Lawyer acceptance factor: Difference between revisions

[[File:Wife appreciation factor.png|450px|thumb|center|If you want to get it in the house, consider your [[stakeholder]]s.]]

}}In the olden days when hi-fi envy was still a thing, spoddy anorak types would speak of the “wife appreciation factor” — the kind of attributes that would see that new pre-amplification gain-stage attenuator make it through the door without the missus hitting the roof.

Generally, an awesome total harmonic distortion rating wouldn’t cut it.  It had to ''look'' nice, which meant “acceptably unobtrusive” and ideally ''invisible'', but failing that, having artfully-applied walnut veneer, a minimalist fascia and a resemblance to mid-century Danish lounge furniture would at least put you in play.

We mention this because the same goes, with feeling, when embarking on a user [[change journey]], particularly where the gang of redoubtable hobbits ''on'' that journey comprises members of the legal profession ten or twenty years into their practising careers — or for that matter business people ''used'' to their dreary output. The business case may write itself, the [[MIS]] it promises to kick off may be overwhelming but, still, it behoves a smart [[middle manager]] to consider how the “[[change journey]]” will present itself to the [[legal eagle]]s whom you expect to embark on it.  

Because they’re a stubborn, recalcitrant lot, are our sibling lawyers. The way they see it, they are already ''on'' a journey, it is [[tedious]] enough as it is, and they are not interested in being sent on some [[M.B.A.]]-initiated diversion intended to convert them, as they see it, into glorified [[Who breaks a hamster on a wheel?|hamsters]].<ref>[[Who breaks a hamster on a wheel?]]</ref>

Contrary to received wisdom, and however vigorously they may, as a class, declare themselves proudly prehistoric, lawyers are ''not'' universal Luddites, and will hoover up any tech they come across that makes them get where ''they'' think they are going faster.

Mobile [[email]], for example, got accepted so quickly that it barely spent any time at all as an “[[innovation]]”: it went from science fiction to the commonplace overnight, skipping a phase transition altogether, like dry ice subliming to CO₂ and within six months had become something everyone whinges about.  Likewise, fax, the in, automated [[document comparison]], remote working, [[e-discovery]] and a host of other neat recent tricks.

But innovations, however brilliant they may, in the abstract be, that ''don’t'' make a lawyer’s life easier: that are imposed on her to make ''someone else’s'' life easier — usually a [[bean counter]]’s — and ones that deprive her of her [[autonomy]], or reduce her to a form-filling, button-pushing functionary — expect these to take a little while longer<ref>i.e., until the [[Omega|Apocalypse.]]</ref> to “catch on”.