wet. My partner said "it was so wet, there was a guy up there trying to put some giraffes in a boat". Biblically wet, in other words. It made me chuckle. We are often at a loss for how to reinforce key points. Significance can get lost in the lists. It?s no doubt why the tablets that come down from mountains are usually in lists of 10. An insightful blog from the US, by Robert Anbrogi listed 10 major legal IT changes through 2013 ? commandments almost. Many apply to the UK directly, but it prompted me to revise it for the UK specifically. Here?s a Manchester or Middle Temple version of the Massachusetts Tablet:

1. Social Media
If you didn?t get many clients from speed dating events or recruitment agencies in the old days, then frankly, much of the social media hype will pass you by. It is not a problem ? it just is what it is. Don?t confuse window shopping with propensity to buy. Not knowing what Pinterest is or does makes you look daft, but hanging around its bike sheds makes you look worse.

2. The Cloud
The Cloud is just IT?s way of reselling the same thing all over again. It?s the tape to vinyl?s disc, the CD to the tape, the Spotify to the CD. It has some advantages and is the norm from here on. But yep, you do have to pay again, although hopefully the billing just got easier too. Glitches in reliability and delivery are getting rarer so never forget that clouds can still rain on parades. But then any Lloyds or RBS cashpoint is testimony to the fact that the old systems did that too.

3. Age and treachery beats youth and exuberance every time
It really not an age thing about technology any more; it hasn?t been for over a decade now. Some firms, businesses and indeed industries just "get" IT. Beware the early adopters, geeks and gadget enthusiasts, they?re great fun but they?ll waste your time; lots of it. The sage old heads have been targeting tech enabled, IT savvy clients for decades now. There is a role for the "old school" if you want to be the last farrier in Detroit, but that?s really two laps behind the game now. If your clients are not pushing you for more technological integration and delivery (not sophistication) - you have the wrong clients.

4. BYOD and Mobiles
Device compatibility is a problem for procurement departments and firewall security architects, but it won?t go away. Mobility is the way it was meant to be. Developers conceptually need to think about the App approach first, then tie it back to the core systems, not the other way around. Resistance is futile.

5. Computer Analytics
Pattern recognition, complex algorithms and the sheer volume of garbage that is being piled into systems nowadays makes legal IT analysis paralysis a real threat. The systems that can cut through this and still empower decisions rather than simply track and stymie them are crucial right now. eDiscovery as a market has matured; "arrived" at last, but it is not as big a market as many thought it could be. Its impact on how compliance and legal certainty can be tackled is profound, however. The more important market is actually eProcurement. That?s where Thomson Reuters is really head to head with Oracle and SAP. Right now we are closer to getting the processes closed down by compliance, rather than empowered. Control is not success here; compliant acceleration is; only a few get this currently as it is really hard to do. Big clients, large firms and even industries will do it themselves (and have already) so legal services is playing catch-up where it should be leading.

6. Access to Justice is Not the same as Access to a Lawyer
The problem with on-line legal documents and all the hype surrounding it is that it is not really going to make that much money for anyone. In so far as it does allow some expansion of the DIY market, good. That ultimately makes more people go to a proper support service eventually. They are still, however, as likely to go to a consultancy for SMEs, an insurer for consumer law, or an arbitrator for family law as anyone else. Do not get carried away that this is a revolution saving the Fourth Estate from penury, however; it is nothing of the kind. Some people who only ever used and only ever will use free stuff, will find the range and quality improved for a while.

7. Law 3.0 Is Taking Shape
Nothing in the Courts Service or MoJ Strategic Plans speaks louder than the drive to reduce the number of weeks a case takes. Process improvement is finally getting the enablers it needs, and not before time. Phase 1 in court automation was denial; word processing for decades in effect. Phase 2 was a proliferation of case and practice management systems, often overlapping, usually embedding idiosyncratic anomalies, expensive and bespoke. Law 3.0 will be piecemeal, whimpering and protracted, but the day when suits walk out of the Supreme Court with an iPad instead of a trolley full of lever arch files is nigh. The day when clients can fill a form at home securely in the evening with their tablets on-line so that pleadings can be filed and cases progressed is nigh. In commerce it is already here; it is just called a compliance or procurement system, not a case management system for when it falls over. It is mundane. It is underfunded. It is pragmatic. It is incremental. But it is profound.

8. Law Schooling is Dysfunctional
Law schools are full of nice clever people brought up on jurisprudence, justice and "being right". The core economic function of the institution is protectionist, however. They limit access to the elite profession and do it by IQ ranking, as all good "professions" now do. The paradox of liberal minds manning the ramparts of a highly elitist capitalist citadel is exquisite. But it matters not, frankly, as the protectionism of the profession isn?t working. The top careers are now so limited to a small number of global practices, that it is frankly time careers guidance told the truth about the indentured servitude that awaits even the brightest law school graduates. Law schools trying to teach parts of MBAs or legal IT courses is just the nice guys doing their best, but frankly it is too little, too late. Law is being reinvented; it?s just not often reinvented by private practice lawyers or their supply chain; never has been.

9. Practice Management
Law firms are actually quite good at IT. The diverse range of suppliers for all sizes of firm from Perfect Software to Elite is testimony to this. The combining of case and practice management systems is over and out now. It has moved to global reach or (client) industry depth; and that?s hard. It was comparatively easy in insurance driven fields like PI, or in commoditised IP/Patents work, but the hard yards of process redesign had already largely been done. That was just the start. Do not confuse the back office automation of law firms as any leg-up to see what legal process automation can deliver. For many it breeds complacency where it should deliver hunger.

10. The Next CPO
Another blooming CxO acronym: Chief Purchasing? Chief People? Nope - heard of Chief Privacy Officers yet? They?re around; lots of them. Security is a real problem. A hybrid of CIOs and GCs is emerging and it?s a sign that things are getting out of hand, frankly. From governmental conspiracy theorists to the more mundane hackers and trolls, corporate clients especially take this security stuff as a "given". The sheer amount of "garbage in" makes this the compliance/legal services supplier and especially legal IT?s problem. The emergence of CPOs simply means it is big, probably very costly and currently very much in the (almost by definition) unknown-unknown territory.

So cut through the hype. Watch where the real money goes. As ever - keep taking the tablets...

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