3 Ways to Onboard Your Firm with New Legal Technology

Change isn’t always easy. This is especially applicable at work when people’s office habits become routine. Introducing new technology sounds great on paper, but the changes to everyday work life are sometimes more disruptive than helpful.

There are a few ways to involve employees without antagonizing anyone or communicating simply via memos. Here are three ways to onboard your firm’s employees with new technology.

1. Include Everyone

It’s critical when introducing new legal technology to have clear communication. Explain why you’d like to bring in these new solutions and outline the ways in which it will further the firm’s goals and objectives. This makes it easier for employees to see the big picture in these day-to-day changes.

There will still be employees who feel they’re getting along fine with the tools they’ve got and don’t want to adopt new ways. To avoid roadblocks or arguments, talk to everybody in your firm when it comes to discussing the options for new technology.

Get feedback from employees at all levels to see where improvements are needed, and which areas are working already. This way, everyone’s voice is heard.

Not everyone will get what they want – which should be made clear at the beginning – but change is easier when people know what to expect. And the employees whose old habits die hard will at least feel like they’ve had their say, even if they need to adjust their routines slightly.

2. Sell the Solution

Whether or not you choose to survey everyone in your firm for technological feedback, once you’ve decided on your new software, you need to sell the solutions it brings and not the product itself.

This is because employees don’t really care about the name of the company or what the features are called. They care about what these new tools can actually do for them to improve their day-to-day work.

For example, if your firm creates a lot of wills, a solution that contains a clause library for faster will creation and a reduction in errors is very appealing. The name of the software doesn’t necessarily have a bearing on how people will feel about it.

3. Find the Ideal Vendor

Finding the ideal legal technology vendor doesn’t mean finding the cheapest company. Nor is it finding the one that will help your firm increase its productivity in the shortest amount of time.

If you start shopping around and you encounter software companies that try to upsell, have no successful case studies or customer testimonials, and will make it difficult to fit into your firm’s way of working, it’s time to move on.

The right vendor for your firm is the one that understands exactly what you need. They have plenty of customer success stories to back up their strategies and they can seamlessly integrate their product with what you already have.

This kind of research will also make your employees feel better about the changes that are coming. If the vendor is confident and communicative, the higher the likelihood of a successful transition.

Legal Technology for Document Automation and Assembly

Winston Churchill said: “There is nothing wrong with change if it is in the right direction.”

Streamlining your document automation and assembly tasks is definitely moving in the right direction. Our Infoware customers save about one hour per user per day using our software solutions. Some features include:

• Template management

• Legal-specific formatting tools

• Integrations with various management systems, including Outlook

These allow legal professionals to create more consistent and accurate documents in less time.

The temporary disruption that a change in software might cause is well worth the ease that our solutions bring. Your employees will wonder how they ever used Microsoft Word without these tools.