As a longtime technology consultant to law firms, Heinan Landa knows that lawyers are cautious customers who can be resistant to change. But the old expectations around client service no longer exist, he says, and meeting the new standards requires a shift in the way law firms do business.
In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Landa tells the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles that he intends his new book, The Modern Law Firm: How to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Technological Change, to help ease lawyers' anxiety about this upheaval by helping them identify their firms' "Technology Operational Maturity Level." By identifying a firm's current maturity level, Landa hopes to provide attorneys with a road map of next steps.
While The Modern Law Firm was written with midsized firms with 10-100 lawyers in mind, Landa says that with adjustments of scale, the advice can also be relevant to solos and to BigLaw attorneys. Whether or not your firm has the resources to hire a full-time chief technology officer, Landa would encourage all attorneys to take an interest in emerging trends, and he suggests a number of ways to make it a manageable part of one's work life.
Landa also discusses the ways that COVID-19 has accelerated the need for technology adoption, and walks through what he has identified as "the Four Pillars of Exceptional Customer Service" to help firms keep and build business.