System Selection
With hundreds of software vendors competing for the attention of law firms and many overlapping technologies and services, it is a minefield of potential pitfalls for law firms venturing into the software selection arena.
Hindsight Legal Consulting has decades of experience working directly within the legal software supplier industry and provides unique insight into the businesses operating in this space, the complexities of the solutions on offer, and the accompanying services and support provided.
All software suppliers are not the same, and evaluating solutions based on short engagements, polished sales presentations and pressurised selling techniques can lead to poor implementations and a failure to achieve the anticipated outcome and return on investment.
We can help manage your selection process and facilitate engagement with suitable vendors with whom your business will be able to form long lasting partnerships that are beneficial to all parties.
Our core tenet when bringing law firms and software suppliers together is “Collaboration”. A collaborative approach is essential in creating a successful outcome for both parties and often something overlooked in a selection process.
We seek to create an environment where good suppliers and customers can thrive by working together in the spirit of partnership, trust and shared goals.
"Matt’s extensive experience and contacts in the Legal sector offered such invaluable, impartial insight into the ever changing legal technology landscape when navigating the minefield of CMS selection"
Tony Woodward
Chief Operations Officer
Rotheras Solicitors
Fully Managed Selection Service Cost from: £8,000 + VAT
Or simply call us for a FREE Telephone Consultation and Sanity Check.
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Selection Process Steps:
Step 1: Requirements gathering
We work with your business to create a requirements specification for potential vendors based on what is required by the business. The output from this would be a clear and concise requirements definition that will form the basis of evaluation and demonstrations from the bidding suppliers.
The aim of the approach is to avoid overblown and generic tender processes in favour of more focussed specifications that are of practical use in an implementation project and which both suppliers and customers can sign off on as the required output.
Step 2: Shortlisting of suitable candidate systems and suppliers
Based on the requirements gathering exercise, we assist with recommending and shortlisting a list of (usually) up to 3 vendors to evaluate based on our industry knowledge and the suppliers fit with the requirements definition.
Step 3: System evaluation process (supplier demonstrations)
It is important to ensure that vendors demonstrate what your business needs to see rather than what they want to show you and focus on.
We look to carefully script a demonstration sequence that each vendor would need to follow to illustrate how their solution meets your specific requirements.
In tandem with this, we will create an evaluation scorecard to mirror the demonstration sequence to ensure those involved in the evaluation are scoring each product according to the requirements and best fit for your business.
Where required, deep dive follow up demonstrations may be arranged with 1 or 2 suppliers to assist with confirming the preferred solution.
Step 4: Supplier Engagement
After working with you to narrow down the shortlisted suppliers to a preferred supplier, we will assist with pricing and scoping negotiations.
With intimate knowledge of the inner workings of software vendors, we are well placed to ensure that you not only achieve the best commercial outcome but also the supplier focus required for success.
Step 5: Contracts
While Hindsight Legal are not lawyers, we have negotiated a huge number of commercial contracts from a supplier perspective and can act as a sounding board to highlight any gotchas that are often inserted into these documents by suppliers.
We can also advise on the areas where suppliers cannot and will not flex - something that often holds up contract negotiations, eating into timelines and putting pressure on project deliverables.
Note: Implementation Project Management (optional)
If required, we can assist with the project managing of implementations either directly or via partner providers carefully selected with demonstrable track records of success.
Project Management fees are negotiated independently and will vary by the size and scope of the project and the level of involvement required.