LegalTech West Coast‘s FutureTech program on Friday, June 27th, kicked-off with a very engaging and eye-opening panel session aptly named "Selling Your Tech". Moderated by Monica Bay, Law Technology News‘  Editor-in-Chief, and FutureTech architect, the panel featured Doug Caddell, Chief Information Officer at Foley & Lardner; Rob Kahn, Director, Business Development with Fenwick & West; and Robbie Solomon, Heller Ehrman‘s Firmwide Knowledge Manager. The panelist pairing could not have been more fitting since the three speakers touched on unique aspects of the broader "selling your technology to win new business and stay competitive" topic, but still weaved a common thread throughout. Here are some take-aways from each:

Doug Caddell based his presentation on a feature article he wrote for LTN last summer "Selling Your Tech", detailing his own firm’s shift from transforming IT from the "back room to the boardroom" and how IT can play an active (if not leading) role in helping the firm position technology and increase service levels for prospective (and of course existing) clients. Caddell noted that in the age of cost cutting and the streamlining of legal services, especially when it comes to a GCs decision to widdle down his or her company’s use of outside counsel, being able to demonstrate technological advancement (and what it means for the company) is not only advantageous but almost a necessity. Of the 10 tips provided on marketing technology (read Doug’s article for all of them), the three that resonated most with me were "demonstrate" that your firm is tech savvy via a host of online marketing and technology tools; "develop" technology products that the firm’s attorneys will recognize and use, and in turn be able to articulate and show to their clients; and "think" beyond the historical use of IT in a law firm and get involved in the revenue side of the business.

Picking up with the "thinking outside of the IT box" theme, Rob Kahn focused on explaining how Fenwick & West’s IT department evolved into a practice group of sorts (as opposed to support-focused) and how IT is becoming very involved with the firm’s marketing and sales groups to actively promote its technology. The key according to Kahn is to educate your internal constituents on what technology is available and how they can use it for their client work. It is all about educating broadly and spoon-feeding the attorneys with relevant technology to help them sell it. In fact, what I found astounding is that Fenwick develops a separate marketing plan for the IT group and, as Rob Kahn put it, directly links IT and marketing when it comes to communicating to prospects.

Heller’s Robbie Solomon provided a very insightful and witty philosophical approach to selling your tech and added some realism to what you can and can’t achieve with your tech agenda. Here are some valuable insights:

• "What technology you have may not be as important as how you use it"- avoid acquiring technology for the sake of owning it (on occasion however, "keeping up with the Joneses" might be necessary).  Instead, use and build what you need keeping the end-game in mind (approach it strategically) and don’t neglect scalability.
• "Who talks/presents your tech approach should depend upon the client and the circumstances".  While it makes sense to bring in IT for a demo on occasion, your firm needs to be able to truly customize your pitch to the appropriate audience, this applies to "selling change" internally as well as to clients and prospects- leverage the right spokesperson and market the technology accordingly.
• "One size does not fit all" when it comes to your clients technology need as well as your firm. Technology may not be used by everyone and that’s OK. At the same time avoid "one-off" tech solutions as they will not satisfy your entire user population and might lead to more divisions than unity.

Lastly, Robbie talked about how technology has transcended from being an isolated department or function to becoming public domain across the firm. Heller approaches IT like everyone is involved with it, everybody touches it, interacts with, and is affected by it.

Following Robbie, Monica Bay led a short Q&A session.  All in all, we truly enjoyed the session, liked the idea of a track run by the LTN editorial staff and were impressed by the panel put together by Monica. 

One complaint we did have…  Although the program content was created by LTN’s editorial team which has very strict rules for separating educational content and paid sponsors/advertising, the session was concluded with a final ad message from the track vendor sponsor.  Even despite our opinion that educational content should never be sold – just as editorial content shouldn’t be sponsored – we realize that these sponsorships are becoming more and more of a reality at some shows.  With that said, this was the first time we have ever been in a session where the audience was asked to stay for a special 2 minute presentation by the session sponsor.   Although the sponsor did a pretty respectful job of speaking, in our opinion it did take away a little from the overall positive impact of the session.  Just as speakers who promote their products and writers who "sell" their products in articles, it also doesn’t show the sponsor in the best light.  The normal sponsorship items (signage in the room, handouts available, etc.) get the point across in a much more subtle way.  Regardless, we hope that is not a new trend.  Let us know what you think…

(L-R) Rob Kahn, Doug Caddell, Robbie Solomon  (Photo courtesy of Russ Curtis)