This is Part 2 in a series about innovation in law firms. Click here for Part 1 - Navigating Change: Strategies for Introducing New Technology in Law Firms.
Introducing new technology in law firms often meets with resistance, particularly from partners and senior lawyers who are accustomed to established workflows. Once you’ve effectively communicated the need for change in the first place, the next step is to address the underlying concerns and barriers to adoption, ensuring a smoother transition and greater acceptance of the new technology.
This article takes a look at what you need to know to overcome resistance for implementing new tech in law firms.
1. Understand their drivers
Lawyers are a particularly difficult group to sell to – they often need to see an individual or personal benefit to them. To achieve a successful implementation then, it’s critical to see and understand each partner’s particular driver (e.g. maintaining the relationship, or speed of opening the file or doing a particular task), rather than simply selling the vision.
Without buy-in, they will simply find alternatives, such as doing things manually or getting a junior or an assistant to complete the tasks.
2. Deal with tech laggards through training and support
Fortunately, this is fading with COVID, as employees and partners alike have had to get up to speed with collaboration tools such as Teams, Zoom, and the like. In order to deal with this group, Catriona suggests a divide and conquer approach.
“It’s useful to think of where people are on the change cycle and plot the pilot group to that," says Catriona. “You can then mix up pilot groups and tailor messages to participants.”
Enthusiasts can be brought in early and trained up so they can evangelise and model good adoption, but you don’t just want to focus on the positive people, you need people with a variety of views taking part in a pilot.
Meanwhile, empathy can go a long way. “No one wants to feel like they’re not getting it," Catriona advises. Carving out different groups of users – whether by seniority or use case – so they can ask ‘stupid’ questions without wanting to look bad in front of peers or bosses can also be useful.
“Resistance can often be put down to people just not being familiar with, or knowing what to do next," says Catriona.
3. Deal with the loss of control
Often process changes may take some level of visibility away from fee-earners with non-revenue generating activity being handed off to centralised teams or legal assistants.
Understanding ways that they can ‘check in on’ or get visibility can be useful so that they can see where it is without them doing the grunt work.
4. Allow for exceptions and alternative processes
There can be some resistance in teams because of the nature of the clients – for instance, with private or HNW clients.
Working with the partners to understand their concerns, and finding alternate ways to fit the ‘new standard’, can be beneficial.
5. Give visibility to the initiative
Generating visibility and excitement around new tech initiatives is key for driving adoption. For instance, when Weightmans rolled out bAIley, a chatbot for internal knowledge sharing, they built ‘buzz’ by doing an office roadshow featuring a 6-foot cut-out of bAIley.
"Having that physical presence rotating through our locations really helped raise the chatbot's visibility,” says Catriona.
Simple, creative promotions that make initiatives tangible can go a long way in getting partners and staff interested and ready to adopt the change.
6. Beware of scope creep
When looking to onboard a new piece of tech, be aware of changes in scope or starting with a project that is too large i.e boiling the ocean. Particularly with product or innovation teams, Catriona warns, you “need to be conscious that you’re a cost centre – you need to show value.”
Despite the impulse to advocate for broad change, it’s necessary to break projects down into chunks that can then show value/ROI.
7. Be aware of history
What’s more, when tech projects have gone unsuccessfully in the past, teams can face headwinds or a lack of morale around implementing new solutions.
Keeping user trust by providing guardrails around what can and can’t be used (for instance, how emerging technology can and can’t be used by fee-earners) can help deal with the sentiment that all technology is bad, and find a middle ground for reasonable use cases.
Conclusion
Overcoming resistance to new technology in law firms requires a thoughtful and strategic approach.
By understanding the individual drivers of partners, providing targeted training and support, and creating visibility and excitement around new initiatives, firms can navigate the challenges of tech adoption.
Ultimately, with empathy and effective communication, you can navigate your way through your next tech implementation project and position your firm for long term success.
This is Part 2 in a series about innovation in law firms. Click here for Part 1 - Navigating Change: Strategies for Introducing New Technology in Law Firms.
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