“There's math and technology involved? Count me out, that's why I went to law school.” The attorneys in the room nod at each other, smiling at this joke that more than a few of us have told at one point in our careers.

But it looks like this joke has finally run its course. The practice of law is not immune to technological advances, especially in the areas of research methodologies and, of course, electronic discovery. Furthermore, clients are continuing to focus on value, whether that is in seeking alternative fee arrangements or evaluating outside counsel on their efficient delivery of legal services. For example, a former in-house attorney, Casey Flaherty, and the Institute on Law Practice Technology and Innovation at Suffolk University jointly developed the Legal Tech Assessment, a benchmarking test that evaluates attorneys and other timekeepers on their knowledge of basic technology that most use in the practice of law, such as word processing and spreadsheets. There might not be any math on this test, but the effective use of technology is measured in one simple metric: time.

Firms are certainly devoting many resources to technology to gain a competitive advantage. Entire departments, such as knowledge management or practice innovation, are tasked to identify areas for improvement and implement solutions by infusing technology or processes. For example, legal project management tools have been paired up with a document automation workflow. Some firms are extensively using document automation programs, which enable attorneys to create “TurboTax”-style questionnaires with logical decision trees on the back end to quickly produce a document. Those firms that have the right people with both technological understanding and legal knowledge will certainly have a competitive advantage with the implementation of such automation tools.