Category: News Feeds

This week, I continue my written interview with John Garda of Longford Capital, regarding his experiences leaving a Biglaw partnership to join a leading litigation funder. Please see below for John’s answers to my second and third questions, focused on how clients and law firms can best position their matters to attract investment from litigation funders like Longford.

As usual, I have added some brief commentary to John’s answers below but have otherwise presented his answers as he provided them.

Gaston Kroub: How can clients, and not just law firms, take advantage of the opportunities presented by litigation finance?

John Garda: Longford Capital provides several funding options directly to our corporate clients. We are currently experiencing an increase in demand for our capital as the impact from the COVID-19 crisis continues to negatively impact individual companies and industries. In this uncertain and stressful landscape, our capital may provide a critical resource for businesses, and our industry continues to quickly evolve and innovate along the way to provide additional offerings. These offerings should prove especially useful in the current business climate. For example, in addition to traditional litigation funding of attorneys’ fees and expenses involved with bringing the claims, Longford Capital also provides a lump-sum catch-up payment to the business claim owner for attorneys’ fees and expenses that were previously incurred in the litigation before entering into a funding arrangement.

In addition, we are experiencing an increase in demand for ordinary working capital needs from businesses. As certain businesses struggle with short-term and long-term cash flow needs and other budgetary challenges, they can take advantage of the availability of our capital to overcome these challenges. We are now increasingly capable of stepping in and providing working capital to not only help these companies remain operational — but also to allow them to thrive — while also pursuing their legal claims.

Moreover, we are experiencing an increase in businesses wanting to monetize their existing legal claims before those claims are finally resolved in the underlying litigation. Many businesses want to take advantage of our available capital and recoup some of the losses in the form of cash now, not later. In the right circumstances, Longford Capital offers to pay the claim owner a portion of the claim’s perceived value up-front, so the company can earn a return at any stage of the litigation, including before even filing the claim, or after trial when a favorable judgment is currently pending on appeal.

GK: If anyone had any doubt that incorporating a discussion with litigation funders is a good idea for IP lawyers, John’s answer should dispel any such doubts. Even without the increased stress on law firms and clients due to COVID-19, funders like Longford are positioning themselves as true financial partners for companies with meritorious legal claims — no matter where in the life cycle of those claims the funder gets involved. At bottom, Longford seems committed to offering financial support for claimants and their counsel when and where it is needed. Getting access to that support, however, comes with an obligation to do some real work. For how best to do so, read on.

What advice would you give to practicing IP lawyers interested in seeking out litigation funding on either a case or portfolio basis?

JG: Before approaching the funder, the IP lawyer should prepare a set of documents including the key information that the funder will need to help expedite the due diligence process. In addition to a full case budget and a damages analysis, the IP lawyer should include claim charts involving the top three to four patents aimed at the top three to four targets and any information related to validity including the results of any prior art searches and a re-examination. It is critical that the IP lawyer take ownership of the claim charts that are presented to the funder and be able to explain them in great detail.

Scheduling an initial conference call with the funder at the very beginning of the process is strongly recommended to introduce yourself, discuss the case and the package of information provided, and allow the funder to ask some preliminary questions. This is a very good first step toward establishing effective communication with the funder. The best way to position yourself for success is to be very attentive to the funder’s specific requirements and responsive to any requests for additional information. Maintaining effective communication throughout the process will help ensure the best chance of obtaining a successful funding arrangement.

One common mistake that IP attorneys make when presenting a case to a funder is focusing almost exclusively on liability and ignoring, for the most part, any meaningful damages analysis. Worse yet, providing a pie-in-the-sky damages analysis quickly falls apart when put to the test by the funder. This may cause a funder to quickly pass on an otherwise promising opportunity.

As with any business transaction, maintaining credibility is paramount. To that end, a practicing IP lawyer seeking funding should be very candid when assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the case. Using a matter-of-fact tone in presenting the case and shooting straight with the funder goes a long way in building trust. Proactively addressing the challenging aspects of your case while explaining how best to deal with those challenges is extremely helpful to better position your case for funding.

