Why "New and Shiny" Tech Often Flops at Law Firms with India Preston

Summary:

In this insightful episode of Fringe Legal, host Abhijat Saraswat has an in-depth discussion with India Preston, Director of Platform Solutions at legal tech startup Lupl. They delve into India's winding journey into legal project management, tactical approaches to driving adoption, and how to effectively challenge established processes.

India shares learnings and advice drawn from her diverse experiences - from helping build out Linklaters' LPM function from the ground up to make the leap to an early-stage legal tech startup. She provides a rare longitudinal view of how legal project management has evolved from a little-known concept in 2013 to a widely recognized, if still poorly understood, discipline today.

Key Takeaways:

• While LPM has gone from barely existing in 2013 to being commonly known today, there is still substantial room for education on how to apply it effectively. LPM principles empower lawyers to run matters like projects, but specialized LPM roles create incremental value on complex matters.
• Project management qualifications alone don't cut it for legal project managers to be successful. Soft skills to integrate smoothly with lawyers and legal teams are just as important, if not more so. Technical skills can be learned on the job.
• Identifying concrete problems that need solving is absolutely crucial before adopting any new solution or technology. Without an anchor in specific pain points, adoption will struggle no matter how exciting the new solution seems at first glance.
• Rollouts of new technology or processes should start small and be targeted before expanding more widely across a firm. The tendency may be to go big with a splashy firmwide launch, but this rarely succeeds.
• Resources like use case guides, template libraries, and informal user communities help drive adoption by making the novel feel familiar. However, these need to be grounded in solving real firm problems.
• Process mapping workshops - with the help of an unbiased external facilitator - can challenge status quo thinking and processes in extremely constructive ways. Just asking "why" repeatedly can unearth entrenched inefficiencies.

Actionable Takeaway: Start Small Before Going Wide

Explore in detail at Fringe Legal.