Big Law Flunks Computer Skills Test

Here is an article from the ABA Journal by Martha Neil that I will reproduce in its entirety because is short and to the point:

Frustrated by big bills for routine matters, D. Casey Flaherty, who serves corporate counsel at Kia Motors America, struck back with a computer skills test for BigLaw.

Invited to submit a senior associate of their choice for testing, the first nine firms flunked, Flaherty, a keynote speaker, told a large group attending the LegalTech West Coast conference in Los Angeles this week. One firm, he said, flunked twice, reports Law Technology News.

The issue is time, Flaherty explained in his talk on "Raising the Bar on Technological Competence—the Outside Counsel Tech Audit." Multiply a Microsoft Word or Excel task that should take seconds by minutes, especially if it is performed again and again, and it can add up to a significant amount of money at BigLaw firms' billable rates.

"The audit should take one hour," he said, "but the average pace is five hours."

Examples of tasks associates had trouble completing swiftly, because they obviously aren't being trained on such skills, included providing PDF documents for court submissions and getting documents Bates-numbered.

Although Flaherty conducted the skills audit for the nine BigLaw firms himself, he is working with an outside training firm to automate the skills audit. He then plans to provide it at no cost to general counsel at other companies.

An earlier Law Technology News video and two articles (Law Technology News, Jan. 24, 2013. and Law Technology News, Jan. 25, 2013) provide further details.

The practice of law faces many challenges today.  It would do well to learn how to use technology efficiently and to hire lawyers and staff capable of applying technology to meet client needs.  The most amazing part of the story above is that all of the law firms involved failed the test!

Corporate general counsel have long been focused on the bottom-line in hiring outside legal counsel.  When I was a summer clerk at a large law firm thirty plus years ago, the firm had lunches at which guest speakers discussed various aspects of the practice of law. Some spoke philosophically about the practice of law and client relationships.  Some told stories of great legal accomplishments.  One week the firm invited back one of its former associates who was now the corporate general counsel of one of the firm's major clients.  Somewhat shockingly, the corporate general counsel spoke bluntly about managing outside legal costs, going so far as to say that if law firms did not handle basic legal work efficiently, the law firms were likely to find that more and more of this work would be taken in-house and the corporate legal departments might cherry-pick good lawyers from large firms to work for the corporations.

The pressure for efficiency and affordability continues, even with individual clients and smaller law firms.  As lawyers, we need to step up to the challenge, particularly in using technology to accomplish work more quickly and at affordable costs.

Go to Martha's ABA Journal article to read comments submitted by readers.