DIGITAL, AS CHARGED: HOW LEGAL TECH FUELS CLEVER LAW FIRMS
It is Your Turn, Lawyers
Lawyers, where are you? We have not spoken about your digital journeys sufficiently until now. Today is the lawyers’ turn.
Many law firms still rely on paper files, manual workflows, and disjointed systems. Law firms that fail to adopt modern legal tech will rapidly decline in productivity, insights, and responsiveness compared to tech-enabled competitors - losing market share, top talent, and putting their very viability at an existential risk.
Angela Kioi is the Managing Partner at Kioi & Co, Advocates. We sought her perspective on this. She says:
“When we began, we were largely paper based, lacked a process to track our files and invoices and visibility over our processes. This were some of the pain points that we were seeking to solve with adaptation of technology in our systems.
We are now able to track the time it takes from getting instructions, responding to them, and execution of instructions. This has helped us reduce our turnaround times which helps with client retention.
It also helps me monitor how much work is being done by the advocates, who has too much work or too little, which will also inform us on when we need to hire more people.
Practically, we reduced most of our turnaround times by half, that is, if it took 3 days to review a contract, it will now be reviewed within one and a half days.”
Pivoting swiftly or fading away has emerged as the pattern across industries caught flat-footed in the face of digital disruption. Yet, sector after sector - from media to transportation to finance - has seen market domination by new tech-savvy players who outpaced legacy companies that insisted on clinging to old ways.
Technology has been touted as ‘the bicycle of the mind’ because it expands what our minds can achieve. The internet and mobile devices connect us to information, markets, and networks like never before. This opens new opportunities for businesses across sectors - including legal services.
But adopting the right legal technologies can maximize efficiency, collaboration, and client service. It enables doing more high-value work in less time. This is key for building a profitable, prestigious, sustainable law practice.
What Gives?
So, what are the essential technologies modern firms need? Core systems like document and case management, time tracking, billing, and document automation standardize workflows while capturing critical data. This data then feeds analytics on productivity, sales pipelines, client relations, and more to inform strategy.
Angela says “Using a project management software has been the biggest impact, as it has helped us not only track our time when working with clients, but it has given us a 360 visibility on billing and expenses on each client’s file. So we are able to know if we are profitable, how much time we have spent and how much of the budget we have spent.”
My personal favorite is Customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation. These consolidate client communications and outreach.
Tight interoperability between these systems ties together firm operations. The result? Streamlined productivity. Insights for business development. And delivering excellent, responsive client service - which drives referrals and retention (also known as big money).
Angela says “Integration is one of the biggest headaches you face when using technology. You can find a really good project management solution on one side, but it also needs to speak to your email, accounting and DMS solutions.
We opted to use one solutions that is already integrated, and while it is not 100% perfect, this has helped us remove the need to move information from one solution to another. It has not only saved us time and money, it also reduces errors and loss of information that would plague us previously.”
Tech expands capacity without expanding team size or overhead. So, firms can take on more clients without compromising quality or profit margins.
Is It As Simple As That?
Of course, with expanding digital infrastructure comes expanded vulnerability. Client data protection must remain the highest priority when evaluating legal tech vendors. Strict security standards, encryption methods, breach prevention policies, and backup systems should all be examined closely.
Angela says “Data protection and security are a big problem for legal professionals, because any breach can be catastrophic. We are always keen to review the terms and conditions before engaging with any service provider and ensure ownership of our data and clients’ data is well maintained. We also maintain a backup of all our documents so that we can be protected from any major losses.
We are yet to venture into data analytics and I think this is the next step for us. Being able to harness the data we receive and make informed decisions is the future for all businesses.”
Just as bicycles expand human mobility, legal tech expands what lawyers, and their firms can achieve. I rest.