With the rapidly shifting technology landscape, the increasing focus on compliance, and the impetus to raise standards of professionalism among all staff, training has never been more important in a law firm.  For training to be successful, trainers must not only know the firm's applications and processes intimately, they must understand firm culture and dynamics as well.  And the trainer often needs direction from both IT and HR.

The Hot Issues for Trainers!
The matter-centric wave is irresistible.  Revolutionary in concept and brilliantly simple in execution, matter-centric programs feature electronic matter files, finally bringing the paper-based practice of law into the electronic age.  These electronic matter files, called workspaces, emulate each matter's paper file, containing folders and documents.  Each firm develops its own standards, best practices and procedures for creating workspaces, and trainers must be familiar with those.

E-mail messages are now stored in a firm's DMS, not only as part of the matter-centric model, but also to conform to compliance regulations or internal policies.  At some firms it's the trainer who first introduces the concept of saving e-mail messages to the document management system, so it is imperative that trainers know about firm security options and best practices.

Technology migrations are usually designed with an aggressive rollout schedule aimed at reducing the time period when the firm has two different systems.  Speedy rollouts mean intensive training, making it difficult if not impossible for in-house training staff to handle on its own.  Selecting the right training vendor is vital for acceptance, understanding and user mastery.  Key to successful training is hiring an experienced training vendor.

Pre-rollout promotion is very important to build a positive buzz around the changes to be implemented.  These promotions can include live demo sessions, presentations and various styles of marketing campaigns, all of which involve multiple departmental disciplines within the firm.

"Floor support is paramount or on the same level as training," according to Maria Negron, Director of Support Services at McCarter & English.  She sees floor support as an opportunity to extend training.  "Continuing training desk-side helps each user perform better.  They are more focused on a particular task, and what they learn really sticks."  Floor support check lists are vital to make sure users can access the new system and see or find their workspaces.

About our authors . . .

Cathy Wallach is the Co-CEO of EncoreTech, Inc., the highly respected provider of software training, support, and documentation for the largest and most prestigious law firms in the country.  Cathy can be reached at cwallach@encoretech.com.

Judith Glassman is a Lead Trainer for EncoreTech, Inc., providing train-the-trainer classes, end user training and support, and customization of EncoreTech's training and reference materials.  Judith can be reached at jglassman@encoretech.com.