A featured contribution from Leadership Perspectives, a curated forum for enterprise technology leaders, nominated by our subscribers and vetted by the CIOApplications Editorial Board.
Dorsey & Whitney LLP
Integrated And Proactive Approach For Legal And Business Needs
What are some of the major challenges or trends that you've observed impacting the IT sector lately?
In terms of some of the major challenges and trends that are impacting the IT sector, one of the primary concerns is cyber-security. There have been some recent articles about data breaches at law firms. Recently I read an article about a significant legal service provider that suffered a data breach. Even in the services that my team and I provide to clients, we are seeing an increasing volume of data security questionnaires, audits and evaluations as clients look to understand how we're protecting their information that we collect and maintain, in response to discovery and litigation or as part of a deal that might be happening. We have a lot of sensitive data, and issues around how that information is secured and protected within our four walls for clients is a hot issue. There are also challenges around data retention and proper disposition of data to ensure that we're aware of where data is being stored, who's accessing it, and that we're not keeping data for electronic files for a long time. It raises the risk of having more data potentially exposed than you want.
The other challenge within the IT sector is there's a lot of new technology and a need to balance business needs for making sure people are productive and can collaborate. It's not easy to buy a new technology and implement it. You need to be thinking about the data security requirements and how you're going to secure the data stored within a particular platform.
You need to think about retention policies and how you're going to make sure that you're not over saving data. You need to be thinking about potential for litigation and how you're going to be able to collect information from these various new platforms that you might be deploying. So there's a growing complexity when you're looking at deploying new technologies and also understanding that sometimes the technology deployment isn't just about deploying the technology, it's about deploying associated business processes to make the implementation of that technology successful.
I think it's definitely the security issues. Clients are evaluating the security that the law firms are offering for protecting data that they might need to turn over to us or in some cases making them available through a service provider where we know where our data is going and not being dispersed to other law firms that we work with.
With the current economic situation one of the things I am spending a lot of time thinking about is around cost management. How do we make sure we are getting the best deal for our firm and investing appropriately in the right technologies. How do we make sure we aren't duplicating tools, bringing in different types of technology and having it siloed. I guess one other thing that I spend a lot of time thinking about is how do we continue to innovate? How do we continue to support the strategic business initiatives of the firm ensuring that our clients are getting what they need and our attorneys are productive and support our clients both internally and externally.
Our focus is on innovation to support the strategic business initiatives of the firm, ensuring that our clients have the support they require, our attorneys are effective, and our clients receive support both internally and externally
In terms of ones that we're looking at is real adoption around client collaboration platforms. How can we best collaborate with our clients and have a more transparent communication so that the client can use that expertise or knowledge. Another new up and coming technology that's exciting is around Chat GPT. I think it presents concern around what that type of technology could mean to a young attorney and how that might affect their significance or their role.
The technology might have consequences but at the same time, there's some really cool things about it such as helping to draft materials or even refine it. So that's something that I'm definitely keeping an eye on. I think all of this also illustrates some of the change management issues with new technologies, which can both be difficult especially when you work in an environment where it can be difficult and exciting.
The opportunities that some of the newer technologies present are exciting but are not without their challenges.
Any latest projects that you have worked on?
Some new technology that we've brought in is around contract analysis, contract AI tools that have really proven to be helpful in helping clients solve business problems. As those contract AI tools continue to develop there's technology out there that's evolving to help with, for example, contract negotiation.
Contract AI is something that we've had a great deal of success and we're seeing quite a bit of adoption around helping clients get a handle on the contracts they have, what's in those contracts, and their obligations. Do they have standard contract language that they want to make sure they're incorporating into their tools? We've used this type of technology in like M&A due diligence, new contract management platforms and in COVID when clients were trying to understand force mature clauses and obligations in their contracts.
We've also deployed it for some other unique implementations. One client frequently receives an average of 50 subpoenas a day. We run those subpoenas through this contract AI tool and identify certain pieces of information from them that we then provide back to the clients so that they can timely respond to the subpoenas. We've also brought in some no-code technology software and have developed a solution internally that we're using to support our D&I initiative. It involves developing a blind matching system for first or third year associates so that they have equal access to opportunities across our platform.
