But the key will always be in execution. Throwing money into a patchwork of suppliers is not the same as a technology plan executed by professionals, and the results certainly won`t be the same. OneDemand provides legal CTO services to law firms on an outsourced, partial, and project basis – from someone in your shoes. We combine both the technical and digital spectrum under one roof: on the legal technology and practice management side as well as on the web development and internet marketing side. We`re OneDemand, and we`re ready when you are. «Innovation means overcoming the real-world challenges people face, and then synergistically using legal knowledge and technical skills to find practical solutions,» said Chanille. «The most successful innovations come from a human-centered purpose, and it`s a core value of our culture and approach.» BAL, the world`s leading corporate immigration law firm, focuses solely on solving the immigration challenges faced by corporate clients around the world in a way that makes immigration more strategic and enables businesses to be more successful. Founded in 1980, BAL consistently provides immigration expertise, people-focused customer service and cutting-edge technological innovation. In 2018, BAL entered into a unique strategic alliance with Deloitte UK to create the world`s first immigration services model. Gillian is an active member of the legal technology community and served for five years as a committee member, including two years as a thought leader, for the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) annual conference.
She received an ILTA Distinguished Peer Award for Server/Operations in 2011 and was nominated for the ILTA Distinguished Peer Award for IT Professional of the Year Award in 2013. She received the ILTA Distinguished Peer Award for Leadership Award in 2014 and ILTA Contributor of the Year in 2020. She co-led and established ILTA`s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Working Group in 2019. Today`s law firms face technological requirements in two completely different areas: practice management and the web. Ignore the management of the practice, and profit margins and appearance suffer. Ignore the web, and potential customers will find the competition for you. Practice management tends to be a dominant left-brain activity as it includes database work, workflow engineering, automation and document management, etc. The web leans more on the right brain and relies more on visual media, user interface / UX (user interfaces/user experience), content writing, Internet marketing and information design.
How do lawyers find effective technologists with these decidedly different, but equally essential, cognitive skills? Law firms have typically filled this gap piecemeal by finding different suppliers for different purposes. There may be one provider that manages the company`s local network and email, another provider that manages the case management system, another provider that manages the billing package, another provider that handles web work, and another vendor that handles Internet marketing. For law firms without a CTO, the net result of this type of random deal is a rather inconsistent technology plan, where providers operate in their own orbits rather than execute to achieve a consistent vision of how different technologies can and should work together to achieve the firm`s tangible business goals – costing the law firm more money for fewer results. The demand for senior executives in technology continues to grow and executive search firms have been there to meet that demand. Here`s a look at some of the best companies working with organizations to meet their technology leadership needs from the Hunt Scanlon archive. Legal CTOs merge left-brain + right-brain capabilities into a coherent technological approach. Fractional CTO services are a relatively new and growing segment in technology service delivery that allows organizations to leverage a single vendor, and an experienced CTO, to meet their technology needs on an outsourced basis without having to find or pay a staffed CTO. And companies like OneDemand now offer fractional CTO support services tailored specifically to the legal segment.
Fractional CTO services are growing because of one point I mentioned earlier: today`s technology is mostly about functionality issues. In turn, the feature focuses on business goals, and it`s nearly impossible to use a patchwork from different vendors and expect the end result to magically align with those business goals. However, the fractional CTO alternative provides a service delivery model specifically tailored to the target functionality: it uses an experienced CTO to align and deploy technologies tailored to specific business objectives, typically for less overall expense, less time, and far fewer headaches than the disparate vendor model. ChampionScott Partners, which specializes in leadership roles for technology and technology companies, most recently helped James Smith serve as Chief Technology Officer at Libertas Funding, a fintech company focused on rapid access to capital for small and medium-sized businesses. Mr. Smith brings over 20 years of product, development and operational leadership experience to Libertas Funding. He comes from Hakkiri, a navigation tracking and reporting system for deliveries that he co-founded and led as CEO. While many like to distinguish between a CTO and a CIO (Chief Information Officer) or a CDO (Chief Digital Officer), I think the distinction is blurring – and should be. Traditionally, a CIO would modify existing software to meet internal requirements (while a CTO would find and develop new technologies for emerging needs), and a CDO would handle the digital/web aspects (while the CTO and CIO would handle the hardware/software aspects).
While there`s a lot of talk about who does what, I`m on the side that believes that the continued development of technology is forcing these silos to be closed.