Harmonia Est Discordia Concors: A Little War Story About LegalTech Implementation and Collaboration

Abstract

Collaboration can be regarded as the “leitmotif” of digital transformation. When carrying out LegalTech projects, a combination of elements of modern creativity techniques with an overarching structure familiar to lawyers can be very helpful in promoting effective collaboration. Such a “legal business innovation journey” brings together the legal business, IT and other involved stakeholders. The chapter focuses on tools and methods that have worked in practice during such “legal business innovation journeys” at Roedl & Partner. The experiences reported in this article clearly show that a Common Legal Platform (CLP) could make an important contribution when stakeholders want to transfer knowledge and exchange experiences. On the basis of two practical examples these aspects are discussed in more detail. The first example called “raising awareness” focuses on internal processes within a law firm. The second example called “the grey eminence” relates to working with clients. Here, too, collaboration is the main subject but with special regard to rather hidden stakeholders whose needs may not be apparent at first glance.