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Adoption Strategy2024-02-15

The "Field of Dreams" Fallacy

"If you build it, they will come" works in movies. In Legal Tech, it leads to empty logins and a renewal cancellation.

The biggest lie in CLM implementation is the belief that Product Quality drives Adoption. It doesn't.

You can buy the most expensive, feature-rich platform on the market. But if it requires your lawyers to click 15 times to do what they used to do in 2 clicks via Email, they will not use it. They will revolt.

The Agency Problem: Who Benefits vs. Who Works

CLM software suffers from a classic Agency Problem.

  • 1
    The Company BenefitsThe organization gets structured data, reporting, and risk visibility.
  • 2
    The Lawyer PaysThe individual lawyer has to tag metadata, upload files, and navigate a slow UI.

When the person doing the work (the lawyer) is not the person getting the value (the company), adoption fails.

The Adoption Matrix

Why most CLMs end up in the "Revolt" quadrant.

Chart showing the relationship between User Friction and Personal Utility in software adoption
Figure 1: If Friction is High and Utility is Low, you get Shadow IT.

The Solution: WIIFM (What's In It For Me?)

To fix this, you must design for the individual user, not just the organization. You need to answer the WIIFM question for every stakeholder.

Don't just tell them "It helps the company report on risk." Tell them:

"This tool will auto-fill the counterparty address so you don't have to copy-paste it from Google."

"This tool will find the last 3 NDAs we signed with this client so you don't have to search your email."

These are small, selfish benefits. But selfish benefits drive adoption. Altruism does not.

The Consultant's Advice

Before you buy, ask the vendor to show you the "Day in the Life" of a lawyer. Count the clicks.

If it takes more clicks to approve a contract in the CLM than it does in Outlook, do not buy it. No amount of "Change Management" training will fix a bad UX.