From Gut Feel to Data-Driven Decisions: How Legal IT Is Finally Catching Up

Thomas Hawkins – April 11, 2025  – 6 mins read

For most of my career in legal IT, data has always been there — but more in the background. Log files, time recording reports, billing metrics, storage usage — useful stuff, but siloed and reactive. We’d dig it out when something broke, or when management asked for a report. It wasn’t strategic.

That’s changed. Slowly at first, then all at once.

In the last 18 months, we’ve shifted from “having data” to actually using insights to drive operational and business decisions. It’s been eye-opening — and sometimes uncomfortable — but it’s made our IT team more valuable than ever to the wider firm.

Here are a few things I’ve learned along the way.

1. You Probably Have More Useful Data Than You Think

We didn’t start with a fancy BI platform or a data warehouse. We started with exporting raw data from our PMS, DMS, support desk, and billing systems into Excel and Power BI. It was messy — and honestly a bit intimidating at first — but even that first dashboard was a lightbulb moment.

Just seeing file access patterns, fee earner device usage, login times, and document versioning in one view showed us where people were working, how tools were (or weren’t) being used, and where performance bottlenecks lived.

You don’t need perfection to get started. You need curiosity and a few good questions.

2. Time Entry and Billing Data Is a Goldmine

Everyone complains about time recording — too manual, too late, too messy. But when we started analysing time-entry lag, we realised just how much revenue was being delayed or lost. We could see who was logging time late, which practice areas had the most missed entries, and how it correlated with workload.

We didn’t use that to punish anyone. We used it to reshape how and when we prompt people to record time — and it worked. Capture rates improved, billing lag dropped, and finance suddenly started asking for more dashboards.

3. Insights Are a Bridge Between IT and the Business

In legal IT, it’s easy to feel like you’re in the engine room while the firm steers the ship. But once we started showing insights — not just reports, but visual, interactive dashboards — suddenly partners wanted to talk.

“How many hours are we losing to system latency?”
“Why is that team’s document storage so far above average?”
“Can we prove we need more tech budget based on usage data?”

Insights turned IT from a support function to a business enabler. That shift is powerful — and long overdue.

4. Trust the Numbers, But Understand the Story

One trap we hit early was assuming the data told the whole truth. It didn’t. People work in different ways. Context matters. One lawyer logging fewer hours might actually be the most productive — or might be stuck in an old workflow.

You need to pair the data with conversations. Use it as a tool to ask better questions, not as a blunt instrument.

The more we’ve blended analytics with empathy, the more value we’ve delivered — and the more trust we’ve built.

5. Start Small, Iterate, and Share What You Learn

We didn’t roll out a firm-wide analytics initiative. We started with one dashboard — then another. We automated a few regular reports. We showed people the value, asked for feedback, and improved the next one.

Now we’re looking at:

• Document automation data to spot process gaps
• Support ticket trends by department and device
• Application adoption by office location
• Predictive metrics for IT capacity planning

The momentum builds on itself. Once people see what’s possible, they start asking for insights rather than us having to push them.

Final Thought: Data Isn’t Just for the Boardroom Anymore

Legal firms are realising what other industries have known for years: data is power — if you know how to use it. For us in IT, this is a massive opportunity to lead, not just support.

We don’t need to be data scientists. But we do need to champion data literacy, ask better questions, and build tools that make sense of the noise.

That’s how we turn IT from reactive to proactive — and from service desk to strategy partner.