We hear it annually, especially around the turn of the year in terms of retrospectives and predictions: This is the year of change. But is each year really the year that everything changes? Perhaps the answer is yes.

“The legal industry has been talking about change for many years, talking about disruption,” explains Justin Hectus, chief information officer and chief information security officer at law firm Keesal, Young & Logan. “Sometimes it's like boiling a frog: It seems like that change is coming really slowly, but when you look back, it's been pretty dramatic.”

Perhaps the most dramatic of changes in recent years is technology that improves not just the way individual attorneys work, but how all members of the legal team interact with one another. As collaboration tools become the norm, efficiency and transparency in the legal services delivery model have become paramount—and for the smart law firms, they provide a way to stand out from their peers.

The “Driving Digital Transformation and Innovation to Help Improve Collaboration and Productivity” panel during the LegalCIO conference at Legalweek New York will aim to help those collaboration-savvy firms stand out even further. The panel, moderated by HighQ's Stuart Barr, will include two members of tech-savvy firms (Hectus and Reed Smith's Lucy Dillon), the other side of the transaction with corporate legal (Spotify's Jennifer McCarron), and a legal technology expert (Michigan State's Daniel Linna).

Hectus notes that at its core, client demands haven't changed: Corporate clients want the best, most cost-effective service possible. How firms get there, though, is a different story in today's climate.

“I think it's important to note that client demands really haven't changed at their core. They still want the best overall result at the lowest overall cost with the least amount of friction. Really what's changed, and in some ways really dramatically, is the prescriptive role clients play in telling law firms their expectations in how legal services are delivered,” Hectus explained.

Barr agreed, saying that while some forward-thinking firms were asking these questions on their own, often today, clients are driving these changes for the firms they work with.

“It tends to start from the big corporate clients who have very large spend across a portfolio of firms that they work with. We see it in the U.K. in particular with Barclays bank,” the London-based Barr said. “They put their panel firms under a huge amount of pressure to reduce costs, to adopt smarter ways of working, to adopt legal project management techniques, fixed fees, capped fees and so forth. And we're seeing that type of thing happening in the U.S. as well.”

That demand has led to firms changing—often by necessity. “And if they don't do it, they're going to miss out on a piece of work to a competitor that is doing it,” Barr explained. “You've got that scenario where if one firm starts doing it or a significant cohort of firms start doing it, everyone else kind of has to, or else they become uncompetitive. And I think that's the phase we're at now.”

Tapping into that conversation can be a major key to driving the necessary change to actually adopt these tools, even among attorneys that might initially be reluctant. Hectus said it's a matter of socializing technology and having a culture that appreciates it.

He noted, “Voluntary adoption is always predicated on demonstrable value. For us, that formula has always started with communication on how a new technology or a new client initiative equates to client benefits, and how that in turn equates to personal or firm benefits. Sometimes, that's as simple as saying, 'Hey, this is easier than what I did before,' and other times it might be, 'This is just better or more consistent than how I did it before.'”

Once the innovation begins, though, it can also reap benefits down the road. Hectus told Legaltech News the story of a conversation he had at last year's LegalCIO event, with NetApp's Connie Brenton. That conversation led to his firm developing an early dispute resolution workflow, which it later turned around and used as a major win for a banking client.

“It's crazy if you think about it,” Hectus said. “A client challenges a law firm to use a process improvement automation tool to increase efficiency, and less than a year later, that law firm is transforming processes that they're undertaking with clients in completely different industries using the same tools. That's pretty exciting. Those sort of halo effects are one of the most exciting unexpected consequences of these initiatives.”

Sound intriguing? Many CIOs would agree, but it's only possible when collaboration technology becomes more than just a one-off tool—Barr says that an overall “openness to change is fundamental to success.”

“It's across-the-board change,” he added. “You can't just stick a Band-Aid on it and say, 'Well if we just buy this AI engine, we're going to be massively more efficient.' In actual fact, I think many of the key changes and efficiencies that will be gained are not necessarily through artificial intelligence engines replacing humans, but making humans more efficient and optimizing their processes.”

The LegalCIO “Driving Digital Transformation and Innovation to Help Improve Collaboration and Productivity” panel is set to take place at 10:30 a.m. Jan. 31 at Legalweek New York at the New York Midtown Hilton.