Extract from Jennifer M Ramovs article, “Why Legal Software Selection Fails Before Implementation Begins.”
Most of the time, the evaluation and decision rests with whoever controls the budget. Even if a small committee is created for selection, it is assumed that everyone else will be fine with the new system. That’s where problems begin.
Eighty-three percent of midsize firms use three or more tools to manage a single client matter. One in three rely on six or more. Every one of those tools was selected by someone.
In my nearly two decades as a management and technology consultant for law firms, I’d estimate that the right group of stakeholders were involved in the decision to adopt a new tool only about 30% of the time. Today, I’d put that closer to 50 or 60%—but that improvement hasn’t changed the impact of not having the right people in the room during selection.
It still shows up on go-live day, when a paralegal who processes medical records requests says the new system has no field for the one step his job depends on.