GK: I have long been a proponent of a “damages first” approach to evaluating claims. Taking that approach necessitates an honest appraisal — by both client and law firm — of the likelihood of the case or cases achieving the client’s financial goals, while sticking to the agreed-upon terms of any engagement between the client and their counsel. If the decision is made to try to involve a funder like Longford, it makes complete sense to recognize that at bottom there are financial metrics that must be met — both in terms of potential case recovery relative to the investment, as well as with respect to controlling the matter’s costs. As John correctly notes, a relationship with a funder is exactly that — a relationship — and common sense dictates that the foundational aspects of any relationship (e.g., candor, pragmatism, etc.) hold true in interactions between counsel and a funder. It may still be early days for many IP lawyers when it comes to litigation funding. But, in my view at least, the time to start thinking about your firm’s relationship with potential funders was yesterday.

My thanks to John for the insights and cooperation, and I wish him continued success at the cutting-edge of litigation funding’s inroads into the legal industry. It is always a privilege to hear from someone who is engaged in interesting and timely work of deep interest to IP lawyers and their clients, and I thank John for agreeing to this interview. I am always open to conducting interviews of this type with other IP thought leaders, so feel free to reach out if you have a compelling perspective to offer.

Please feel free to send comments or questions to me at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or via Twitter: @gkroub. Any topic suggestions or thoughts are most welcome.

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Gaston Kroub lives in Brooklyn and is a founding partner of Kroub, Silbersher & Kolmykov PLLC, an intellectual property litigation boutique, and Markman Advisors LLC, a leading consultancy on patent issues for the investment community. Gaston’s practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and related counseling, with a strong focus on patent matters. You can reach him at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or follow him on Twitter: @gkroub.

It has, it seems, begun to occur to those within the Trump administration that there might not be another four years in which to luxuriate in the trappings of office while simultaneously undermining the basis of those very trappings. Certainly, it seems to have occurred to the president’s trifling handful of actual global allies that they should get all they can from this White House over the next 204 days and however many hours, in the knowledge that President Biden won’t give them those things but in the very real hope that he’ll be too feckless to take them away. That it’s time to do as much damage as they can and get the hell out before they get singed by the coming conflagration. Joseph Otting has already leapt from the dangerously listing ship; Jay Clayton is trying to do so in his inimitable, bumbling half-in, half-out doomed-to-failure sort of way. Even those who, rightly recognizing that there is no longer any reputational damage wrought in this country by shamelessness and collaboration, have no intention of abandoning the Dear Leader, seem to recognize that their time in power may be short. Best to finish off what can be finished off and throw your weight around while you’ve still got it—to make your mark—come what may.

At the end of June, we’ll be roughly four months into the COVID-19 crisis. The novel coronavirus and the measures taken to contain it have had profound effects on our society, our economy, and our nation. I’m hard-pressed to identify a four-month period as consequential for the country as the one we now find ourselves in, from March through June 2020.

The news hasn’t been all bad. Back in April, for example, I identified four silver linings to the coronavirus cloud for Biglaw. Looking beyond Biglaw, response to COVID-19 has had other benefits for the legal profession. Take the judicial system. As Chief Justice Bridget McCormack recently observed in her (virtual) testimony before Congress, the pandemic has given rise to more (positive) change in the past three months than in the past three decades, in terms of using technology to make the judicial system more accessible, transparent, and efficient.

But make no mistake: the COVID-19 crisis has harmed the legal world in a number of ways, and now is an opportune time to assess the damage. Here are three ways in which the pandemic has harmed the profession.

1. Economic Dislocation.

The most obvious negative effect of the crisis on the legal industry is the economic harm to lawyers and law firms. Since the start of the crisis, numerous law firms have announced various austerity measures to help them ride out the tough times — around 100 firms, according to Above the Law’s COVID Crisis Tracker. These measures have included pay freezes, pay cuts, furloughs, and layoffs — which all have very real economic impacts upon lawyers, staff, and their families.

And Biglaw, of course, is just a microcosm of the legal industry writ large. In April alone, the legal sector lost 64,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Is the end in sight? Maybe; there are signs that we are starting to turn the corner. But my own guess is that we still have more suffering in store before recovery.

2. Mental Health Effects.

To their credit, even before the pandemic, law firms were starting to pay more attention to the mental health of their lawyers and staff (with nudging from several sources, including Above the Law). This wasn’t a moment too soon, since the COVID-19 crisis has only exacerbated the challenges on this front.

