Rethinking legal operations and technology starts with empathy

Human Centred Design expert and lead of Law Squared’s Digital + Innovation practice, Nam Truong, believes empathy must be the starting point for General Counsel (GCs) ready to rethink the way their team delivers legal services. 

Nam Truong leads Law Squared’s new Digital + Innovation practice group, supporting clients to leverage the business’ first-hand experience designing, selecting and implementing legal technologies.

Today, high performing businesses expect their in-house legal teams to identify and manage emerging risks, guide fact-based executive decision making and enable compliant, customer centric operations.  Optimising legal operations and technology can be a game changer for delivering higher value insights, however few legal teams have the bandwidth to – or technical expertise – to undertake the digital transformation required.  

Before embarking on a major technology uplift or process redesign, Nam believes GCs must take a more human centred approach by understanding the processes and human behaviour at the core of the problems before buying and implementing a new solution.  

Bringing Human Centred Design to legal  

Heralded as the “Gold Standard’ of design thinking, Human Centred Design begins with deep empathy for the end user. In a legal context this not only comprises the lawyers who use the technology, but also their stakeholders who will experience the impact of new technologies and processes and will likely include other functions, suppliers and the businesses’ end customers.   

Consistent with a more customer-centric mindset that has already been the subject of much work for external, customer-facing functions, human centred design is a relatively new approach for most legal teams. Nam observes: “Often , what we see is legal teams trying to retro fit a solution into a current state, rather than starting with the core problem. Instead of starting with: “What are the challenges that our in-house legal team face with contract lifecycle management?”, the mandate is: “We need a CLM system because my CEO wants us to improve our digital maturity and all the big in-house teams have one.”  

An unlikely career path  

Considered a leader amongst’ Australia’s top legal operations and technology practitioners, Nam originally dreamed of becoming a clinical psychologist: “I’ve always had a deep curiosity about what  makes people tick and to understand a multitude of perspectives,” he says.  

Following this passion and a dawning appreciation for the freedom that comes with tackling ambiguous situations, Nam’s curiosity led him to enterprise product management in fintech, picking up experience across Human Centred Design, cybercrime, and go-to-market strategy development along the way.  

After meeting Law Squared’s Founder + Director, Demetrio Zema, at a Disrupting Law event in 2019, Nam immediately recognised the potential for legal operations and technology to accelerate the business’ mission to deliver a more positive experience for lawyers and clients., and jumped at the chance to build out Law Squared’s internal Digital + Innovation capability.  

Navigating the legal tech market  

Investment in legal tech has increased exponentially, with Garnter predicting that legal technology will account for approx. 12 per cent of in-house budgets by 2025, a threefold increase over five years. All this makes for a cluttered, noisy and confusing space.  

“When it comes to legal tech, it’s often a case of ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’,” explains Nam, “Having a partner, like Law Squared, who has first-hand experience designing, selecting and implementing legal processes, tools and platforms, is incredibly helpful.  We can help legal teams sort through the noise, understand their core challenges and build a data-based business case for investment.”  

Don’t always go niche  

Implementation fatigue is another reason Nam believes GCs need to take the time to truly understand the challenge they face, before launching into solution mode: “There are plenty of impressive niche legal solutions on offer, but in many cases, it’s just as valid to look at what existing technology is already in place and explore ways to enhance or integrate with that,” says Nam.  

When Nam arrived at Law Squared two years ago, the firm was using a host of digital tools and platforms: “Each had its own merits, and in a number of cases could be considered ‘best of breed’, but the first task was to develop a holistic vision for how we wanted to work, and how we wanted to make our lawyers and clients feel when they worked with us.” 

For Law Squared, the end result was a digital roadmap that combines customised enterprise-grade solutions with carefully selected niche tools, to deliver a fit-for-purpose solution.  

The number one reason why digital transformation projects stall  

The extent of behavioural changed required to embed lasting digital transformation is often overlooked in the rush to move onto the next priority or attend to BAU.  

On failed digital transformation projects, Nam says: “There’s a mistaken belief that the journey ends when the purchase agreement is signed, but in reality, this is just the beginning.”  

To extract maximum value from technology investment, a considered, actionable adoption plan is required, along with the operational capability to support it.  

Law Squared’s own journey to the leading edge of legal operations and technology delivered plenty of learnings: “We spent countless hours communicating our requirements to the vendor to ensure a fit-for-purpose outcome, and the ability to draw on the collective wisdom of our team across legal, communications and change, and technology, was invaluable,” says Nam.  

Nam’s guidance for GCs under pressure to demonstrate value and increase executive influence is to: “Hold off on immediate action and take the time to connect and understand your starting point. Measure twice, cut once.”  

If you are ready to rethink the way your legal team works, facing pressure from your business to deliver data driven insights or its time to consider how your team can and should be working more efficiently and effective with its stakeholders, then, please contact our Digital + Innovation team here or reach out directly to Nam via [email protected]