Are you a low-tech lawyer?

Why is it that lawyers and technology can’t seem to get along? I mean, when was the last time that you heard of a solicitor asking his/her colleague what the conversion rate was on the ad-words campaign designed to drive specific traffic to the specialist corporate law/litigation/conveyancing blog, which also connects to the law firm’s website and/or allows a prospective client to schedule a Skype call using an electronic, cloud-based, diary? I may be wrong, but I presume the answer is never. If this is the case, then that answer is wholly unacceptable.

I most certainly am not the first person to look at the legal profession (of which I am a part, I hasten to add) and ask, "Why are we, as an industry, not using cutting-edge technology more frequently and efficiently?". At last year’s LegalTech West Coast Conference, D Casey Flaherty, in-house counsel for Kia Motors, said that “many lawyers are technologically incompetent and this incompetence leads to wasted time and money”.

Flaherty was armed with evidence, having administered a "tech" test to nine outside counsel law firms. The test focused on simple tasks using Microsoft Word, Excel and Adobe Acrobat was designed to take one hour to complete. On average it took each of the lawyers five hours to complete. The problem with this is that thousands upon thousands of pounds (and dollars) are being wasted by law firms and lawyers who refuse to appreciate that technology should be the highest billing partner in your law firm.

In the world we live in, Mr Technology is the guy who doubles your competitor’s average billings, networks insatiably and wins all of the company golf tournaments. It gets better – Mr Technology is desperate to work for you, in your law firm, in your department. He wants to let you go home at 5:30pm, while he works through the night.

So, now you are wondering who this Mr Technology chap is. Well, he isn’t just one person. There are a few Mr Technologies. We are one such Mr Technology – Legal Proposals. We find new legal work for solicitors online and connect solicitors with these new clients.

Gone are the days of solicitors needing to spend hours attending stuffy networking events, talking to people they don’t know, in the hope that one of them may be prepared to pass some work their way. Our site allows solicitors to find new clients from their computer, tablet or phone at any time of day and anywhere in the world. Through our dedicated marketplace, solicitors can review some brief details about a client’s matter and choose whether to take on the work. We are trying to totally reinvent the model of how clients and solicitors find each other. Wouldn’t it be great if Mr Smith, the conveyancing solicitor, could log on to Legal Proposals from home, quote for five or six prospective clients’ conveyancing work, take care of his fee-earning for the day, log off and then wake up the next day to find that two or three of those prospective clients want him to handle the work?

We are not the only organisation seeking to shake up the legal industry. The 2014 Apprentice contestant and solicitor, Lauren Riley, is looking to change how solicitors and clients communicate with each other. Her creation, The Link App, allows solicitors to keep their clients up to date with the progress of their legal matter, reducing the need for constant phone calls, emails and letters. It allows solicitors and clients to access essential case information 24/7.

These are but two examples of innovative products available for solicitors to use in their day-to-day practice to reduce wasted time and cost. There are many others – for example, SendGrid is an excellent tool for running highly targeted email campaigns to clients and prospective clients.

Some forward-thinking law firms have already adopted technology into their daily business operations. We take our hats off to them – these are the law firms that will run their competitors out of business and prosper in a highly digital world, where customers demand to interact with their services providers digitally. To those not quite there yet, our advice is to get going as they have a lot of catching up to do. Thankfully, it’s really not that hard.

Mark Needham is the co-founder of Legal Proposals and a practising solicitor in the City of London.