Building a business case for your next legal tech investment

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Budget season is approaching for many law firms, and most of the work that decides whether leadership approves a request happens well before the budget meeting.

We invited Jaclyn Braga, Director of Marketing and Business Development at Morse, and Emily Paul, Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer at Gerber Ciano Kelly Brady, to share how they approach these conversations with Amber Elliott, Client Services Director at Nexl.

Do your homework

Every firm structures their processes differently for choosing new technology. At Morse, leadership decides where firm resources go, and Jaclyn’s focus is giving them what they need to make a call with confidence. “I see my role as translating features into firm needs—weighing the costs, risk, and expected outcomes,” says Jaclyn. “I do the homework ahead of time, so leadership doesn’t have to evaluate the technology. They’re just being asked to evaluate the investment in it.”

That homework starts with reaching out to the team to understand the status quo and all the associated pain points. “I try to meet with folks and ask what opportunities they think are being lost, what are we doing manually that technology could handle better, and what could we do to free up time that would allow my team to do more and new things.”

She also considers how the firm’s year is going and whether now is the right time for a large purchase. When replacing a system, she looks closely at participation in the current one. “What percentage of people are actually using the current platform? What are the barriers to their participation?” she says. “By the time I’m actually sitting at that table talking with leadership, I’m not selling them on the problem. I’m recommending a solution to it.”

Emily’s advice is to make sure that technology is flagged as a strategic priority first, so any budget request connects to a decision the firm has already made. Timing matters too. “If there’s ten other major projects going on, it’s probably not the time to ask,” says Emily. “By the time you’re having those budget conversations, you want leadership already knowing and believing in the value of what a CRM can do for them.”

Bring different voices into the decision

Partner champions are always helpful in a budget meeting, and they matter even more once the system goes live. When Jaclyn was replacing Morse’s CRM, she looked beyond the marketing-minded partners she had relied on in the past. “I definitely wanted to look to our newer, younger tech-savvy partners, because they use technology in different ways,” she says. “I want to make a choice that’s going to help them adopt good BD habits early on in their practice.”

She was deliberate about having partners with different working styles on demo calls with prospective CRMs to get a representative view of what matters to people across the firm. Morse’s managing partner works almost entirely from her iPad and iPhone, so a mobile app was essential for her. Jaclyn then brought in an up-and-coming rainmaker who told her, “I don’t need another app on my phone. It has to have a great browser interface.”

“Knowing that they both like it is important to me,” says Jaclyn, “because I know I’m going to have folks in other groups that feel that way too.”

Emily’s champions at Gerber Ciano Kelly Brady are the managing partner and one of the founding partners. She narrowed the field to two finalists and brought both to them. Nexl was slightly more expensive, but the founding partner made the final call after seeing the long-term benefit of a CRM built specifically for law firms. For Emily, the value of champions comes from their involvement in the decision itself.

“Your champions aren’t just there to rubber stamp,” says Emily. “You want them to be part of the discussion and thinking towards the future. You may need to help lead them to a decision, but you need to make it theirs, so they own it. It helps them to continue to champion it and support the implementation to be successful.”

The same thinking shaped her pilot group, which included big business developers, well-respected leaders, and attorneys with a mix of tech skills. “You need to prove that people who are not tech-savvy can use it as well,” says Emily.

Balance data and storytelling

Once you start building a business case, Emily suggests using an even split between data and storytelling. “You need numbers to give it credibility, but the story gives it that sense of urgency,” she says. “Give them concrete scenarios of how it’s going to help and provide value. Like how will this help an attorney who goes to an event? They use the app, record what they learn, set a stay-in-touch reminder, and now you’re staying top of mind.”

Those scenarios also sharpen the selection criteria. Emily had worked alongside a large sales team in a previous role, and she knew attorneys would use a CRM very differently. “Salespeople live and breathe a CRM. Attorneys don’t, so how is it going to work for them?” Her requirements included an Outlook add-in, no data entry, automatic enrichment, who-knows-who visibility, built-in email marketing, and a strong mobile app.

Jaclyn recommends quantifying everything you can, with a caveat. “Lawyers are obviously analytical people, so they definitely like to see the numbers, but avoid setting any ROI expectations that you can’t guarantee.” Her case set current costs against proposed costs and included staff time, duplicated effort, and savings from consolidation (moving to Nexl allowed Morse to centralize their email marketing platform and CRM into one tool).

She suggests that comparing the price of a new platform against the cost of the status quo is one of the strongest points you can make. “It’s the cost of buying versus the cost of continuing to pay for inefficiency, bad data, bad mailing lists, missed opportunities, and technology that people weren’t using anymore,” she says. “We had reached a point where we were paying for a CRM that folks were saying, ‘Oh, I don’t use it. I don’t even know how to find it.’”

Emily and Jaclyn agreed that time savings belong in a business case, even if leadership doesn’t see them as a priority. “It does matter because it frees up your time for them in other ways,” Emily says. Jaclyn sees it as the key to taking on new work. “When leadership is asking for your team to take on more or something new, part of you being able to say yes to that is finding efficiencies in technology.”