Fears of the disease, worries over financial problems, and loneliness from isolation have caused anxiety and depression to spike within the legal profession. The Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) recently polled its members and reported these findings:

Nearly 50% reported “feeling tired or having little energy” while also having trouble sleeping. More than 43% were experiencing anxiety; 40% had trouble concentrating; nearly 22% reported an “increased use of substances,” such as alcohol and tobacco; and nearly 19% said they’d been depressed. Nearly 44% had anxiety. Unsurprisingly, nearly 50% of respondents reported having trouble switching off from work and nearly 75% were experiencing moderate to very high levels of burnout.

Of course, many of us don’t need a survey to tell us this; we’ve been experiencing it firsthand. And anxiety and depression have ripple effects, harming lawyers’ ability to serve their clients, to be good colleagues, and to be there for their families and communities.

3. The Disadvantages Of Remote Learning.

This past spring, law schools abruptly went virtual, consistent with efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and government stay-at-home and shelter-in-place orders. Looking ahead to the fall, some schools have already announced plans for virtual or online-only semesters, including Harvard Law School and Berkeley Law.

Law school deans, professors, and staff should be commended for their noble efforts to make this work. But there’s pretty much universal agreement that online learning is suboptimal — a poor substitute for classroom education. It’s simply much harder for students to pay attention and to participate in virtual classes.

And not all students have the resources or technology to take full advantage of online classes. It’s worth noting that when HLS announced its move to remote learning for the fall, it also announced that it was setting aside $1 million to assist students with challenges relating to internet access and other essential technology.

To sum up: law firms, law schools, and the courts are doing a superb job of responding to the terrible crisis created by COVID-19. But there’s no denying that it is, in fact, a terrible crisis. And we’re all looking forward to its end.

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David Lat, the founding editor of Above the Law, is a writer, speaker, and legal recruiter at Lateral Link, where he is a managing director in the New York office. David’s book, Supreme Ambitions: A Novel (2014), was described by the New York Times as “the most buzzed-about novel of the year” among legal elites. David previously worked as a federal prosecutor, a litigation associate at Wachtell Lipton, and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@laterallink.com.

We strive to provide a consistent educational experience for all of our students while being sensitive to our community’s safety and security. The most demanding challenge posed by the pandemic is uncertainty. We want to provide as much notice to our students, facility, and staff, in order to plan appropriately and deliver the high-quality course content and access to faculty that VLS is known for.

— Thomas McHenry, President and Dean of Vermont Law School, commenting on the decision to hold all Fall 2020 classes remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. An informational page on the law school website notes that “[w]hile Vermont is presently a low-risk state, the pandemic is continuing to rage in parts of the country where many VLS students live. This is a contributing factor to the decision. It could make travel more challenging and perhaps difficult for students to come to campus or return home.” Vermont Law will offer a “January Start” for first-year students, and the school joins Harvard Law and Berkeley Law in the decision to hold all classes online this coming fall. Harvard is being sued over its “outrageous tuition” for remote classes.

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Take heart, comrades! Roger Stone’s plea to postpone the day he’ll have to report to FCI Jesup in Georgia has not fallen on deaf ears.

After considering the request to delay Stone’s surrender from June 30 to September 3 due to the “serious and possibly deadly risk he would face in the close confines of a Bureau of Prisons facility, based on his age and medical conditions,” Judge Amy Berman Jackson agreed that something must be done in light of the grave danger posed by the novel coronavirus in the close confines of a federal penitentiary.

Not that Judge Jackson is worried about protecting Roger Stone from the germy prisoners, though, since there are exactly zero confirmed cases of COVID at FCI Jesup among the inmates and staff. No, Her Honor is concerned that Roger Stone will bring coronavirus into the prison, and she’s allowing him to delay surrender for two weeks for the safety of his fellow prisoners.

Judge Jackson notes that remaining at large indefinitely is not an appropriate sentence for someone convicted of witness intimidation who spent the entire trial forcing the Court to deal with his “repeated attempts to intimidate, and to stoke potentially violent sentiment against, an array of participants in the case, including individuals involved in the investigation, the jurors, and the Court.” Then turning to the danger of COVID, which is currently running rampant in Florida, the court observes that Stone’s quarantine practices have been somewhat desultory.

Stone has spent “the overwhelming majority” of his time at his home; he wears a mask “in the appropriate situations;” he avoids closed quarters with “numerous” people for “extended” durations; he has “on at least one occasion” attended a gathering at which more than ten people were present; and he has been present in public places such as restaurants “as local regulations have permitted.”

Stone’s lawyers are probably regretting that letter from his internist advising that “He needs to maintain at least 6 feet distance from people. He should avoid closed quarters with many people.” Because now the doctor’s orders will be backed up by Court Order.

