A benefit of working for a company that has been in the legal services and technology industry for 37 years is that you learn a lot about what has worked and what hasn’t when it comes to innovation. We are always looking at where to develop, where to buy, and where to partner when creating client solutions.
Sustaining and promoting innovative and bold thinking often requires a holistic approach and structure to go from ideas to implementation. In the legal world, “bold” is certainly not always a comfortable adjective. We prefer familiar words like defensible, repeatable, tested, and reasonable.
And honestly? There’s good reason for that. Legal teams operate in an environment where risk is real, stakes are high, and consistency is non-negotiable.
But here’s the challenge:
The legal industry, like so many other industries, is now being reshaped by GenAI, automation, and data-driven workflows faster than ever. Staying “tried and true” can quietly turn into “slow and outdated.”
Embracing Change
So, how do forward-looking legal teams embrace new possibilities without abandoning their foundational need for reliability? They do it by pairing bold ideas with strategic, disciplined frameworks, which is exactly what we have done at TCDI with our Tech Lab’s approach to innovation and evaluating emerging technologies.
As our clients and teams identify needs, we have to remain committed to developing and testing new legal technology and workflows to ensure we deliver innovative, secure, and effective solutions. The structure of TCDI’s Tech Lab has allowed us to do just that.
The Problem: Innovation Without Structure Dies Quickly
Most legal organizations want to innovate. They see the promise of GenAI for accelerating review, improving quality, and cutting costs. They know automation can replace repetitive drudgery.
But here’s what usually happens:
- Someone experiments with a new tool in isolation
- It works (sort of)
- There’s no ownership, process, or documentation
- It fades away
- The next experiment starts from scratch
Innovation without structure is like a great idea written on a whiteboard with a fading marker. It’s exciting in the moment, but disappearing or completely invisible by the next quarter.
Why the Legal Industry Needs “Boldness with Guardrails”
Unlike tech startups, legal teams can’t take moon-shot risks. A misstep can jeopardize a case, data security, or ethical obligations.
What’s needed isn’t unrestrained experimentation. What’s needed is disciplined boldness:
- Explore aggressively
- Evaluate objectively
- Adopt rigorously
- Operationalize defensibly
The TCDI Tech Lab: Where Creative Ideas Become Defensible Processes
This is the strategic gap the TCDI Tech Lab was built to fill by providing a place where legal teams can be bold in a low-risk environment.
How the Tech Lab Sustains Innovation:
- Controlled experimentation: A safe environment to test GenAI, automations, and workflow concepts without impacting live cases.
- Structured evaluation: Proof of concepts (POCs) are measured against criteria like accuracy, reproducibility, cost impact, and defensibility. It takes into account a holistic approach to innovation, looking at the following key areas:
- Being ever mindful of security regardless of the solution
- Staying focused on data management is critical to control everything from volume to database fields and field values
- Understanding how, when, and where solutions fit into workflows to supplement or improve existing processes
- Finding, developing, or integrating the latest technology
- Aligning the right people with the data, processes, and technology and recognizing the different interactions and impact
- Relying on Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) to ensure we are making improvements and creating an environment for new ideas and innovations to continue adapting
- Rapid iteration: Ideas evolve quickly through guided refinement.
- Pathways to operationalization: Successful ideas become real solutions with documented workflows and defensible processes.
Innovation without process isn’t innovation, it’s a hobby. The legal industry needs systematic innovation. They need boldness that scales, evolves, and integrates.
The Bottom Line
You can be bold in the legal industry without compromising the same principles that have protected and guided the decisions being made to create solutions. You can test new GenAI capabilities. You can challenge assumptions and improve workflows.
You just need the structure to make sure the boldness survives long enough to matter. Bold ideas aren’t the problem. Lack of structure is. And in legal, the right structure turns innovation into advantage.
Dave York
Author
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Dave oversees TCDI’s Litigation Services team involved in projects and data relating to eDiscovery, litigation management, incident response, investigations and special data projects.
Since his start in the industry in 1998, Dave has made the rounds working on the law firm, client, and now provider side of the industry, successfully supporting, executing and managing all phases of diverse legal and technical projects and solutions. During his career he has been a NC State Bar Certified Paralegal, holds a certification in Records Management, is a Certified eDiscovery Specialist (ACEDS), and has completed Black Belt Lean Six Sigma training.
