I was recently at a meeting in someone else's building, and the room became warm and stuffy. Someone grabbed a box fan from a supply closet to move some air. What they returned with may have been the first box fan ever built. The heavy, rusty, and loud metal contraption was easily well over 40 years old.
Someone was quick to point out that the fan still did its job (in a manner of speaking), and something like "if it's not broke..." was said. Air was (loudly) moved, and the meeting continued.
This experience was concerningly similar to many firms' approaches to legal software. They find software that does a job and stick with it for as long as possible. Instead of rusty and loud, the software becomes outdated and unsupported. Like people talking over the noise of a loud fan, the user puts up with the issues because it isn't fully "broken" yet.
This approach can work for things like box fans. A little periodic annoyance doesn't cost us anything, and the eventual demise is fixed with a quick run to the store. A new fan is in place and we laugh about that thing we kept for so many years.
When a law firm has this mindset for legal software, they ignore a series of issues that make software different, and the cumulative nature of ignoring issues.
Cumulative losses from small problems
Antiquated software rarely dies in one day. Instead, it is usually death-by-a-thousand-cuts. First, time is wasted trying to reach the company for updates or support. Then, time is wasted trying to navigate a problem without technical support. Eventually, the user is supplementing the software with outside sources with the thought that "well, most of it works." Someday, a computer is upgraded and the firm is scrambling to find a download and a way to transfer data.
While none of these may feel like a completely "broken" application, each one is a waste of precious time and resources. Every patch, fix, and workaround is time spent on something other than client needs and billable work. Software that once saved time and money has the user regressing and working to make the software work.
Data investment
Software also presents a fairly unique issue of "data investment." When we use software, we are constantly inputting data for current matters. That constant stream of input is often what makes us so hesitant to change. This creates a dangerous cycle. As software gets older and more likely to experience catastrophic loss or inoperability, we are continuing to give it our client information - often up to the moment of failure.
Attorneys have a duty to place client data with supported and updated platforms that they can trust to be available and serviced well into the future. This requires an understanding that the use of old software is a sunk cost, and that a new option needs to be run alongside old applications, to allow for a seamless transition as old cases close and new cases are open.
Waiting until the old platform becomes unusable results in catastrophic loss of all prior client data, and leaves a user having to learn new software and recreate old cases unreasonably quickly. This is all avoidable if users begin investing their data in a current and supported platform before the old product fails entirely.
The bad day is coming
The biggest issue for most firms is failing to acknowledge that a bad day is coming for any unsupported desktop computer applications. It is their nature. Someday, the program will stop working, the computers will need upgraded, the forms will be out of date, the data file will be corrupted, the operating system will no longer work with the old application, or some other "sentinel event" will occur. It is a fundamental reality of unsupported desktop software.
When (not if) it does, law firms are left to pick up the pieces and clients are left to bear the consequences. Delays, errors, and wasted time mark the weeks or months it takes to recreate client files from documents and memories in new software that could have been in place long before.
Law firms do not have the luxury of waiting for old software to die before the consider a change. Responsibility over client data requires that continuity be maintained. No attorney would put their files in a filing cabinet that they knew would burst into flames "someday in the future," but many are unknowingly putting data into systems that they know are out of date and unsupported, just waiting for the day when a paralegal tells them they can no longer access it.
Audit your legal software this week. Sit down and consider whether each application is a supported and sustainable system that is actively updated, or if you are investing client data in something that is quietly wasting time and bound to fail.
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