For all of these reasons, the Court will grant the motion in part, and it is hereby ORDERED that the defendant’s date to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons will be extended for another fourteen days, until July 14, 2020. This affords the defendant seventy-five days beyond his original report date. It is FURTHER ORDERED that during that time, defendant’s conditions of release will be modified to include the condition of home confinement in accordance with the Attorney General’s memorandum and the strong medical recommendation submitted to the Court by the defense that he “maintain strict quarantine conditions.” Letter at 1. Pretrial Services may monitor his compliance through any appropriate electronic or nonelectronic means selected in its discretion in accordance with its current practices, which may include such methods as SmartLINK or Voice Recognition. This will address the defendant’s stated medical concerns during the current increase of reported cases in Florida, and Broward County in particular, and it will respect and protect the health of other inmates who share defendant’s anxiety over the potential introduction and spread of the virus at this now-unaffected facility.

So Roger Stone gets to spend the next two weeks on strict home confinement, probably tethered to an ankle bracelet to monitor his movements. After which — assuming he hasn’t already been granted a pardon by the president — he can surrender at FCI Jesup without risking the safety of his fellow inmates.

WOMP WOMP.

Memorandum Opinion [US v. STONE, No. 1:19-cr-00018-1-ABJ (D.D.C. June 26, 2020)]

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Elizabeth Dye (@5DollarFeminist) lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

There are some very fine state judges in this world. There are also some state judges very in over their heads in this world. Charles Harder has made a career out of finding the latter — as the demise of Gawker shows — and he may have found another winner!

Judge Hal Greenwald of Dutchess County, New York just granted Harder the order he tried to get in New York City: a prior restraint blocking the publication of Mary Trump’s new book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.” (affiliate link). At least temporarily.

Harder, representing presidential brother Robert Trump in a failed effort to keep Donald’s tiny hands clean in this drama, secured a temporary restraining order barring Mary Trump and Simon & Schuster from publishing the book and ordering them to appear to show cause that he shouldn’t convert this into a preliminary injunction.

That sounds like a procedural mouthful because it requires a good deal of gymnastics to pretend this isn’t a flatly unconstitutional prior restraint, but Judge Greenwald is going for the gold in this order. At least he can see his name printed next to Ted Boutros for a couple weeks.

But seriously, how does anyone with a passing grasp of their law school studies authorize a prior restraint? According to some ratings from people who’ve appeared before him, folks don’t exactly laud Judge Greenwald’s acumen:

This guy is lost. Refuses to transfer the matter when he can because he want to play “local hero” however, he makes no effort to learn or understand the law. Apparently the CPLR is lost on him as well as he does not even understand the level of review in an Article 78.

Zero would be the best rating

Oof. Robing Room ratings are like legal Yelp so your mileage may vary as to the accuracy, but when there’s a string of one-star reviews it’s safe to consider that a trend.

Judge Greenwald should never be able to sit behind a bench, when confronted with his own words he runs and hides. Hes scared of confrontation and being told he’s wrong. He should never rule in any matter where a childs life is at stake. GET HIM OFF THE BENCH!

Perhaps Lawyers.com will offer a better acquittal of his skills:

Mr Greenwald is a terrible judge. Biased against females, and moms who didn’t lose custody of her children. Don’t worry, complaint coming soon!

Ooooookay.

couldn’t make it as an attorney and was hearing parking ticket offenses before getting elevated (inappropriately professionally but very much still needed heigh-wise and IQ-wise, to family court clown. makes his own rules and went to a too bit law school….and his behavior on the bench/potty, is sheer insight into his lowly level education, less-than-mediocre training and lack of scruples. LOL little “hal”

That’s pretty harsh. Sorry you had to read that Pace Law.

Look, take everything with a grain of salt. Family law cases engender uniquely hard feelings. But there’s also the possibility that Harder has found another judge he can really work with.

Full order on the next page.

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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

After Washington adopted diploma privilege, it became hard to believe that Oregon would cling to an in-person bar exam. The two states are too professionally intertwined to not look to the other for guidance on best practices and crafting COVID licensure procedures turned out not to be an exception.

The deans of the law schools joined the cause for diploma privilege and yesterday the Oregon Supreme Court agreed, voting 4-3 to waive the bar exam requirement on an emergency basis for Oregon law school graduates and ABA-accredited law school grads where the bar passage rate is over 86 percent.

