Investing in tech can save your law practice money – but it can also waste it. Avoid these common sources!
No one wants to waste money. And while technology often offers more cost effective solutions in law practice, it often requires substantial investment. To help lawyers make wiser investments in tech, our friends at Attorney at Work sourced expert input to identify the most common sources of wasted tech spend among lawyers, in their Friday 5+ Tech Tips, to which Heidi contributed the following:
One of the most common mistakes I see when attorneys purchase new technology is doing so without any planning. While there may be great potential benefits of using a certain product (and, trust me, there is a product for just about every one of your firm needs), you won’t reap the rewards unless you are thoughtful about the implementation and make plans in advance. Otherwise, you might as well have flushed that money you just spent on the product down the toilet.
First, you need to sell this new technology to everyone who will be working with it. Demonstrate and quantify its benefits. Explain how the product with impact each staff member. If everyone in your firm is not onboard, it will cost you time and money.
Second, create a plan for implementation of the product. What’s the timeline? Who will lead the project? Who will be involved? Consider bringing on team members with different job responsibilities to serve as product ambassadors. Who will be trained and when? A progression of training sessions over time is more effective than trying to cram it all into one full day.
Third, conduct regular check-ins after implementation. Survey all users at one month. How is it working? What problems are being encountered? Would additional training be helpful? Meet to discuss the results and review processes and procedures relative to the technology.
Taking these three steps can save you from wasting time and money on good technology.
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And Heidi’s expert colleagues offered a solid range of other money-wasters to avoid:
- Do NOT skip updates and upgrades (Catherine Sanders Reach)
- Reduce your reliance on printing (Sharon Nelson and John Simek)
- Do NOT act out of frustration (Courtney Troutman)
- Do NOT skip training (Nora Regis)
Find out why the panel of experts target these sources of wasted spending on tech in law practices in the full post on Attorney at Work.
