To help firms select technology that meets ongoing needs, Today’s Family Lawyer invited four experts to share their top tips on identifying and implementing the right combination of software. In the first of a three-part series, the experts explore how a fragmented decision-making process and an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality can lead to technology that overlaps and is under-developed within law firms.
With thanks to contributors David Baskerville, consultant at Baskerville Drummond, Mark Garnish, COO and co-founder at Xperate, Tom Lyes, founder and CEO of Tom Lyes Consultancy, and Laura Wood, legal technology specialist at Birketts LLP.
Law firms face an unenviable task when it comes to selecting technology thanks to the proliferation of providers in the marketplace. At the risk of over-simplifying (and possibly offending), many lawyers are simply not equipped for the job. Just as lawyers are accused of using legalese, the same can be said of technology providers. Technical descriptions of market-leading solutions and software functionality leave many us feeling a confused and overwhelmed.
How can we identify what combination of which technology is going to best serve our business? Even for those with experience, navigating technological waters can be tricky.
Score your suppliers
The starting point is to undertake a thorough review of your existing technology stack, says David Baskerville.
“Start with an honest audit,” he suggests. “Not a sales-led ‘health check’ from your incumbent supplier(s), but an independent assessment of what you have, what it costs, and whether it still supports the firm’s operational and strategic objectives.
“In my experience, most firms have never fully catalogued their technology stack, let alone evaluated whether each system is delivering value. We regularly find firms paying for unused modules, maintaining infrastructure designed for a pre-cloud era, or working around performance issues that staff have simply normalised over time.”
Tom Lyes suggests creating a list of every supplier in each department and assigning an ‘owner’ to the relationship with the supplier. Within a single department there are likely to be different owners for different relationships, he says.
“Once that’s in place, introduce a simple supplier scorecard. Score where the relationship is now, how well that supplier is helping you manage risk, and how well-prepared they are for what’s coming,” he says.
“That score gives you a really good starting point: where are my problems, which relationships aren’t delivering what we need, have we got too many suppliers, do we need to consolidate?
“Most firms can’t answer those questions today because they’re going on gut feel and the words of team members rather than data, which means they end up reactive rather than proactive.”
A constantly evolving process
Laura Wood has recently been appointed to a newly created ‘legal technology specialist’ role at Birketts. She says the selection of technology in legal firms can often sit with different individuals, shaped by organisational structure, expertise and internal priorities.
The role has been created to work with the legal and IT teams to continuously review and optimise their technology landscape and Laura agrees firms often adopt an, “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” approach. This can be problematic as processes evolve, products develop, firms scale, and regulatory requirements change, Laura warns.
“As a result, tech stacks can quickly become outdated. In practice, reviewing and rationalising is challenging. IT teams are frequently resource-constrained, and legal teams often prioritise workarounds over process improvement due to competing pressures.”
It’s an issue Mark Garnish also experiences in his work at Xperate. “We see many firms struggling not because they’ve chosen the wrong tools, but because their technology estates have evolved without structured ownership or review.
“The result is fragmentation – multiple systems solving overlapping problems with limited integration. Firms need a more structured approach built around three principles: understand, optimise, then transform. This starts with auditing existing platforms against core business processes such as the matter lifecycle, finance, and document workflows.”
Bridge the knowledge gaps
Auditing will also help firms understand the capability of their software, says Lyes.
“Most case management systems have features that the majority of users don’t know exist, usually because original training was generic and there’s been no refresh since. Bolt-ons are worse: a firm signs up, gets a webinar at launch, the internal champion leaves, and the knowledge walks out the door with them. Release notes go straight to the spam folder. The result is firms paying for capability they aren’t using, while simultaneously evaluating new tools that would duplicate what they already own.”
Losing that knowledge is a critical point of failure for firms, Wood says, and results in knowledge gaps. “This affects both the technical configuration of the system and the users’ awareness of its functionality. Fully understanding and maximising software takes time and often requires creative thinking about its potential applications.
“However, time, capacity and budget constraints frequently limit this level of exploration. Greater collaboration from the outset, bringing together legal, IT, key stakeholders and other relevant teams, not only improves implementation outcomes but also ensures knowledge is shared more effectively, reducing dependency on individuals and strengthening long-term capability.”
Not understanding the software’s capability, or worse, firms thinking they know more than they actually do, is a consistent theme across the IT reviews Baskerville conducts.
“Staff often describe platforms as ‘clunky’ or ‘overly complex’, he says. “But when we investigate further, the issue is rarely the software alone. More often, the problem is a lack of configuration, training and operational adoption.”
Avoid duplication
Garnish believes that, while many firms will be using the core functionality of their technology well, the more advanced functionality – particularly around workflow, automation, reporting and integration – tends to be underutilised. In many cases, he says, it’s not used at all.
“This is rarely due to shortcomings in the technology itself. Instead, it is more often a result of limited training, lack of ongoing engagement with vendors, or insufficient internal ownership of system optimisation. Over time, this creates a perception that systems are incapable of meeting evolving needs, prompting firms to look externally for new solutions.”
And where needs are unmet, firms will often go back out into the marketplace for solutions that end up overlapping with each other, creating duplication.
Baskerville explains: “It is increasingly common to find multiple products doing essentially the same job, for example search, AML, source-of-funds and wealth checks, onboarding and identity verification.
“Historically, firms purchased point solutions to address specific gaps; over time, many of those products expanded into adjacent functional areas. Without a structured review, firms can end up paying for overlapping capabilities, maintaining unnecessary integrations, and training users in multiple ways to do the same task.
“A focused assessment of end-to-end workflows and product coverage will typically highlight where one platform can be used more effectively and where other tools can be retired, streamlining the stack and delivering immediate cost savings.”
Configuration gaps
According to Garnish, the required capability already exists in many cases but is under utilised due to configuration gaps, lack of training or limited awareness.
All the experts we spoke to agree that technology should be treated as an ongoing management concern, rather than a one-off project.
Birketts has made a strategic decision to position Wood’s role at the intersection of legal and IT, enabling alignment between both functions and driving coordinated, strategic improvements.
Baskerville highlights how firms routinely review insurance, compliance and financial risk exposure and says technology should be reviewed with the same regularity to prevent years of unnecessary cost and technical debt.
Lyes suggests organising quarterly business reviews with the top five or 10 suppliers, either by spend or by importance to the firm, so you’re not firefighting next time round.
And, as Garnish concludes, significant value can often be achieved by revisiting and better configuring what is already in place.
The message from all our experts is clear: only by properly understanding what firms already have can they make informed decisions about what they need next.
Next week: Who is making decisions about technology and implementation, and are they the ‘right’ people?
