Innovation

|

Frank Spadafino knows his way around a law firm IT department. Prior to joining Blank Rome last month as the firm's new chief information officer, Spadafino also served in the same capacity at Hughes, Hubbard & Reed, and Epstein Becker & Green.

As his career has marched on, so has progress, with the growth of technology inside legal services pivoting the CIO role from that of tool supplier to business partner. In his new role at Blank Rome specifically, Spadafino will work to improve attorney mobility via the tech that they use to enable remote work, while also looking for ways to enhance the performance of Microsoft Teams for interoffice and client use.

Below, he discusses the pace of law firm tech investment, obtaining client permission before using the cloud and whether or not siloed practice groups are impacting IT departments. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Legaltech News: What are some of the priorities that you and the firm have moving forward and how will that shape your approach?

Frank Spadafino, Blank Rome. Courtesy photo. Frank Spadafino, Blank Rome. Courtesy photo.

Frank Spadafino: This is probably the one in which we're spending the most time in two areas: One, improving the tools that we have to streamline collaboration in the firm. As you may know, the firm has grown quite a bit. We've expanded geographies—most recently Chicago—and we need to ensure that we have platforms in place to seamlessly collaborate across the firm and maintain that family feel that's really an integral part of our culture as we continue to grow. …

The second area is around collaboration with clients and making sure that we provide tools and platforms to streamline that process and enhance it. I think that this is the area with the most promise.

Is developing its own tech a priority for the firm? Do you expect to see more firms moving in that direction?

I think our focus will be more on enhancing platforms with things that we can develop ourselves rather than developing completely unique applications or systems. One area that's an example of that is Microsoft Teams, which is a platform that we're looking at as a way to help share information and collaborate with clients. Teams provides a great platform straight from Microsoft, but we're looking into ways we can enhance it and have it work as best as it can for us and for our clients.

Do you think that law firms are continuing to invest in technology at the same rate as they did in the past, or are we starting to enter the slow-down period of the investment cycle?

My sense in what I've seen in firms that I'm at and speaking to peers is that it's at a minimum remaining consistent or expanding. Firms are recognizing the value of these investments in terms of increasing profitability and effectiveness and improving client service. So I wouldn't expect to see any kind of slow down.

I think the areas in which we are spending money on technology may shift more towards some of the more innovative projects to help improve client service and away from of the infrastructure operational costs as we find efficiencies in those areas.

Practice areas across firms have traditionally been fairly siloed. From an IT perspective, how difficult does that make it keep tabs on the various solutions being implemented across each department? Is there a way to streamline that?

I think that most firms don't have as siloed an environment for different practice areas perhaps than they had 10 years ago, because while attorneys may be in a practice area or may practice in a particular area of law, there are client teams which span across practice groups because many of us are providing different services to our clients. And those practice groups are already working together closely.

So I don't see it as siloed as perhaps it was in the past, and so it doesn't present as much of a challenge from a technology perspective. Different practices will always have some unique needs because of the services they are providing, but in the core things that we are doing, they work well across all practices.

Law appears split on the subject of whether or not to ask client permission first before storing their data in the cloud. What do you think is the best way to handle this and why?

I think it's always important to have open communication with your clients with regards to how you are managing their data. It's an incredibly important part of what we do and we need to manage clients' data as responsibly as possible and transparency is an important part of that. Every firm does take a different approach to these cloud-based services, but generally speaking I think it's important to be transparent with clients about how you are managing their data.