Early this week, Richard Tromans at Artificial Lawyer reported on a Survey done by the ContractWorks group of Onit. Onit is an enterprise workflow solutions provider. Onit acquired ContractWorks earlier this year.
ContractWorks surveyed some 350 general counsel, in-house lawyers, and other legal department members in the United States and the United Kingdom. The purpose of the Survey was to determine their satisfaction (or lack thereof) with tech implementation within their departments.
77% of in-house counsel surveyed said they had experienced a failure in tech implementation
The headline from the story: an eye-dropping 77% of those surveyed said they had experienced a failure in tech implementation. The Survey shows that frustration leads employees to lose confidence in their employer, poor morale, and even some departures.
According to the Survey, the primary reasons for the failure of implementation identified by the in-house counsel were that implementation took too long, the tech was too complicated, or it was not the right fit, among other things. According to the Survey Report, the frustration is caused by “A combination of limited budgets, a lack of time to dedicate to evaluating, selecting, and implementing software, and concerns around managing change can cause speedbumps for teams early in the adoption process.”
77% is a staggering statistic. I wonder if a similar result would be obtained if lawyers in law firms were surveyed. I suspect we see the same dissatisfaction.
Legal tech providers often don’t understand their market too well
I have thought that legal tech providers often don’t understand their market too well for a long time. For lawyers, time is money. Most are incredibly busy. Most use tech in their personal lives and are familiar with technology that just works, as they used to say about Apple products.