15 August 2024
Technology and the law.
Technological innovation touches all aspects of legal operations, and the impact of AI is difficult to monitor and measure. We spoke to Shelley, a US-based Legal Operations Manager, about her views on integrating technology into the workplace.
FF: Some people think of legal ops managers as change makers. Do you find encouraging teams to be open to new tech challenging?
ST: I’m totally open to tech – anything that will make us more efficient. But I’m mindful that tech, in and of itself, is not the solution. It’s the people, the processes, and the technology together.
Some people are old school and prefer older versions of technology. But we need to adopt our clients’ preferences for communication. We must meet the clients where they are to facilitate change management.
There’s always a learning curve and a preferred use of a particular technology or tool.
FF: Is it difficult when people within your organisation hold opposing views on tech?
ST: I understand that technological evolution might not be someone else’s priority. Right now, colleagues might think, ‘The manual systems aren’t broken and are working fine, so why do we need to do this?’ But our organisation is about innovation and pushing the boundaries of basic research and science. So, we need to be true to our core values.
However, we shouldn’t get in the way of the business. At the end of the day, we really must listen to our internal clients and facilitate their work processes. Our organisation has an internal joke: if we can move the needle one millimetre at a time, we’ll take it.
FF: Has a specific technology or software been a game changer that helped move the needle?
ST: Knowledge management – having a source of truth for the team internally and externally for anyone else within the organisation – has been helpful. Automation has been helpful, too. Anything that we can use to automate our responses or track email correspondence has been fantastic.
I need to delve more into AI and natural language processing, but I envision us taking advantage of that. CLMs take up a huge chunk of Legal’s time. So, I like any tool that helps us minimise administrative work and provide transparent, live, up-to-date communications for our team members. It means we’re all on the same page live. Whether we’re reporting on KPIs or finance – the data is always current. Those innovations have been very helpful over the years. The reporting tools, live data, data integration, and anything that automates administrative processes – that’s technology working for you.
