If the change will have a significant effect on client services, a focus group of representative clients can often be worth many times the cost of hosting it. Bring the clients in, outline your plans, explain your expectations in terms of improved client service and listen to their reaction. The client focus group will often provide insights that the lawyers might miss. Many clients may have already been through similar experiences. Stakeholder identification is not just a reconnaissance mission to identify pockets of future resistance.
Stakeholders can provide some of the best information about the effect on law office processes.
Although most people naturally tend to resist change, stakeholder resistance is usually grounded in apprehension about how the technology might complicate or otherwise adversely affect legal services. Even though some of them may have never expressed it, stakeholders feel ownership of the process. They usually want it to improve, or, at least, not make it worse. Unless they are involved in the changes from the beginning, they may become suspicious. Internal stakeholders who have been with the organization for many years lawyers and support staff alike often seem highly skeptical of any proposed change.