A remarkable, new survey was conducted by Wolters Kluwer called The Future Ready Lawyer. The survey’s over 700 respondents were from across Europe and the United States, working at law firms, legal departments, and business service firms. The survey attempted to answer some broad questions about the rapidly changing technological and informational landscape that legal professionals have to navigate. The results are quite interesting:

About one-third of law firms believe they are very well-prepared to keep pace with new changes in the legal landscape; that means a lot of firms are not feeling comfortable with this new pace. Even more interesting, however, is that firms the survey deemed technology-leading (firms that adopt new technologies quickly) are much more likely to feel well-prepared. A full half of them responded that they feel very well-prepared for this new pace.

More than half of firms anticipate increasing the amount that they will invest in new technologies over the next few years but the reasons why firms might hesitate to incorporate these new technologies were incredibly revealing: 36% of firms cited a lack of knowledge, understanding and/or skills related to new technologies as reasons for their reluctance to pick them up.

What these signals are that firms are comfortable spending money on new technologies but are worried that the changes will be too complex for them to keep up with. That’s a bit startling - after all, these new technologies are made to make legal work easier, not more difficult. There may well be a bit of inertia at play here; the upfront costs of adopting new technology, in terms of effort, can be quite steep. What’s more, if you adopt a new technology, only to find that it’s become obsolete a few years later, you may be reticent to adopt new technology again.

Solving this issue isn’t an easy task and it’s one that needs a multifaceted solution. Law firms may begin to dedicate more resources toward researching and teaching about new technology, perhaps even dedicating an entire department to the cause. We may equally begin to see more CLE courses dedicated to keeping attorneys up to date on the latest technologies. Dialogue between firms is important; when you have a lot of friends in the industry, it’s always a good idea to strike up conversations about what technological innovations they’ve incorporated and how they’ve panned out over time.

What The Future Ready Lawyer tells us is that firms adopting new technologies early feel more prepared for the future and are seeing a positive ROI. That seems to indicate that firms that don’t adapt will be left behind and that it’s profitable for firms to become early adopters. At Attorneys on Demand, we’ve played our part in leveraging technology to improve the workflow of law firms. Should you need an appearance attorney, you can use our services to find one quickly. That way, even if you’re caught off guard by an emergency, you can have someone appear for your client. That’s the power of new tech.