It has been a funny old week for me. Out and about visiting clients and presenting my keynote at various Iris seminars.

Whilst travelling, (and that deserves a blog post of its own), I picked up some interesting debates on Twitter regarding legal technology via @ikenceo and @brianinkster.

Then I read an excellent post on Neil Rose’s  Legal Futures blog called ‘Innovation Nation.’

It didn’t stop there. I also read Richard Susskind’s latest piece about how important legal technology is going to be for law firms. Naturally I agree…in fact I would say that deploying it correctly will probably be defining for your practice.

But that’s not the point of that piece for me.

The real point is that Legal IT people generally and their sales people specifically, are not always great listeners, they tend to talk in jargon, (cloud, blah, blah, blah), and don’t fully understand the real issues and day to day challenges of the lawyer.

What a shame, because in my book listening and solving is the foundation of a good sales experience…for the buyer and the seller. Of course we can delude ourselves with euphemisms and words (I include my own title in that) such as Business Development, BizDev, blah blah.

But selling is selling and virtually everyone of us does it, even without realising it, all through our lives. I don’t think many have an issue with selling. The issue tends to be around how the selling is conducted. You could build a 4 bedroom house on the books that have been written about ‘How to sell/market etc.” I will save you the expense. You really just need two things; common sense and an ability to communicate.

As Richard says,

“I think for too long they [Legal IT] have not been seen as part of the legal sector, as part of the legal industry, they have been seen as external to the sector.

But I see them as providing key changes, I see them as being central players in the transformation of the profession. And so somehow it seems to me they have got to position themselves as trusted parts of the legal sector rather than suppliers to it.

And that is I think for some firms a subtle change and for other companies a transformation. But they’ve got to become closer to the customer. They’ve got to become more respected, they’ve got to speak the same language as law firms.”

This next bit needs putting in bold writing, I am going out on a limb, my number of insincere corporate Christmas cards could be about to drop dramatically…in Legal Tech world I could be heading for pariah city because

“I agree.”

But I want to add a caveat. I am talking about Legal IT generally because,

• Some of us try to listen.
• Some of us now make a point of it.
• Some of us didn’t used to.
• Some of us listened to some of you to understand how we could do it better.
• Some of us were told to turn down the volume.
• Some of us did.
• Some of us recognise that it is better to collaborate.
• Some of us recognise that sometimes you have other more pressing things.
• Some of us see no point in preaching to you.
• Some of us see that we have a value to you AND are worth listening to.
• Some of us understand that it is important that you want to listen.
• Some of us are ready to share and help…just let us know.

But remember listening is a two way thing and as Richard points out it could very much be in your best interest to listen.

I can’t comment on other Legal IT operations but personally I find the whole sharing and solving thing far more enjoyable when both sides have a mutually agreed goal. Far more enjoyable in a relaxed conversation, exploring options and possibilities. I say this because people are ultimately what makes the difference.

But that could be just be my take on things, my head and heart say that is right so I will stick with them.

But even more important is not what I think but what you think. There is a comment box below. Go on indulge yourself.