A new tool is often introduced with one session and a manual. A few weeks later, most people are back to their old habits.
This article describes a training plan that attorneys and staff can follow, and what to watch to see whether the tool is really being used.
The problem
Attorneys and staff use a tool in different ways and have different amounts of time. A single session for everyone fits nobody.
When people do not know how to do their daily task in the new tool, they keep the old way as well. The firm then runs two systems.
What is known
Our article on technology adoption in law firms reports survey findings on how firms use technology. Those surveys describe adoption in general, not training in particular, and we found no figure that links a training method to results.
What is certain is that people use a tool when it makes their own task easier and they know how to do it.
What to do
- Choose a small number of tasks that each role does every day, and teach those first
- Train attorneys and staff separately, with examples from their own work
- Use sample matters with sample data, never real client files, while people practice
- Name a champion in each group who can answer questions in the first weeks
- Write a one-page guide for each task, with the steps and a screenshot
- Set a date when the old way stops, and announce it in advance
- Hold short follow-up sessions after the first week and after the fourth, and add what people ask about
- Record questions and problems in one list, and fix their causes, not only the answers
An illustrative example
Illustrative example, not a client case. A firm teaches its assistants to open a matter and log a call, and its attorneys to read a matter summary and approve a document. Each group has one short session and a one-page guide, and a champion answers questions during the first weeks.
A person reviews anything that leaves the firm, and nothing here replaces your attorney's advice.
What to look for when you implement it
- Whether people can do the daily task without help after the first weeks
- Which tasks are still done outside the tool, in spreadsheets or in email
- Whether the data in the tool is complete, which shows whether people enter it
- Whether the vendor or builder provides training material and updates it when the tool changes
- Whether new staff can be trained from the guides, without a long session with a colleague
- Measure use with measures the firm can collect itself, as our article on measuring describes