Law firms aren't known to be profligate technology spenders. But it's not that they're frugal—it's that even with tech purchases, they stay true to form, carefully weighing benefits, risks and value before making a decision.

But while meticulous, how firms solicit and weigh employee feedback, and who they empower to make final decisions, can often differ. On one side of the spectrum there's the slower, formalized approach that involves large committees; on the other, a centralized, but faster ad hoc process led by smaller groups.

While firms' approaches to tech buying can seem like night and day, there are still several similarities among them. Many, for example, will take a holistic view of their tech ecosystem, meaning how well a tech product integrates with other tools will weigh heavily on their buying deliberations.

And despite having clear decision making structures in place, firms will often give certain leaders authority to speed up or slow down the processes, or bypass it altogether. The way many decide what tech to procure, after all, isn't static—there are degrees of flexibility, with sometimes built-in ways to deviate from the standard approach if a situation calls for it.

At the end of the day, how a firm goes about buying tech isn't just a reflection of its culture and values, but also a reflection of market realities.

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The Formal Affair

At Perkins Coie, it's all about getting a large group of people on board with new purchases—even if that means a longer and more arduous process. When it comes to large-scale tech changes, "we always have a steering committee that is going to be comprised of a group of shareholders and stakeholders, so people who are going to have to support it and people who are going to use it," said Rick Howell, the firm's chief information officer.

Significant tech buying decisions are "consensus driven" at Perkins Coie, and Howell noted that the committee looks both inside and outside the firm for feedback.

"Our standard process for onboarding technology [includes] a sort of rigorous RFP that would go through the right type of due diligence [and] the right type of conversations with our peers, because there is so much great data that comes from law firms that have gone through this," he said.

To be sure, it's easy to get slowed down by the details and deliberations. "We can go back and forth on a rather protracted schedule … The downside is that it does result in a much longer time to implement," he explained.

But despite time commitments, Howell believes a more formalized process, especially for big technology changes, helps "people think right" about implementation.

"I do believe that is an important process because it allows us to make sure the technology decisions we are making are looking at the entire system as a whole—that we're going to integrate processes and we're not speeding up one thing and causing a bottleneck somewhere else," he said.

But what happens when the consensus-driven approach gets bogged down in disagreements? For that, there's a more streamlined process. "When there's not a clear majority it usually falls on me to take the responsibility for that [decision], ultimately that's my role as the chief information officer."

Another one of his responsibilities can be even more challenging—keeping everyone on schedule. "My job is routinely to push the process and deadlines at a rate that is uncomfortable for everybody so that we don't get too mired down and we can make progress accordingly."

And he's had some successes allaying fears that the gears turn too slowly. "Certainly during COVID we're seeing a lot of the preconceived worry about how quickly we can move about things, how decisions have to be made, melt away, and that's been refreshing to kind of reset that."

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Flexible Arrangements

The more formalized approach isn't for all firms. Lucy Dillon, chief knowledge officer at Reed Smith, believes that committees can become "cumbersome," explaining that "[while] you want to get these people together, it's not always easy and not everyone will be interested in the same product."

She said Reed Smith has adopted "a more flexible approach that brings in the people we need to have … but it will be different people for different purposes. It's about being respectful of peoples' time and using the right people for the task."

Indeed, the firm empowers individual departments, such as its knowledge management (KM) department, to take the lead on tech decisions that fall under its purview. Representatives from certain departments will participate in decision making groups that will also include a few core firm leaders, such as the CIO and the director of practice innovation, Dillon said.

While the firm's approach can limit the number of people with decision-making power, it does not limit employee feedback. "When we've done other projects that have a wider scale, we necessarily wouldn't involve large number of people in the decision making process, but what we do is consult a lot," Dillon explained.

For example, "when we redid our intranet, and that's something that absolutely covers everybody, we [heard from] representatives from all our different areas to get their requirements in terms of what they needed from the new capabilities."

All those offering their input, however, knew the limits of how much they could affect the final decision. "I think we make it very clear at the beginning that we want to consult very widely, but the expectation is that wide group will only be consulted rather than be invited to help make the decision. So people understand what their role is," Dillon noted.

Of course, not all will agree with a decision, but the firm relies on transparency to address any concerns. "If we had to make a decision where people had different views, then it would be my role to go and explain why we made the decisions we did. And we would document it so it would be very clear that there were very strong drivers for that decision," Dillon said.

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Malleable Meetings

In the deciding between a more formalized or ad hoc approach, some firms will try to have best of both worlds.

"I think that we are both agile as well as deliberate," said Judith Flournoy, chief information officer at Kelley Drye & Warren. "And what I mean by that is if we feel at a moment that something makes sense, then we tend to be agile enough to move it forward really quickly. If it is something that is perhaps a little more complicated or requires more input from a practice area or requires more training, for example, then we may be more deliberate and take more time."

Flournoy notes that big tech projects have to "typically work through the technology committee and firm leadership," where both will review the proposal and either approve or reject going forward. While needing approval from two groups can seem cumbersome, the process isn't formalized. "There is no set methodology other than to say … it's always about the business need, the need of the client, then identifying the best path forward," Flournoy notes.

When there isn't consensus among stakeholders, the firm will experiment with ways to move forward. For instance, they may discuss the possibility of doing "limited [tech] implementations, [such as] a proof of concept, a pilot, [or] a limited number of licenses," Flournoy said.

There are also ways around the process when it's moving too slowly, or not at all. Absent consensus among stakeholders, "it's the champion of the project, whoever that person is … to make the case as to why the firm should consider and approve such project" to the relevant practice group leader, as well as the firm's managing partner and executive director, Flournoy explained.

However, any product that is considered has to "meet certain criteria around security, functionality and its ability to integrate into any system … we are very mindful of existing environments and what an overall strategy really looks like," she added.

In fact, Flournoy notes that it's a firm's tech environment that can sometimes make or break a decision.

"No two firms are the same, both from a cultural perspective as well as the fact that are different applications that fundamentally do the same thing, whether it's an accounting system,  time and billing system, account management system, macro template system, etc. So one of the things that is unique about every firm is that the application mix can be so different from one firm to the next firm regardless of size, regardless of geographical location, regardless of culture and leadership."