Garry Mathiason is chairman of the high-technology group for US employment and labour firm Littler Mendelson, which has 30 offices in the US. “Lawyers need to look at ways in which technology can be used to provide clients with routine information and advice. The hourly rate has become so high that clients are looking for solutions. Using technology to give basic answers to basic questions can help reduce cost, as well as make answers accessible to many clients at once,” he says.
Although technology is most used in basic ways, firms such as Littler Mendelson are finding more sophisticated ways to integrate new systems into their workplaces. “Fifteen years ago, we could not have had the office structure we do now. Lack of technology and networking capabilities stalled our growth until about seven or eight years ago,” he says.
Technology alliances
Littler is an example of a growing trend among law firms to invest in or align with specialised technology companies.
At Littler, the ELT (Employment Law Learning Technologies)
company started as an ancillary business providing training programmes in labour and employment areas such as
prevention of sexual harassment or workplace violence.
With the backing of New York investment banking firm Lazard Freres and an investment by itself, ELT was made a
separate business in 1997.
It has several lawyers on staff, but primarily contracts with Littler for its lawyer-instructors as well as relying on it to provide legal content for training programmes. With thousands of solved labour and employment cases, Littler found that sharing the content of these, but not their
development or administration, was a more efficient way to bring them to market in a broader way than as a law firm.
“Littler takes a preventative approach to employment law and inherent in this is a need for good training. As options for deploying training became more sophisticated, the firm sought private funding to underwrite the research and
development of computer-based training programs,” explains Vicki Cummings, Littler’s marketing director in San Francisco.
In May, Chicago-based Hinshaw & Culbertson aligned with a technology firm to launch a unique technology risk-analysis service. With Chicago-based technology group The Foster Group Hinshaw has formed TechKnowLaw, which provides businesses that rely on technology with risk assessment to help them identify threats, vulnerabilities and counter-measures that reduce potential exposures.
The service includes a “business impact analysis” to identify “mission-critical” applications for the information systems environment and assesses the business, legal and financial effects of loss. Just as Littler’s ELT ties in to its labour and employment focus, TechKnowLaw melds with Hinshaw’s reputation as an insurance defence law firm.
“Business productivity cannot be achieved without
technology. The relationship between technological
meltdown and business losses is gaining exposure,” says Katherine Smith Dederick, partner at Hinshaw in Chicago, who will be directing the service.
“Despite what good technology has done for the business sector, it has also created nightmares when it comes to security and malfunction. By teaming with The Foster Group [a technology consulting firm providing disaster-recovery planning and information-security consulting] we have created the exact mix of professional skills needed to help businesses and insurance companies prepare to address these problems head on,” says Mark Metzger, another Hinshaw partner, responsible for directing the TechKnowLaw service.
