5 Legal Tech Solutions Your Senior Partners Will Love

Around Valentine’s Day, we walked you through 5 legal tech solutions your clients will love. These tools offer wonderful features to tech-wise firms looking to boost efficiency and improve client service.

Six weeks later, we think it’s time for a follow-up. This time we pondered, “What legal tech do senior law firm partners value and why?” Unsurprisingly, they favor products with proven track records that you know are working; like face time in the office, but for computers.

Fax Me Back Baby!

Senior partners love fax machines. Why? Because nothing says “cutting-edge technology” like a device that screeches and beeps while transmitting your documents at the speed of a snail. The noises tell partners it’s working (just like the muffled sobbing coming from junior associates’ offices). Plus, the thrill of waiting for that confirmation page is unmatched; you don’t get that with email. Fax machines offer the nostalgic charm of real paper [jams] and blurry text. So, dust off those ancient relics and show your firm’s powers-that-be that you too value tradition over efficiency.

Stick to the Facts

Once that vital fax comes through, someone has to review and comment on it. Adobe Acrobat is expensive, and Apple Pencils are fragile. The first is too complicated and the second snaps in half in anger even easier than a regular #2 pencil. What to do? That’s where senior partners reach for the stack of sticky notes. Nothing says “organized chaos” like a rainbow of sticky squares plastered all over your desk (the original diversity of white-shoe law firms).

Sticky notes offer the tactile satisfaction of peeling and pasting, plus the thrill of finding that crucial note buried under a pile of paperwork. Embrace the charm of handwritten messages that can be indecipherable, easily lost, and accidentally thrown away.

Partners know that these colorful gems show the world that your firm values creativity. And there’s an added benefit. Senior partner Whitacker T. F. Bluster put it best: “With sticky notes, I don’t even really have to interact with associates. It’s the original ghosting! That’s what the kids say, ghosting, right?”

Bates Numbering the Old-Fashioned Way

Are you old enough to remember the Smith Barney commercials starring The Paper Chase’s John Houseman? Your senior partners are! And they prefer their Bates numbering the same way Smith Barney made money: the old-fashioned way. Bring a smile to their face by dusting off the Bates numbering machine.

Sure, manually stamping each page with a unique number hardly screams “efficiency.” But efficiency isn’t always the goal. Like the ringing of a cash register, the satisfying clunk of the Bates machine is music to your partners’ ears. Plus, it doubles as a fantastic arm workout!

Embrace the nostalgia of ink smudges and misaligned numbers. Don’t think blemishes; think organic and handmade. Caught on his daily 1/10th of an hour bathroom break, junior associate Mortimer J. Crabtree agreed: “I think the ink stains and paper cuts really show my managing partner and my clients that I’m hands-on with my cases.”

Potent Redaction without the Power Plug

You’re probably familiar with the importance of proper redaction. Hopefully, you’ve read horror stories about confidential information being exposed by lawyers attempting PDF-based redactions improperly. Your senior partners may not. But that’s okay, because the trusty black Sharpie never fails them.

To people who remember the Pentagon Papers, “confidentiality” means a thick, black, permanent line across sensitive information. The Sharpie offers the tactile satisfaction of manually crossing out text, plus the thrill of accidentally revealing a word or two. Nothing gives you the high of helping a client like the unmistakable scent of a fresh marker. Partners appreciate that, even in a high-tech world, sometimes you have to get your hands dirty.

Thumbs Up for USB Drives

While you may joke about partners’ distrust of technology or love of Dictaphones, sometimes they’re on the cutting edge…of an earlier generation. That’s how they know that, while cloud storage can be hacked, a USB thumb drive is forever. Why would you want client files in a faraway cloud when “secure data storage” can live in the depths of your briefcase (no backpacks for senior partners)? USB thumb drives replace the anger of short-term Internet outages with the thrilling search for a lost thumb drive filled with unencrypted confidential documents.

As Reginald P. Thistleton, III, Esq., explained, over lunch at the club, naturally, “While the cloud is unsafe, I’ll risk losing files in my car, the dry cleaners, the 19th hole, or elsewhere. Besides, I like being hands-on with the computers. Can’t do that with the cloud. Some of the USB drives don’t fit my new laptop, but my Dremel tool solved that problem.”

Wrap-Up

Don’t always focus on the new shiny tech. Sometimes people do things the old way for a reason. But make sure their reason is reasonable. If you recognize a bit much of yourself above, take a look at our Legal Tech Field Guide to start reevaluating your tech stack.

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