Enterprise law firms can’t reach their full profitability potential without modern financial management software. At the same time, law firm financial software upgrades carry some inherent risk, and additional challenges can arise without proper planning. This guide explores legal software implementation challenges and offers proven solutions for minimizing risk exposure.
Challenge 1: Resistance to Change
Law firm financial software upgrades aren’t just technical endeavors: they’re human undertakings. You’ll encounter a variety of reactions to the idea of upgrading. Some people are served well by the current system and see no need for change; others will embrace the idea. To succeed, you’ll need a critical mass of people who are open to change.
Solution: Manage Change Proactively and Intentionally
- Communicate early and often. Transparency and a predictable communication cadence can help you avoid surprises and give people time to adjust to the idea of changes.
- Invite open discussion. It’s normal to have concerns about changes to workflow. When you listen thoughtfully and engage with these concerns earnestly, you build trust with attorneys and staff.
- Develop internal champions. Trusted internal champions can help prepare attorneys and staff for the change. They may also hear concerns that people hesitate to raise with firm leadership, allowing you to take action on issues you might otherwise have missed.
- Engage the whole firm. Change processes should engage attorneys and professional staff, and they should reach across practices and geographic areas. Each person can be a valuable source of intel about how changes might impact across the firm.
- Invite internal involvement. Create opportunities for attorneys and staff outside of your software committee to participate in the process and experience the value of the new platform for themselves.
- Lay the groundwork with clients. Changes to your law firm financial management software may affect your clients, too. Share about the benefits they’ll get from the new system, and explain how you will ensure the transition is seamless for them.
Challenge 2: Data Conversion Risks
Your historical data is gold. Some must be retained to meet ethical obligations, for legal reasons, and for operational needs. It’s also a treasure trove for analytics, even if your current software is unable to make full use of it. But firms sometimes struggle to get data out of older systems, and migrating data to the new system can be a tricky (and risky) process.
Solution: Understand the Risks, Create Robust Tests, and Document
You can mitigate data conversion risks during law firm financial software upgrades by doing your due diligence and planning carefully. You’ll want to look into:
- Which data must be preserved to comply with ethical and legal obligations.
- Which data can be converted to the new system.
- How you’ll access important data that cannot be converted.
- Whether your data will have to be cleaned or restructured, and who will do that.
- How your confidential data will be guarded during and after the conversion.
- How the conversion will be tested, what access you’ll have to the test environment, and what safeguards will be in place.
- Whether you’ll need to run two systems simultaneously for a time, and how that process will be managed.
- How successful your prospective vendor has been in conversions like yours. Reputable vendors will have references that you can check.
This article offers a deep dive into data conversion best practices.
Challenge 3: Downtime and Billing Disruption
Upgrading your law firm financial management software has the potential to take time away from billable work and interrupt your billing cycle. Poorly timed upgrades can also create problems with trust accounting workflow and hamper collections.
Solution: Plan to Minimize Downtime and Cash Flow Interruptions
Your vendor should work closely with you to craft an upgrade plan that addresses your firm’s unique needs. The following are best practices for most large law firms.
- Time conversions to avoid month-end or year-end, as well as any other times when workload in the accounting function is particularly heavy.
- As much as possible, begin familiarizing staff with the new system before conversion. This can speed training while easing stress about the change.
- Include appropriate staff in the testing process, particularly if you run parallel systems for a period of time, to nurture internal expertise and avoid errors.
- Make sure your vendor is on-site for the transition and that ample technical support is available to address any problems right away.
- Consider temporary shifts in billing cadence to avoid disruption. For example, some firms have temporarily switched from a 4-week billing cycle to a 6-week cycle, and then billed just before converting. This can allow extra time for implementation. LEDES and non-LEDES clients may require different handling.
Challenge 4: Training and User Adoption
Attorneys and staff are often reluctant to take time away from billable work for training on new software. There can be a sense that “the old system works fine,” even though modern financial management software offers major advantages. Training that is not clearly and immediately relevant to the trainee can fuel resistance to new workflows.
Solution: Role-Based Training On Real Firm Data
Build buy-in with efficient, pragmatic training customized to what each role needs to know. With thoughtful training design, you can focus training time on the exact tasks that each individual will use daily, so that no effort is wasted.
Training with real data is also important. By using real data, you ensure that training is immediately productive and help trainees see how the software will function in real workflows. Your vendor should assist you in creating appropriate guardrails to avoid errors and data loss during training.
Training should be paired with robust technical support, including self-serve materials and experienced human customer support personnel. Train-the-trainer opportunities can also help you build internal expertise and resources.
Challenge 5: Limited Internal Resources
In most large law firms, teams are already operating at capacity, including the IT function. Expecting your existing staff to manage an upgrade without external support is often unrealistic. And pulling too much focus from revenue-generating activities can have serious impacts on cash flow and client satisfaction.
Solution: Dedicated Project Management Driven By External Expertise
Top law firm financial management software vendors should take a significant portion of the upgrade burden off your shoulders. For example, Orion offers:
- A seasoned conversion team that has successfully converted data from 50+ financial management platforms, serving hundreds of law firms like yours.
- A dedicated project manager who personally handles your upgrade, working on-site at your office at key milestones to shepherd your team through conversion.
- Thorough testing protocols, done in collaboration with your team, to ensure that everything has been done correctly before go-live.
- Practical, hands-on training using real firm data. Our trainers have extensive experience with law firm finance needs and financial management software; they consult with your team to design training that maximizes impact while minimizing disruption.
- Exceptional customer service and technical support, from planning to implementation to maintenance of your new financial management system.
Solve Legal Software Implementation Challenges With Orion
Orion’s financial management software has been helping enterprise law firms become more profitable for over 40 years. We are constantly honing each Orion module to respond to the growing needs of law firms. With deep experience in data conversions and customer support, our team can help you avoid or address legal software implementation challenges. Schedule a demo today.