The two-sided adoption trap in legal tech
The two-sided adoption trap in legal tech is the most consistent pattern in why legal technology investments underdeliver. The pattern has two sides: on one side, the firm buys a tool but cannot get the team to use it consistently; on the other, the vendor builds a technically capable product but does not take sufficient responsibility for embedding it in the firm's actual workflow. Both sides contribute to an outcome where neither party is satisfied and the technology never reaches its potential.
The firm side of the trap
Firms fall into the trap on their side through a combination of procurement processes that are disconnected from day-to-day practice, implementation approaches that treat training as a one-off event rather than an ongoing process, and management structures that do not track adoption or hold anyone accountable for it. A partner who negotiated the contract for a new technology platform is rarely the person who needs to use it day to day, and the gap between who decided to buy the tool and who is expected to use it is where adoption most frequently fails.
The other firm-side failure is not configuring the tool for the firm's specific practice. A general-purpose legal AI tool that is deployed without being populated with the firm's precedents, structured around the firm's document types and integrated into the firm's existing processes will be used differently by different team members and will produce inconsistent results. Inconsistent results undermine confidence, which reduces use, which reduces the quality of the tool's outputs and confirms the sceptics' view that it is not worth the effort.
The vendor side of the trap
Vendors fall into the trap by treating the sale as the endpoint rather than the beginning of the relationship. A tool that is technically capable but is sold, implemented and then left to the firm to manage will be well-used by the enthusiasts and ignored by everyone else. The vendor's responsibility includes ongoing support, active monitoring of adoption and a willingness to work with the firm to adjust the configuration as the practice evolves and as the team's confidence in the tool develops.
Scriptum's approach to customer success is designed around this. Implementation is a starting point, not a delivery. To discuss what ongoing support looks like for a firm of your size and practice mix, book a demo and we can be specific.