Shepherd and Wedderburn's IT team roll out Definely firm-wide
Deploying LegalTech: an IT perspective on working with Definely
“Some tech vendors are very switched on, others are just woefully underprepared”, said Steve Dalgleish, Head of Technology, as we spoke to him about his experience introducing new LegalTech at Shepherd and Wedderburn, a leading UK law firm headquartered in Edinburgh.
IT teams are the gateway by which new technology is introduced to a firm. Given the increase in emphasis on the use of LegalTech in law, IT teams play a significant role in evaluating what technology is ultimately purchased by the firm. At the same time, IT teams find themselves frustrated with the inconsistent approach among LegalTech vendors on how to engage and work with IT teams, with some much more mature than others.
This case study draws on our experience with Shepherd and Wedderburn in implementing Definely to draw out key lessons in ensuring a seamless experience for IT teams when onboarding new technology.
“The deployment was very straightforward for us. Package it up in Intune, press the button, and there it is. We can see it successfully deployed. From that perspective, brilliant.”
Increasing scrutiny on new solutions
As technology becomes embedded in the law firm service delivery model, including its use on live matters and on client information, the level of scrutiny applied to any new technology will only increase. Business cases now form only one part of the ROI equation, with other considerations including:
- The processing of data that may pose a risk to the firm, typically identified during a data protection impact assessment
- Understanding why data is processed to ensure the legitimate interest threshold is satisfied
- Information Security (InfoSec) focused on understanding the protocols employed by the vendor to identify, assess, mitigate or prevent InfoSec risks
- Security checks and protocols
- AI checks (coming soon)
- Ongoing support and maintenance provided post-sale and the implementation burden required by internal IT teams
The number of IT projects being considered each year is unlikely to decrease, nor is it likely that there will be a cap on the number of projects run in any given year. However, if vendors want to be seriously considered and avoid project delays, they need to engage IT early in the process, providing them with the information they require in a format that is acceptable and pre-empting any questions and concerns around security, ongoing support and maintenance post-trial.
Streamlining the process with IT
No matter how good the innovation is, or how on-side lawyers are, vendors often don’t appreciate the sheer lift from IT to get new technology deployed and adopted within a firm. The following four steps can assist with engaging IT and streamlining necessary processes.
1. Understand business value
Any project undertaken at Shepherd and Wedderburn starts with a project sponsor, often a senior person within the firm. They are responsible for working with the relevant teams to compile the business case and is typically someone who represents a department that will ultimately be a user of the technology. It’s at this stage, IT will start to get a sense of what the product does and the associated business value, including:
Is this going to help us?
Is it going to get in the way?
Is it ever going to be used?
2. Business case alignment
The IT team will review the business case put forward by the project sponsor to ensure it aligns with the firm’s current technology and IT strategy. Being in front of IT early, including in initial demonstrations of the product, helped Definely understand what was important to them and certainly improved our chances of passing the first hurdle.
3. Information gathering
Once satisfied of the utility of the product, and that it fits with the current strategy, they proceed with a detailed security and risk audit. Contrary to popular belief amongst vendors, this is not only a checkbox exercise. Often equal weighting is placed on the outcome of this audit and the business value. If the tech doesn’t fit with the landscape or requirements can’t be met around security, for example, IT will push back, and it could be a deal breaker. Steve’s team ensured Definely, and any technology vendor, meets Shepherd and Wedderburn’s high security standards, through:
- Third-party automated checks on vendor assets
- Qualitative assessments around policies
- Standard information gathering (SIG) to assess general IT security posture
Vendors can help to make information gathering seamless during security and risk audits by answering core SIG questions upfront, making a trust centre available to house certifications, architecture diagrams, commonly asked questions and any other information valued by IT teams (which can be understood from previous requests).
4. Convince them of the future
It was our job to paint the picture and convince them of what the relationship looks like going forward. By bringing our customer success team into the conversation during the buying process, we were able to show them what life looks like as one of our customers, including training, ongoing support and maintenance offered, product analytics and adoption metrics, etc.
Deploying Definely for immediate value to lawyers
By working with Steve and the IT team at Shepherd and Wedderburn from early on, Definely’s roll-out has been off to a great start. Because Definely doesn’t require significant disruption to workflows, the firm was able to deliver something to make lawyers happy while still focusing on bigger projects.
Although wary of vendors that make promises around ease of deployment, having been burnt before, Steve found Definely incredibly straightforward. Following a short and successful pilot, it was full steam ahead. It only required one person in Steve’s team to test, package and deploy Definely firm-wide. The entire process was completed within just a few weeks.
The future with Definely
From an IT perspective, “silence is golden” as it allows IT to be more proactive and focus on improvement projects. To date, no support tickets have been raised regarding our products, meaning Definely isn’t creating additional work for an already stretched team. Our customer success team regularly meets with the team at Shepherd and Wedderburn to discuss adoption and usage and hear suggestions on new features and enhancements, which ultimately improve the Definely offering and contribute to the high confidence lawyers have with Definely’s products.
Adoption, supported by training from the Definely team, has been very good. The team will continue focusing on adoption and Definely helps track this. Having experienced a very straightforward initial deployment, the team is confident they’d be able to deploy updates through their standard IT change process. Having built a high degree of confidence in the firm, the team would be very willing to look at new products as Definely continues to evolve its offering.
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