That was the challenge posed by Charles A. James, General Counsel of Chevron, Inc. in his keynote address at last week’s LegalTech conference here in L.A.

Mr. James’ comments were directed at software that is not compatible, yet marketed to legal departments (and I would presume law firms as well).

I’d like to echo those remarks here.

Why is it that, when it comes to law firm technology, our administrative departments (marketing/business development, HR, finance, IT/systems) are not coordinating? And, in many of the firms, are competing against one another.

I understand that there are a finite amount of resources, from dollars to people, but rather than work together as a team, prioritizing projects, we all seem to work independently, jockeying for the attention of the managing partner or CEO to green light our project at the expense of someone else’s.

• LMA’s technology vendors are limited to marketing software, CRM, web designers and the like.
• At last week’s LegalTech there were no marketing/CRM, HR or finance vendors?

However, I saw a pretty sweet case/matter product there that could solve one of marketing’s biggest headaches – the RFP and all those pesky little questions they ask. This product was a calendaring system, document management system and a pretty sweet case/matter tracking system – all in one. Wow. Something we can all get behind!

I’m now motivated to get to ALA’s national conference to see what they have to offer.

Which raises the question: Why is it that there is not one place where all the vendors come together? Why can we not have a legal technology conference that targets all of us: marketers, business developers, HR, Finance, IT/systems?

Oh, and let’s not forget about the lawyers.