Use your network, benchmarks, and pain points

Many firms have to build business cases without historical data, for one reason or another. Nexl’s Rethinking Rainmakers research, produced with Camojee, found that 41% of firms don’t use core technologies like a CRM, and more than 42% lack access to quality data for BD.

Jaclyn’s advice for those teams lacking data is to start with the problem. “Even if you don’t have historical CRM data, you still have evidence,” she says. “Try tracking your manual processes for a month, like how long it takes to get a newsletter out.”

For Morse, their holiday card list was one of the pain points in their business case. “No one wanted to look at paper lists anymore or Excel spreadsheets of contacts,” says Jaclyn. Her advice is to look at every source of friction. “Count the spreadsheets, the time it takes to do everything manually, look at the problems with your mailing list, and think about how many programs, applications, or systems have overlapping data.”

External benchmarks help too. Jaclyn leans on peers from LMA and other professional associations, particularly those with a similar budget or team size. For smaller teams, she argues ease of use belongs in the business case. “You can’t really afford technology that constantly needs administrative upkeep and data maintenance. Your ease of use is part of the ROI.”

Emily suggests that your network is a strong source of evidence when you’re lacking internal data. “I had a very trusted resource at a large firm that was using Nexl, and a lot of the attorneys I work with also know this person and know how great she is,” says Emily. “So, being able to say, this firm chose Nexl, this is how they use it, was really helpful.”

She also asked peers why their tools worked for them, even when she wasn’t considering the same CRM. “Learning those things helped to tell the story because it’s a way to let leadership know what’s possible. This is how this firm is using it, this is what it’s done for them, and this is how it’s helped,” she says. “Any vendor case studies that are out there are always helpful too.”

Prepare for pushback

Most marketing and BD leaders will hear a partner suggest an alternative at some point. “You have to be open to listening and exploring whatever they throw at you, but I will always lay out my reasoning for why or why not,” says Emily. “A very helpful thing to do is set up a simple spreadsheet with all the data, everything you’re looking for, every tool you’ve demoed, what’s disappointing about it, what’s great about it. Having that requirements spreadsheet helps defend your case.”

Doing that work in advance also shapes how leadership sees you. “Building your opinion up front and having the data to back it up really builds trust with leadership, even if they end up overruling you,” she says.

Jaclyn likes to prepare for likely alternatives before anyone raises them and positions her recommendation as the Goldilocks option. “There are tools that are basic. Then there are ones that are really big and expensive, and probably not something your attorneys are going to use. So, I try to put my recommendation in the middle and be very clear about why.”

Regardless, both accept that the final decision belongs to the firm’s owners. “It’s their money at the end of the day,” says Jaclyn. Emily agrees. “Any CRM is better than no CRM, so it’s always a win.”

Measure success in stages

Jaclyn’s CRM rollout is currently running alongside an AI time-tracking module and new technology for the firm’s patent group, so she told leadership up front that attorney training would take longer than usual.

She also reminded leadership that not everyone will participate from the start, and framed success in stages. “There’s the adoption aspect of it, the behavior change, like folks entering BD activities into the app, and then there’s the actual business outcome.”

“I’m not making promises that it’s going to equal six new clients this month,” says Jaclyn. “I can frame it to them in a way that says if people use the system, we’ll have better visibility and more consistent efforts, and then over time, perhaps we can assess whether this leads to stronger relationships or new business.”

Emily’s rollout plan has clear milestones, starting with a pilot of six attorneys before expanding to 20 and then the wider firm. She is also reviewing every client record herself before attorneys start using Nexl. “If they see bad data, they could write it off and say I’m not using this tool,” says Emily. “The tool is only as good as the firm’s willingness to use it.”

Share wins early and often

Once a purchase is approved, both speakers treat communication as the core of the first 90 days. Emily gives updates at every weekly executive committee meeting. “I don’t care if it’s five seconds, but they need to know that it’s moving forward and we’re making progress, or if we’re stuck on something,” she says.

She recommends tracking opportunities in the CRM and coding each one by how it came to the firm. “Then you have really great data to show how new business is coming in.” She also suggests reporting to leadership more often than quarterly, even if it’s a short email to the executive committee. “It’ll help you identify if something is stalling or if there are issues or concerns. You can address those as they come before they turn into a big problem.”

Jaclyn attends every practice group meeting and uses them to share how colleagues in other groups are using the platform, sometimes asking an attorney ahead of time to share their own experience. “Cheerleaders, success stories, every meeting, all the time, until they’re sick of hearing it,” says Jaclyn.  

Morse is also adding platform use to its lawyer incentive program. “I expect that the people who hold back at first will have some FOMO when they hear the success stories,” says Jaclyn.

Beyond the first 90 days, Jaclyn reports monthly to her executive director on wins, adoption concerns, and process improvements for her team. “Unexpected champions is one of my favorites, when somebody you did not expect to be excited about the tool gets involved.”

Ready to start building your own business case? Download our business case template to help you build a clear, credible case for your next technology investment.