During a lunch out of the office, the general counsel for a large organization shared his frustration. “Our IT department is driving me crazy. It is impossible to work with.” He related how a number of his initiatives for better legal tools and process have been stymied by the IT group. Informal polls I have conducted at legal conferences indicate that he is not alone in his frustration with IT.

Perhaps what made the GC's comments paradoxical was a discussion I had with the chief information officer of a medium-sized organization the month before: “I can't get anything out of legal.” This CIO went on to explain that when seeking advice from his legal group on what e-mail to save in the archiving system, its response was to form a committee. “All the committee does is meet and meet,” he said. “I can't even get them to agree we should save e-mail.”

Some may argue that in a difficult economy with limited budgets, the conflict between legal and IT is inevitable. I disagree. Corporate legal and IT organizations each have much more to lose by failing to cooperate.

It is interesting to note that as corporate departments, the legal and IT groups have more in common than not: They are being asked to do more with fewer resources. They need to adapt to changing business climate. Also, both functions tend to get negative attention when things go wrong but little credit when the ship is on course. Having worked many years with both legal and IT, I believe that the differences between these two groups are more cultural and stylistic, not substantive. Still they don't always get along. So if legal and IT should work together, how? This relationship is fixable, and here are four steps for getting there:

Step 1: Let's Try and Speak the Same Language Often IT organizations communicate in techno-babble that is difficult to understand, and in-house counsel are too intimidated to ask questions. An in-house director of litigation called me for help right after a meeting with IT on a document management system. “The IT people kept on talking about 'fuzzy logic,'” she said. “I have no clue what they were talking about.” I explained to her that fuzzy logic is a method for searching through information using imprecise terms, often used in document identification and review. “That's useful. I wish they had explained that to me,” she commented. Inside counsel can often be equally obtuse to IT staff, throwing around terms such as FRE, custodians, spoliation, etc. Legal concepts are difficult to understand by a lay person. Ask, ask, ask. Explain, explain, explain. We will all be better off.

Step 2: Address the “Who Pays” Elephant in the Room An IT project manager for a large retailer told me she knew one particular IT technology that could save the legal group and the company potentially millions of dollars per year. I asked her why she had not suggested this system to the legal group. “Even though I know this will save the company money overall, currently IT has no funding for this type of system,” she explained. “If I as an IT person suggest it, IT would have to budget for it. That would be career suicide for me.” Many legal and IT groups play a similar budgetary game, creating a stalemate where each side awaits the other side to raise their hand first, and hence take budgetary ownership of a project.

Legal and IT should work together to break this habit. Address the budget issue elephant in the room early and often. Discuss the benefits and cost savings, and get creative about funding. Look at other groups that may benefit and contribute to the funding of IT/legal projects (audit, finance and business units to name a few). You might be amazed how monies can be found with some more open communication.

Step 3: Be Prescriptive One legal group wanted IT to implement a record retention policy for electronic documents but would only provide a vague, high-level retention policy. Legal thought it was being clear, IT didn't. Nothing got done. Coming from different cultures, legal and IT need to make an extra effort to be prescriptive on policies and processes when working together. Be clear about what legal specifically wants IT to do. Make sure you are open for questions, and follow up. Use specific examples. While you may believe you are being perfectly clear, what matters is that the recipient understands exactly what you want.

Step 4: Find and Communicate the Common Win When looking at a new initiative, don't focus on the win for just legal or IT. Nearly every joint legal and IT initiative has a win for both, as well as other groups in the organization. Don't talk only about how a particular project will help legal. Talk (and sell) the benefits for others.