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Technology: Friend, Enemy or Frenemy?

By Timothy B. Corcoran
July 29, 2013

A long-time conundrum for law firm partners has been whether to embrace tools and technology that improve efficiency, when doing so has the tendency to dilute revenues. Said another way, if a partner's income is primarily based on billing for time, then any tools that reduce the time needed to complete a billable task will reduce the partner's earnings.'

There are multiple problems with this thinking: for one, clients expect that experienced lawyers will, over time, pursue efficiencies that will lower legal fees. Secondly, anyone not living under a rock knows that clients are already pushing back on fees in all practices, so the default stance of “do nothing and make the same income” has given way to “do nothing and accelerate the pace at which clients will push back on fees.” And finally, can any competent professional in any field realistically assert to her clients that tools and technology to drive efficiencies are a bad idea?

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