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Have just recovered from organizing a recent event at DLA Piper – Building the Business Case for Tech Skills – and I have been encouraged to received some really positive comments from the attendees.  To quote one…. “A very informative and powerful session, thank you so much for organizing this.  It really hit the spot with our current challenges and what we want to achieve here in order to get the full ROI on both our people and products.”

There is no doubt that anyone who works at a law firm is aware of some of the important skills gaps that exist.  Law firms invest vast sums in technology yet lawyers in particular tend to be resistant to attending training sessions – for perfectly valid reasons.  As one of our contributors said “unfortunately classroom training sessions are seen as a forum for displaying ignorance” and “lawyers are clever people and do not like to admit they are not confident with the technology on their desktop/tablet/smartphone”.  Historically secretaries were expected to deal with technology queries, or a call to the Help Desk would suffice but now that secretary:fee earner ratios are so high and Help Desk calls cost time and money for both caller and recipient it is clear that things must change. Along came LTC4– a neater way to describe the Legal Technology Core Competency Certification Coalition! The recent event focused strongly on the benefits to law firms of belonging to this not-for-profit membership organisation.  Dedicated to improving both lawyer and support staff technology skills in a realistic, workflow-based way LTC4 is providing its more than 100 member firms with a simple framework where skills can be assessed, gaps identified and dealt with in whatever is the most appropriate way.

Classroom training has had to be cut back to the minimum and must be totally relevant to the individual’s working practices. Into the mix come interactive assessment tools like Capensys’ Learning in Action which identify where knowledge is lacking so that it can be addressed, then there are context sensitive help tools which link to mini-elearning snippets so that people can get help and learn at the same time.

Most important is the need for those who are involved in delivering training, in whatever format is thought to be best, to have a good understanding of what the business needs its people to achieve, and what the individual needs to know in order to do their job effectively.  This may sound simple but that research, conducted with all the key stakeholders, can make a huge difference.  Anyone who is involved in skills improvement, and in the development of their people, should be business focused.  A recent survey conducted by Neochange showed how improved efficiency with technology directly affects the bottom line and nowhere more so than in a law firm where time pressures are so great (see above).

Of course you know what I am going to say – it is very risky! However I am not convinced that the majority of firms have really addressed this issue. With each new technological innovation the risks increase. Working with multiple applications, integrated or not; working remotely and on a wide range of devices with different levels of security; dealing with data which may be shared in deal rooms or in the cloud…the modern lawyer needs to stay abreast of all this and still do the day job.

Addressing the issue of technological competence has been fairly low down on many firms’ priority list. Lawyers don’t tend to think in terms of applications – as in Word, Outlook, DMS, etc. They think about what they do, how they work, the processes they follow to find, create, navigate, amend, submit, share and review documents. They often struggle with the volume of emails they receive and send, let alone filing them in an easily retrievable way. Searching for documents and emails is a daily chore, and with less support from secretaries now that the ratios lawyer:secretary or lawyer:paralegal have increased, this can take costly time if they are not doing it efficiently and can be a serious risk if the documents are incorrectly filed or lost.

Clients are demanding more transparency with the bills they receive, even when there is a fixed fee agreement. Corporate counsel are increasingly asking their existing and potential outside counsel to prove how tech savvy and efficient they really are!

The quality of documentation, its formatting and the ease with which it can be amended by other parties, is very important. It would be great if all UK law firms adopted the UK Document Excellence Group’s Standard Styles so that style names, at the very least, are consistent. Ensuring that a lawyer understands what a style actually is, and how using them can facilitate so many document features like cross references, tables of contents and other links, is critical training which should be happening in the law school as well as within the law firm. This would reduce the risk of poorly formatted documents which get corrupted and cause delay, late filings, etc.

Ask any law firm IT trainer whether today’s trainees are tech savvy and he or she will tell you…”yes, but only with Instagram, Facebook, Hotmail and Whatsapp. They may know how to type in Word but understanding the more complex features which make legal documents work properly is generally unfamiliar territory!”

So this is a plea for law firm CIOs, IT Managers, HR and L&D to take technology skills seriously, to include them in all individuals’ professional development plans and demand that all staff – lawyers and their support staff – achieve an acceptable level of competence. Then join LTC4 (Legal Technology Core Competency Certification Coalition) to see how this can be done (www.ltc4.org) and share the ideas of the more than 100 other law firms who have decided to address this serious issue. The LTC4 competencies are all workflow based and cover everything from Time & Billing to Managing Documents and Emails…there are 10 in all including the latest which deals with e-Discovery and is being launched next week at LegalTech in New York.

Anyone working in a UK law firm will be aware that in the modern office it is no longer enough to be a good lawyer, paralegal or secretary/P.A., you need to understand the technology on your desktop and be able to use it competently.  The time spent undertaking a task is critical and nowhere is this more important than in a law firm.  No-one can afford to take excessive amounts of time locating documents or emails; navigating around them; making amendments and storing them in a secure, stable environment where they can be viewed by everyone involved with a client’s matter and so on.

Technology is central to everyone’s working world and many clients are now asking for confirmation that their legal advisers are working efficiently.  Added to this are the risks associated with lack of knowledge – particularly with regard to information security. Law firms know that they have a responsibility to ensure that their clients’ confidential data is stored in a secure environment. The biggest risk is their staff who must understand the importance of protecting that data at all times – in and out of the office – so they should be going through training on best practices in handling firm information and formal security awareness training to avoid data breaches and damaging publicity for the firm.

The SRA is ending its traditional insistence on a minimum number of hours of CPD (Continuous Professional Development) and the focus now is on demonstrating competence in both legal and technology skills.  Lawyers will be required to prove that they are able to apply their knowledge effectively.

Trainees who join a firm without understanding the sort of systems they are likely to encounter will be at a disadvantage. Unfortunately many believe themselves to be tech-savvy without knowing anything about document and email management systems; e-discovery; time and billing systems; security, etc. Being adept at Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat yet never having used Outlook properly or formatted a legal document in Word using styles means that trainees may need help with fairly basic tasks before they can be useful members of a team. Some forward-thinking law schools have recognized this are including technology modules in the curriculum.

Many firms and law schools who are conscious of the requirements to be more technologically skilled (and who wish to be able to prove this to their clients and to the SRA) have joined LTC4 – the Legal Technology Core Competency Certification Coalition (www.ltc4.org) – which clearly identifies skills that lawyers and future lawyers should have in order to be able to support their clients and it awards an industry standard certification.

The LTC4 certification process has spawned various evaluation and certification methods – all of which make sure that lawyers really are proficient in IT. These range from personal check-lists, multiple choice questions and e-learning simulations to tools which work in the live application and allow for multiple ways of accomplishing a task (Capensys’ Learning in Action (LiA) is a good example) and these provide a clear picture of how well a lawyer or student knows their applications.

Law firms and law schools who recognize how important it is for lawyers to be technologically proficient are gaining competitive advantage over those who do not!