Can legal tech help your knowledge work culture burn bright?
A fulfilled and tech-enabled knowledge team can be a brilliant asset for law firms, although its important to create the right culture for people to thrive in – according to iManage’s legal practice lead, Jenny Hotchin.
The burnout discourse continues to weave its way into the conversation of knowledge workers, and has found a like-minded companion in The Great Resignation. These are two pressing issues that are impacting our industry. What isn’t clear are the solutions or support structures that might be put in place to deal with the underlying human factors and behaviours that might contribute to both conversations. Whether they are labelled as “just a phase” or dismissed outright, there is also a natural tendency to hitch legal tech to the wagon as the solution(s), silver bullet and saviour.
Artificial Lawyer sets out a compelling argument that to only label legal tech as simply eliminating the mundane is missing the point. In a burnout world, there is also broader responsibility upon the clients of clients to ask the right questions about how much and what type of work is being undertaken on their behalf.
Celebrating the human component of knowledge
Legal tech has excellent benefits and can drive measurable business outcomes. Still, it takes people to work in tandem with tech, supported and trained in the behaviours that matter. Building an organisation around a culture of respecting, cherishing, and correctly storing knowledge may be a crawl when implementing new processes of curating and sharing knowledge, but look to those that do it well, and see the fulfilment they find in their work. Maybe then we will see the ‘great celebration’ of knowledge workers.
Culture by design is undoubtedly gaining momentum in law firms keen to stem the flow of employees and support their wellbeing wherever they work. A recent Forbes article explores how different organisations approach supporting and building a culture of resilience and collaboration through workshops, dedicated teams and design thinking methodologies.
Thinking feels good
Imagine all the time spent by humanity solving a daily word puzzle that takes minutes out of your day but unlocks great mental benefits in utilising knowledge, deploying analytical thinking and unlocking a sweet hit of dopamine when you solve the problem, as outlined in a recent piece on Very Well Mind. Could the future of knowledge work be gamified this way also? Spending just a few daily habitual minutes ensuring knowledge is stored, shared and correctly marked up for future ease of use.
The endgame should always be outcomes, and to get to those requires positive actions and behaviours that set everyone and every unit of knowledge up for success. It might just be that legal tech can get you there with greater speed, efficiency and in a secure modern infrastructure, but let’s not forget it takes people to activate these outcomes.
