BUSINESSMANAGEMENTREVIEW.COMDECEMBER - JANUARY19how that task is done, and which, if any, digital assets are being used, a law firm can make the most of a piece of technology. The idea of stepping back and engaging in design-thinking sessions to envision how to make improvements is not something that is traditionally taught in law school, nor is it commonly embedded into the practice of law. Additionally, it is not a billable activity the building block of every law firm's revenue structure. To successfully move forward with these types of initiatives and help advance practice, law firms can bring on a set of highly trained and multidisciplinary professionals that work side by side with the lawyers to ensure that lawyer time is managed efficiently and that there is governance around the exercise of process improvement.· PEOPLELaw firms have a proven track record of hiring technology teams that oversee back-office operations such as information security, application maintenance, networking, systems architecture, and incident management, among other functions. These roles have grown in importance and created a subset of specialized professional staff. But individuals who work directly with lawyers to help change the practice of law must possess a different set of skills compared to their traditional IT colleagues. They must have a strong understanding of the business of law, an ability to understand discrete areas of practice, and specialist pedigrees in certain areas of technology. Most importantly, they must have soft skills to garner the trust and respect of law firm leaders since they will be invited "behind the curtain" to help drive and support change. Four personas are emerging that should be added as new roles that exist in addition to other technology-oriented positions:· First is "the interpreter," an individual who can work with groups of lawyers at levels of seniority and engage in unfamiliar discussions centered on how the work is done. · Second is "the visualizer," an individual who develops an intuitive user experience and user interfaces with reduced training timeframes to help drive adoption and reduce barriers to usage.· Third is "the proceduralist," an individual who is organized and disciplined to ensure that documentation is completed, data governance standards are installed, and routine process auditing occurs.· Fourth is "the integrator," an individual who can work with more traditional technology teams to scale and oversee the applications imbedded in legal matters.It is an exciting time to be part of an industry that is eagerly embracing change. When new voices with different skills join law firms and are deployed correctly, they are able to create solutions to modernize the practice of law, improve client relationships, and push engagements to more successful outcomes. REGARDLESS OF WHICH TECHNOLOGY IS BEING EMPLOYED TO ADDRESS A PARTICULAR USE CASE, THERE WILL BE NO TRANSFORMATION WITHOUT QUALIFIED PEOPLE TO GUIDE THE IMPLEMENTATION, ADOPTION, AND MAINTENANCE OF NEW TECHNOLOGY OFFERINGS
< Page 9 | Page 11 >