Latest episode examines how a strong technology adoption strategy protects stakeholder relationships
Corporate law departments stymied by in-house hiring freezes and the rising cost of outside counsel are onboarding technology to help shoulder increasingly heavy workloads. But, according to a new installment of Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions’ Legal Leaders Exchange Podcast, many in-house teams still don’t have a technology adoption strategy in place, dampening success rates and straining relationships with both internal and external stakeholders.
The episode features ELM Solutions expert Jeffrey Solomon, Senior Director Product Management, who is joined by colleague Nathan Cemenska, ELM Solutions’ Director of Legal Operations and Industry Insights. The experts discuss some of the common challenges that legal departments face when trying to devise an inclusive, far-reaching and ultimately coherent plan for technology procurement – otherwise known as a technology roadmap.
Chief among those obstacles is impatience from leadership teams eager to begin leveraging new, technology-driven efficiencies. While some legal departments may be tempted to begin rapidly onboarding technology without properly assessing either their own needs or an ever-broadening market of solution providers, Solomon believes that a slower approach can yield more gains and fewer mistakes long-term. “It allows legal departments the flexibility to develop a more iterative approach to innovation, where adoption strategies can be continually refined based on feedback from internal stakeholders and trusted vendor partners,” he says.
Even with a strong technology roadmap in place, change management is often the toll that corporate legal departments must pay for innovation. Solomon adds that failure to engage key stakeholders in the technology adoption process can lead to expensive solutions being quickly rejected by employees or even law firm partners.
Instead, a well-developed technology roadmap allots the time required to properly train outside counsel on how to engage with new solutions or workflows. “This not only expedites the time to value of already powerful tools such as matter management solutions, but also preserves and strengthens relationships with outside counsel for years to come,” Solomon notes.
Legal Leaders Exchange was created to deliver insights on optimizing legal operations for corporate legal and insurance claims professionals. Listeners can subscribe to Legal Leaders Exchange episodes from the leading podcast platforms, including Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Amazon / Audible.com and iHeart Radio. The podcast show is the latest in a series of thought leadership media including blogs, webinars and other platforms leveraging information from ELM Solutions’ LegalVIEW® Data Warehouse – the most comprehensive legal spend database in the world with more than $150 billion in invoices.
