Canadian Lawyer

w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m M A Y 2 0 1 6 19 in remote Africa, Jason had the opportu- nity to put books together that would last for the benefit of many generations using a form of polysynthetic paper that could withstand the extreme heat. The primary subject matter of the books being printed on this technologically marvellous paper? A manual of best practices, primarily using pictures given the literacy rate, and explaining why one should not defecate in the river that is also used for drinking water. Keep in mind there was no electric- ity or running water in the region. The differences in culture between a hospital and the remote regions of Africa are that in one instance a simple tech- nology reminded the highly educated professionals to do simple things. In the other instance, a sophisticated technol- ogy reminded impoverished individuals to stop doing something that is destruc- tive to their own health — which was not necessarily within their purview of knowledge. The point is this: Innovation doesn't have to be a moonshot and, in fact, there is an argument to be made that having to rally immense resources, capital, and the best and brightest minds to always swing for the fences is not necessarily a sustainable practice. It is often difficult to garner the necessary political will to make such heavy resource investments. What matters is simply getting some- thing delivered that is helpful to the end user, client, or consumer. In legal, there is as much room for improvement as there is for innovation. In the law firm world, the business model has been pretty simple for the last 50 years. Lawyers record their time and bill a rate based on the number of hours worked. In addition to the legal work itself, "great client service" also traditionally meant providing timely reporting to clients at a regular and pre- dictable cadence. This means an e-mail or memo every couple of weeks, or at least once a quarter. That's not meant to be a facetious remark. Let's take a very simple request from a client. What has been billed and what is in the work in progress — docketed, but not yet invoiced? Where are we on the file(s) for which I am paying you thousands (or millions) of dollars? Many firms would struggle to give you an immediate answer even within a few days. How can this be in 2016? The technology exists to record work effort, in real time, with data that automatically flows to a billing and invoice system. On top of that, pretty much all firms have the software and use it. The issue is that fee-earning lawyers and staff do not enter their time entries with the necessary amount of discipline as measured by regularly updating and properly formatting. In many cases, law- yers hand off slips of paper to an assist- ant to enter their time. Again, that is not a facetious remark. The accounting and billing depart- ment then has to "clean up" all of the docket entries so they are presentable. In many cases, a lead lawyer will review the pre-bill and "write down" or "write off " extraneous time they feel can't be billed; often junior associate or student time. This "process" is repeated hundreds of times within a billing period with little ability to provide ad hoc and up-to-date reporting. Again, the question is simply "what is the status of my file in relation to the amount of money being spent?" Culture and (poor) process trump good technology, even for people who know what their behaviours should be. Imagine knowing that you shouldn't poop in the river but choose to do so anyway. Unlike medical staff, a checklist isn't going to help legal professionals remember to properly enter their time. It's already someone's job in the firm to chase after all the delinquents who have not entered their time prior to the billing cut-off. What if the client could see the prog- ress on his or her file in real time, not just what's been billed but also what has been docketed as work in progress? That information should be available at any time, without any need to contact the firm. All that would be needed would be to give access to the client into a legal project management system tied to the time and billing system. If members of the firm knew the client could look in on the matter at any time (which is argu- ably their right), the quality of the pro- cess around docketing would be greatly improved. (Disclosure: Jason is part of a product management team that delivers this very feature.) The technology pro- viding access for clients to docketing data is not overly complex and the data really belongs to the client. It's not a dra- matic resource innovation that's needed, it's a cultural one. Even if tied to fixed fees or value- based billing, communicating the status of a phase or task with the LPM cycle should be asynchronous and effortless. The technology is the easy part. At the risk of being too cheeky, don't worry so much about moonshots when it comes to innovation in legal. It can be enough if you just improve enough to wash your hands and properly dispose of waste. Aron Solomon is the head of LegalX and a senior adviser at MaRS Discovery Dis- trict in Toronto. Jason Moyse is industry lead of LegalX and manager, legal busi- ness services at Elevate Services serving global law firms and corporate legal departments. WHAT MATTERS IS SIMPLY GETTING SOMETHING DELIVERED THAT IS HELPFUL TO THE END USER, CLIENT, OR CONSUMER. Who do you think deserves to be included in the TOP 25 MOST INFLUENTIAL LAWYERS IN CANADA? VOTING IS OPEN MAY 23 - JUNE 7 Vi s i t W W W . C A N A D I A N L A W Y E R M A G . 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