Those left in the cold under that model will have access to an online exam in October that would not count for portability. One of the smartest features of the Washington model was maintaining a fall UBE administration for people who need portability with the expectation that most folks won’t need to take it because they’re satisfied with local admission. That would allow the state to run an appropriately distanced exam and cater to everyone’s situation. As of now, Oregon isn’t following that path.

Still, welcome news for graduates who were up against it with a state still mulling a July in-person administration until yesterday.

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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

We invite you for a webinar on July 9th at 12 p.m. ET/ 9 a.m. PT to explore Lex Machina’s new Federal Torts Litigation module.  Legal analytics can help build litigation strategy and develop your litigation plan.

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Even though COVID-19 continues to rock the legal world (yes, coronavirus austerity measures are still happening), not every firm is cutting back. Indeed, some Biglaw firms are going the opposite direction and hiring more attorneys, pandemic be damned.

As reported by Law.com, Lowenstein Sandler is one of those firms, and they are even holding (socially distant) interviews in managing partner Gary Wingens’s Livingston, New Jersey, backyard. And they’re looking to hiring in a number of different practice areas:

Wingens, whose firm added a new head of life sciences transactions in late April, views the current moment as the start of a brand new economic cycle. That means a focus not just on the “practice of the moment,” but those expected to grow in coming years, like privacy and cybersecurity, investment management and technology.

“We’re trying to figure out where that proverbial puck is going, rather than where we are today in this somewhat surreal work world,” he said.

Cozen O’Connor is another firm going on a lateral hiring spree. Since the beginning of March, they’ve added 25 new attorneys, eight of whom are partners, mostly in the transactional and class-action litigation spaces,

Haynes & Boone is also in growth mode, adding 39 attorneys in 2020 with a focus on health care, IP, and fund formation practices. Eleven of those hires are partners, the most recent of whom are life sciences attorneys, and the firm is using the tumultuous times to their advantage:

“We’ve stuck with the plans that we’ve had, and we’ve been able to maximize those,” [Managing partner Tim Powers] said. “Any time there is a market disruption and you are a beacon of stability within that disruption, you can show that stability.”

Sound finances are critical, too. Haynes & Boone had its best first quarter in the firm’s history, according to Powers, who added that the firm, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary, was already looking to grow moving into 2020.

Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo’s managing partner Bob Bodian also expressed that the pandemic was a time for his firm to surge forward, and not be conservative:

Mintz, which announced the hire of a former Boies Schiller & Flexner partner Monday, had the benefit of closing its fiscal year March 31. According to Bodian, the firm beat its budget for equity partner profits by 25%. That allowed the firm to increase hold backs while keeping distributions above what would have been expected at budget. This follows a five-year spell where the firm is up 50% in both profits and revenues.

“We sort of hit the pandemic running,” said Bodian, who promised several more announcements in the coming weeks.

So despite how bleak the legal landscape may seem, there are definitely some firms out there taking advantage of COVID-19.

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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

The global pandemic has forced many legal professionals to confront a new reality — one in which many were unprepared for a transition from the office to working from home. It is becoming clear that the pandemic will have long-lasting impacts on how many legal professionals perform their work. Upon closer inspection, some of the changes that we have seen in recent months exemplify the transformation that has already been underway in the legal industry for some time, and that now — as a result of the pandemic — has been accelerated.

Wolters Kluwer recently conducted an independent survey — the 2020 Wolters Kluwer Future Ready Lawyer Survey: Performance Drivers — to assess future readiness and resilience in the legal sector. With insights from 700 legal professionals across the U.S. and nine European countries, the survey examines ongoing trends in the legal sector and how well-prepared organizations are for the future. While the survey was conducted before the pandemic took its toll in Europe and the United States, its findings are key to understanding the impact that the pandemic is having — and will continue to have — on legal professionals.

The report covers five areas related to the industry’s performance drivers: Top Trends and Readiness across the Legal Profession, Driving Successful Client-Firm Relationships, Changing Legal Departments, Changing Law Firms, and Technology Investments and Advantages. Some of the most enlightening findings included the following:

• Overall, fewer than a third of lawyers believe their organization is very prepared to keep pace with changes in the legal market.
• Lawyers predict pressure from a series of trends expected to impact their organizations over the next three years, and technology tops the list.
• The difficulty of change management and leadership resistance to change is the biggest barrier to change for law firms (53%) and corporate legal departments (65%).

