5 Questions to Ask Your Legal Tech Providers

“When assessing the relevance and fit of a potential legal solution for your department, asking whether it has AI is not as relevant as asking what results it can achieve.”

ACC Docket

When your legal department considers implementing legal technology, the first step would be to know more about the tech. By asking your potential legal tech provider relevant questions, you can help your legal department maximize the return on their investment, streamline legal processes, stay efficient, and do more with less.

How much training does this require?

Some legal tech softwares and tools can be used immediately, while others may require varying degrees of training.

Several legal tech softwares and tools offer out-of-the-box capabilities that are ready to use. Legal tech that can be used instantly will not offer customized solutions to meet individual legal department and business requirements, but also do not require extensive training – if any.

Personalized legal tech is an ideal fit to solve unique legal department requirements and challenges. However, customized legal tech will require more training in order to utilize the specialized capabilities.

What are additional tasks or services this tech can process?

Legal tech solves virtually every legal need from automation to contract management. With advancements in legal tech, almost every legal tech offers you additional capabilities beyond the basic services that you are looking for. This helps you get the most out of your investment and do more at once. For example, you may have auto contract renewals in contract review tools, or dashboards in legal budgeting software. Find out if your chosen legal tech offers additional capabilities and services.

Does the legal tech solution help you achieve more with less?

The economic downturn, a working world post-COVID, and the infamous “brain drain” strain finances and resources. In a world where legal department budgets are tightened further every day, it is imperative to ask legal tech providers questions about doing more with less.

Ask your potential legal tech service provider if the service you’re looking at can achieve your legal department’s and company’s business goals, with tight budgets and less resources. Less can truly offer more with the right services, ideally customized to your requirements. Check out LegalEase Solutions for more information regarding legal tech solutions.

Can the tool be upgraded?

Legal technology is constantly evolving to provide the latest and most powerful capabilities available when launched. However, with the passing of time, some legal tech tools and software become obsolete or lack processes to evolve. For example, legacy contract software is not compatible with new CLM platforms, which is why a lengthy migration process from the legacy tech to the new platform is required.

When choosing a legal tech solution, ensure that it can be upgraded, or has a provision to add on potential tech breakthroughs. You don’t want to let your future legal department grapple with extraneous processes because your current legal tech data couldn’t be migrated!

How can my team use this technology?

Successful user adoption is a highly underrated yet crucial step in the legal tech implementation process. Integrating the legal tech into your legal department’s workflow goes beyond implementation and extends to ensuring that all stakeholders know how to operate the system and that they understand the value it offers them.

Whether manual work such as contract review is automated, or time sheets can be viewed on a unified platform, all users need to be briefed on how they can benefit. Successful user adoption is a measure of successful legal tech implementation. Before user adoption, legal departments and their companies should host meetings to brainstorm and address concerns and questions. These sessions help gauge user interest, any apprehensions, and offers a platform to encourage implementation and solve challenges. A well-oiled implementation strategy ensures that the legal tech helps deliver value and achieve goals.