Technology is by no means a panacea for all problems facing private practice and in-house lawyers today. Rather, it is part of the puzzle. In a crowded and noisy technology space, lawyers need to adopt a 'smart thinking' approach to ensure they solve the right problems with the right tech solutions.

To help navigate this conundrum, this article sets out seven key questions to ask yourself when considering adopting new legal technology.

1: What is the problem I'm solving?

It is crucial to confirm the exact problem statement. It might seem obvious, but you would be surprised how many people fail at this step. The key here lies in specificity and spending time to properly reflect on the problem. For example, do you want to 'improve your contracts process' or would you be actually better focusing on something more precise, like: 'How can we get signatures quicker?'

2: What are the right elements for the solution?

It's an old one, but a good one. You need to give due consideration to the following trio of elements: people, process and technology. You need a sophisticated understanding of how these three elements work in concert, constantly overlapping and relying on each other. Understanding which of these elements require attention is really just the beginning – there are multiple other considerations, especially in large organisations, including culture, incentivisation, buy-in, budgets and much more.

3: Do I really need a new piece of technology?

Part of this question invites you to consider your existing systems – can this be leveraged better or 'enough' to solve the problem effectively? Often the gains presented by new technology can be just as easily replicated by better use of existing systems and processes.

4: Am I prepared to redesign workflows and processes?

More often than not, implementing a new solution in a law firm or in-house team will involve a change to existing processes. You will need to be able to manage this change effectively. Be realistic about what's possible here. Change is hard, and not just for lawyers. Give yourself the space to invest your time here.

5: Can I pilot a solution?

Rolling out a brand new solution across your entire organisation is unlikely to be the best way forward. In order to bring the most effective (and least disruptive) solution into your business, piloting a solution and getting feedback early on will allow you to bring a more polished solution to bear. Many of you will be familiar with the idea of agile working and releasing a minimum viable product, or MVP. Many of those principles apply here. Your goal should be to accelerate rollout time, while sustaining active user involvement and feedback.

6: Do I have a content strategy?

While technology can help with processes, it is not a silver bullet that works in isolation. It often requires a careful audit of your current content. This is particularly relevant if your problem relates to the practice of substantive law. This part of the framework should draw your mind to the fact technology will do lots of things, but it won't magically create subject matter expert content or help you leverage the value of your legal content.

7: What's my data strategy?

The world is increasingly looking to harness data to create insights that inform our decision-making. This is even more true in the business world. Part of this challenge is to identify what data you need to capture, before you think about interrogating and visualising it. A helpful way of thinking about this is to ask: 'How will having this data potentially change the decisions I make?'

Conclusion

Following this framework will help you to structure your thinking about introducing new solutions in your organisation, and that's the key point. We should be thinking about solutions, not just technology. As an industry, if we commit to better sharing these approaches, we can move onto the more exciting part – collaborating on them.

Ron Friedmann and Nigel Rea are the authors of LOD's Cutting Through The **IT report.