Investing in legal technology can significantly enhance a law firm’s efficiency and competitiveness. And while keeping up with the latest and greatest is not necessarily a do-or-die situation (though it’s almost that dire), it’s true that working with slow or outdated technology can have major ramifications for your business.
One big hurdle for many law firms is swallowing the price tag that comes with new technologies. The outlay is nothing to sneeze at, so you want to be sure you’ll recoup your investment over time. Here are some things to consider as you try to strike the right balance between cost and value when investing in legal tech.
How to Assess the ROI of a Tech Investment
Assessing value will be uniquely tied to your goals and solutions, but it should be loosely related to some key categories, including:
- Profitability – How will the new technology reduce costs or increase revenue?
- Capacity – How will new technology enable you to take on and support more work?
- Satisfaction – How will legal tech improve your staff and clients’ experience with the firm?
You should already have good working data that you can use to evaluate a baseline for these categories. Remember that even if you’re somewhat satisfied with your current metrics, technology is constantly evolving. It’s important to plan for the future. One way to delay a larger tech upgrade is to stay on top of tech maintenance. Another advantage of this is that it also allows you to invite small changes that can help you and your team identify whether upgrading a system really will result in a higher ROI. To ensure you are prepared for ongoing and future maintenance expenses, be sure to establish a tech maintenance budget.
Investing in legal technology is not just about the initial cost but also about the long-term value it brings to your firm. As you weigh your options, contact our team at Honeycrisp to ask your questions.
