You may have seen me talk about using legaltech to achieve great outcomes.  You may have nodded your head in agreement. After all, who wouldn’t agree that getting a great result is, well, great?  But what does this actually mean?  

There are a lot of legaltech options out there.  If you’ve tried one piece of legaltech, and been left feeling like the guy on the right, you’re not alone.  This happens all too often.  With so many providers (sometimes appearing to offer the same solution), you have to find one that can solve problems you have, in the way that suits you, in the way they said they would.  Don’t part with your money or your time, until you know this will be the case.

“Not surprisingly (in hindsight, at least), his first initiative was to implement document automation.  This was almost eight years ago!”

Over half a year on from leaving London, I ask myself:  what did I learn from my time in London?  Perhaps I can best answer this question by first asking myself: what did I expect?  Global market-leading bank, hundreds of years old, based in London - everything must go faster and run more efficiently than in little New Zealand, right?  Well, sort of.

“It’s those with the most experience that can contribute the most knowledge to new technologies.”  

There’s been a lot of press in New Zealand recently about the growing division between the baby boomers and millennials/gen Y.  For example, Bill English has said the age of eligibility for superannuation will rise to 67 from 2037 (i.e. it won’t directly affect the baby boomers).  For a few years now, the house prices in the most popular areas of NZ have been out of reach of most millennials.  This blog isn’t intended to discuss the economic and social arguments behind these situations we find ourselves in.  I am, however, interested in how the stereotypical differences in mindsets between the generations can make innovation tricky within organisations.  How do we get the best outcomes, in light of these differences?

The most interesting developments in the last month...

It’s been quite a month for legal tech in New Zealand, with several announcements by New Zealand firms that are worth of mention.

As noted in recent blogs, precedents and legal opinions are valuable tools for law firms to ensure they are working efficiently and to high standards of quality.  A third tool I believe is essential is having high quality checklists and other guidance, which can help someone work through a processs quickly and safely. 

Like precedents, checklists that are well designed, current and comprehensive can be very hard to update and maintain, but as Atul Gawande shows in The Checklist Manifesto they are not just for inexperienced people, and can be essential to reducing mistakes in all fields, including medicine, aviation, construction, finance - and law.

The next question I recommend clients ask their lawyers to find out how they really work, and to identify law firms that are working differently and better than others, relates to checklists, guidance and other quality control methods.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a topic dear to my heart - whether law firms are investing enough time and effort in precedents: http://blog.lawhawk.nz/blog/does-your-law-firm-use-precedents.

This week, in the 6th set of questions, I want to look at another core area where an established law firm should be able to provide additional value and benefits to their clients beyond what others can: the legal opinions that the firm's lawyers give on a daily basis. 

Many people are still asking whether Legal Tech will completely replace the flesh and bones lawyer.  We don’t think so, and neither do most of the legal tech commentators we’ve come across in the last month.  Technology will sit alongside humans to provide better outcomes for clients, not replace humans.  As we note in our comments about Synergist below, we believe that over-reliance on technology may compromise effective outcomes when people still need to build relationships and work together.

In these earlier posts Time to visit the legal sausage factory - Questions for clients to ask their lawyers in 2017,  The legal sausage factory - will lawyers show clients how they make their sausages? and Technology in the legal sausage factory - what is it, and who does it benefit?  we suggested that if clients want to see improvements in the value they get from their law firms, they need to be more assertive and find out how their law firms currently work.  To do that, they will have to ask some harder questions than they have to date. A similar approach is also suggested by Jacob Herstek, vice president and senior legal counsel at HSBC Bank USA in this article To Cut E-Discovery Costs, Legal Departments Question Outside Counsel.  

We have come up with 13 questions that lawyers could ask their law firms to work out if they are modern and efficient, or are a legal 'sausage factory'.

The first questions we suggested asking have been:

1. Can you show us how you actually work?
2. What technology have you already adopted for our benefit?
3. What technology will you adopt for our benefit?
4. How do you keep our information secure?

Next we suggest you focus on precedents.  Do they even have any?  Do they use them? Is your law firm making its sausages from a recipie or are they just sweeping together whatever they can find on the day to get something out the door?

In these earlier posts Time to visit the legal sausage factory - Questions for clients to ask their lawyers in 2017 and The legal sausage factory - will lawyers show clients how they make their sausages?, we suggested that if clients really want to see more value from their legal spend, they need to be more inquisitive and assertive and find out how their law firms currently work, so they can see what changes they require.

We've come up with 13 questions that clients can ask their lawyers to work out if they are modern and efficient firms working towards best practices, or if they are a 'legal sausage factory', churning out a product that looks ok but hoping you never see how it's actually made.

The first question we suggested asking is "Can you show us how you actually work?". 

The next three questions focus on technology, because this is absolutely central to their ability to make major improvements.  It's also the biggest threat to their continued existence because internationally and in New Zealand a substantial amount of legal technology is being developed, which will enhance those lawyers that adopt it and replace those that don't. 

Our technology questions focus on what legal technology they are currently using, and what they plan to adopt (and in each case whether it is for the benefit of the client or the law firm), and how do they keep their clients' information secure?

Last week in Time to visit the legal sausage factory - Questions for clients to ask their lawyers in 2017 I suggested that it was time law firm clients learned more about how their law firms actually work, because:

• it's probably not as good as what the client thinks; and
• the only way that the much needed changes to the legal profession will occur - and which clients say they want - is if clients demand and require it. 

Perhaps a little controversially, I suggested many law firms may be similar to sausage factories - we like the end product, but we wouldn't be that happy if we saw how its actually made relative to standards we are used to seeing in other industries.  This may be unfair on some firms who really do work efficiently, but if that's the case, they're keeping pretty quiet about some real competitive advantages they could be marketing on.

In any event, it should be relatively easy to work out if things are as good as they should be - just ask the right questions.  Law isn't unique.  Clients should be carrying out the type of due diligence they commonly undertake on other suppliers - getting their hands dirty and undertaking site inspections, process analysis, bench marking and regular reviews. 

I've come up with 13 questions.  To get things started, the first question I suggest asking is can you show us how you actually work?