These results bring to light the significant gaps that legal professionals are facing when it comes to adopting technology and preparing for change, and underlying those gaps, there also seems to be a clear need for understanding how to apply technology to solve problems within an organization or a firm. Those who are not already leveraging technology may find the data somewhat daunting — but addressing the lack of adoption doesn’t have to start with becoming an expert in artificial intelligence overnight (in fact, it shouldn’t). When it comes to tech adoption, starting small can open the door for scaling adoption to larger systems or processes within your organization in the long run.

Identify The Problem

It’s completely understandable to feel overwhelmed by all the technology options available and the intense pressure for change. So where should one start? For those looking to improve their organization’s ability to adopt technology, it’s important to first identify problems or pain points within your organization that need solving. Those problems can be prioritized so that solutions can be researched. It may also be beneficial to think about problems in a framework.

Here’s one possible framework to consider:

• Network and Infrastructure: The underlying technology that provides connectivity and services to an organization has taken on new meaning with the pandemic. Cybersecurity, reliable video call technology, online access to resources, and secure client communication all come to the forefront. A reliable infrastructure is foundational to other technology enhancements.
• Back Office: Time tracking, accounting, billing, contract management, utilization, budget tracking, and forecasting are all examples of back office functions. Inefficiencies in back office functions can impact productivity, profitability, and client relationships.
• Front Office: New client development, marketing effectiveness, competitive intelligence, responding to RFPs, and other customer-facing activities can be considered front office functions. Effective front office processes can lead to more business and more profitable business.
• Practice Solutions: The core mission of legal professionals is to deliver legal advice and to help drive positive outcomes. Technology can be applied to provide new and impactful insights.

Concepts like artificial intelligence, data analytics, and visualization suddenly feel less overwhelming if they are applied to specific problem areas and pain points.

Perhaps a firm might apply artificial intelligence to create timesheet entries and draft bills that leverage phone records, activity in applications like MS-Word, and e-mail correspondence. Data analytics might be applied to benchmark prior engagements to ensure proposals and bids are more likely to be profitable. Visualization tools like Tableau might be applied to court or internal information to help advise a client on why settling a dispute might now be a good option.

Frameworks like the one above can reduce anxiety while helping with focus, prioritization, and understanding of technology alternatives.

Research The Alternatives

Depending on the problem or challenge you’re solving for, there may be several kinds of tools to choose from. It’s important to do the right amount of homework and to consider alternatives to find something that meets your specific needs, not only for functionality, but for demonstrating value. In addition to considering the technical solution, consider what success might look like in the future state. Will users need training? Will the solution simplify processes? Will the solution change the day-to-day work for certain individuals? Successful projects are not just about technology: they also affect people and processes, and it is human nature to resist change, especially when the reasons for the change aren’t understood. Ask potential vendors questions about their insights from other customer’s implementations. And when evaluating alternatives, consider how a technology vendor might help you with creating a justification and how they can help ensure the implementation of the solution is successful.

Solicit Buy-In

We know from this year’s Future Ready Lawyer survey results that change management and leadership resistance to change are some of the biggest barriers to tech adoption within the legal industry — so this part isn’t always easy. But in light of the disruption fostered by the pandemic, now may be the right time to advocate for adopting new solutions and systems to bring efficiency and value to your organization. When making your case to leadership and stakeholders, make sure to demonstrate the impact that the solution will have for your organization — whether it be system efficiency, productivity, profitability, or improved client outcomes. Decide how the firm might measure the impact of the proposed solution and what is needed for success — and be sure to explain the anticipated results of the solution and the implications on people and processes. It is also important to solicit advocacy from leadership to help support buy-in from stakeholders, to the benefits of the solution, and to support the necessary changes required for success.

By taking on steps like these, firms can have more confidence in how they apply technology to problems. It’s important to remember that technology is not an end, but a means to an end (albeit, a very important means to an end in light of the survey’s findings). It can add value, create efficiencies, and provide pathways to higher profit, performance, and better client service, but only if applied to specific-use cases. To prepare your organization for the future, you can simply start by identifying — and solving for — the pain points you have today.

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Ken Crutchfield is Vice President and General Manager of Legal Markets at Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S., a leading provider of information, business intelligence, regulatory and legal workflow solutions. Ken has more than three decades of experience as a leader in information and software solutions across industries. He can be reached at ken.crutchfield@wolterskluwer.com.