Evaluating Legal Technology

Once again, someone is letting me speak to a group of impressionable young minds, this time on how to evaluate legal technology. One of the class prep readings is something I wrote for Slaw back in 2016. That was a lifetime ago but I’m mostly pleased with how that reads.

The following is my rough outline for my conversation with them that expands on the above linked article. Mainly posting it so that the students have something to refer back to but also to feed the content monster here.

1)    What is technology?  Flint tools.  Primates putting sticks into ant hills. Anything that enhances yourself. We’re all cyborgs. What is Legal Technology?  I would argue legal tech started with Shepard’s citations and the West Digest system 120+ years ago. Sometimes you need things specially made for legal market and sometimes you don’t.  

2)    Enterprise vs. Commercial tech.  Four horseman of technology – Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon. (Maybe would include Microsoft?)  Stuff you use for work unfortunately does not work as smoothly as commercial software or tools.   As lawyers you may interact a lot with government-supplied tech (aka civic tech) and that’s a whole other talk why it can be terrible.

3)    Do you need a tech tool? What problem are you trying to solve?  Is this a purchase in pursuit of a problem? Automating a bad process just makes a bad process more efficient.

4)    Who is going to be using the tool? Are they part of purchasing process and testing? They need to be.

5)    Kick the tires before signing a contract.  Let many users try it out not just IT or the practice group partner.

6)    Groundwork – figure out operational costs of current solution (tech or not tech) to problem.  Time x hourly rate x administrative overhead

7)    How much will new solution cost?   One time purchase/recurring costs.  Site license or per seat. Upgrade hardware?  Do you need to hire someone to maintain? How long to learn?

8)    Legal Tech is an emerging market.  Companies fold, companies merge, companies get acquired.  If it’s a newer company, how is it funded? If it’s merged or acquired, what does that mean for your contract? Your data?

9)    Does it play well with others?  Think about Microsoft ecosystem or Apple ecosystem. We are now seeing “app stores” and platforms develop.  Great example is Clio (practice management software) that that allows other tech tools to integrate with their platform. Is there an API or other way you can use something like Zapier to automate?

10) Data.  Data data data.  Who owns it?  Who protects it? Can you pull it out? What format is it in? Basically, if company folds or you decide to leave, can you pull out your data and work and move on?

11) Speak to other customers.  Find out the problems – with the tool and the company.

12) Customer support.  User groups?  Real people?  Hours? Training? Continuous or one time?

13) Privacy and protecting client confidentiality. Other special “lawyer as user” needs. Look to local bar for cloud ethics rulings.