First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they attack you. Then you win. As a legal technology trainer, I’m eagerly anticipating the winning that should accompany the launch of the Suffolk Flaherty Legal Technology Audit. For more than a year, I’ve been working on the automated version of the LTA alongside the eponymous Casey Flaherty and Suffolk Law’s Andrew Perlman. The LTA is finally ready for prime time.

Casey developed the LTA when he moved in-house. He was motivated by what he witnessed as outside counsel: institutionalized waste driven by poor utilization of standard, labor-saving features built into everyday software (e.g., Outlook, Word, Excel). Casey created an assessment based on labor-intensive assignments commonly given to junior attorneys and paralegals. He administered the original LTA to associates and staff at his outside counsel.

Not surprisingly, the associates and paralegals fared abysmally on Casey’s assessment. What should have taken one hour took five, at an average rate of $270 per hour. Casey publicized the results in these very pages and, along the way, gained a partner in Suffolk’s Andy Perlman, a board of advisers (including me), and an opportunity to disseminate the LTA to a much wider audience. We’ve been working towards making the LTA commercially available and are thrilled to announce that the time is now.

Sign-ups begin Aug. 18 to coincide with the International Legal Technology Association’s annual conference. Administration of the LTA commences Sept. 2. But life should become truly interesting on Halloween. The Association of Corporate Counsel’s annual conference ends Oct. 31. On that day, the LTA will begin to fulfill free score requests submitted by in-house counsel. That is, in-house counsel will be able to see how their outside counsel performed (if outside counsel agree to release their scores). This transparency is the true genius of the LTA.

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