The hidden cost of reinventing what already exists (Across big law)

By Joeri Maes (CEO)

Over the past few months, I’ve watched the same modernization pattern repeat itself across large firms, firms with the best intentions, strong teams, and serious budgets.

It usually starts with a clean slate. A transformation program kicks off, and the focus quickly turns to finding the “right” tools and building the “right” stack. But what keeps surprising me is that the hard part isn’t choosing software. The hard part is everything firms rebuild around it again and again.

And that reinvention is exactly what slows down the one thing firms actually want: efficiency gains through process automation.

The expensive habit: starting from scratch

The early phase of many programs looks familiar:

Teams build lengthy legal tech market comparisons from zero. Security, compliance, and risk checklists are recreated repeatedly, vendor-by-vendor. “Best-of-breed” stacks are assembled tool-by-tool. Integration work begins to force systems to talk. Migration programs are designed as one-off projects. Months go by before real value shows up for lawyers, support teams, or clients.

This approach isn’t just slow. It’s expensive not only in vendor fees, but in internal time, opportunity cost, and the long-term cost of maintaining a patchwork once it’s live.

For years, best-of-breed was the best available answer for Big Law: pick the best tool for each requirement and connect them as well as possible. In many cases, that was the only realistic path.

But the market evolved. The problem today isn’t that firms pick the wrong tools. The problem is what comes next.

Best-of-breed isn’t the problem. The patchwork is.

Best-of-breed was never a bad strategy. The issue is the operational reality that follows when a stack is assembled “manually.”

Different tools come with different data structures. Matter metadata gets duplicated across systems. Permissions and governance become inconsistent. Integrations are brittle and break when one tool updates. Workflows degrade over time because they depend on connectors that weren’t built to be a permanent foundation. And many tools weren’t designed specifically for law firms, meaning they don’t always reflect legal workflows and operating realities out of the box.

When firms build a stack tool-by-tool, they’re not just buying software.

They’re buying an integration and maintenance program one that is usually larger and more costly than expected.

And this is where process automation quietly stalls. Automation depends on consistency: consistent matter data, consistent permissions, consistent workflow steps. A patchwork makes every automation harder, slower, and riskier to roll out.

The infrastructure layer Big Law has been missing

Most firms aren’t struggling because they lack options. They’re struggling because they lack infrastructure.

A modern legal operating environment needs a foundation that makes automation possible and scalable:

• A unified data model (matters, clients, entities, permissions)
• Reliable integrations that are maintained, versioned, and monitored
• Standardized workflows that scale across teams
• A base layer that turns automation into a repeatable capability rather than a series of bespoke projects

Without that foundation, every new tool adds complexity. With it, every new capability becomes easier to introduce because it plugs into something stable.

This is the shift many firms underestimate: efficiency doesn’t come from adding more tools. It comes from creating an environment where workflows can be standardized and automated without re-engineering the firm each time.

Migrations: where projects go over budget (and over time)

Migrations are where transformation becomes real and where timelines often slip.

Not because teams aren’t capable, but because the reality is messy: legacy systems, inconsistent data, unpredictable formats, custom fields that only one person understands, and edge cases everywhere.

If every migration is treated as a new, bespoke engineering effort, costs multiply quickly.

And technology alone won’t carry a migration. That’s why the firms that succeed typically build structure around the work as well: governance models and SteerCo playbooks, change-management frameworks, stakeholder alignment, structured onboarding trajectories for each department, and communication plans that protect service quality during transition.

Because the goal isn’t “data moved.” The goal is a firm that operates better the day after go-live.

Don’t start with AI. Start with the foundation.

There’s a lot of noise about AI in legal right now. AI will matter a lot.

But Big Law gets the biggest returns when it starts with what enables everything else: process optimization, workflow standardization, automation of repetitive work, and clean, structured data.

AI can amplify a strong operating foundation. It can’t reliably fix fragmented systems, inconsistent data, and manual workflows.

So the sequence matters:

Foundation → Automation → Intelligence (AI).

If you start with the basics, AI becomes a multiplier, not a distraction.

The obvious question: why rebuild what already exists?

If your firm is currently running new market comparison spreadsheets, assembling a stack tool-by-tool, investing months into making platforms talk, or planning a major migration from scratch, it’s worth asking:

Why start from zero, when the infrastructure already exists?

Where Lawcloud fits

Lawcloud was built to make this path faster, safer, and more cost-efficient:

• Integrated best-of-breed where it matters
• Built-in functionality where gaps exist
• Industrialized migrations and automation
• End-to-end support for adoption and rollout

Lawcloud is the shortcut because we already built the long road.