If you’re reading this, there’s every chance you’ve experienced pain points in your legal operations, and perhaps you’ve even begun identifying the right legal tech solution to overcome them. Congratulations on taking this first step!

But just like any other business function, it’s likely that you’ll have to prepare a business case to help influence stakeholders on why the tech you’ve chosen is the best option and, ultimately, to get sign-off for the investment.

So, to help get you started, we’ve created a handy blueprint to guide you through building a business case in six easy steps. With a guide in hand, along with this free business case template you’ll be even closer to getting the green light.

1. Showcase the problem

The problem section of your business case becomes the ‘backbone’ and the ‘why’ behind the technology you’re proposing.

That’s why identifying with clarity the current situation, pain points or problems that you need to solve is crucial to getting business buy-in. And while anecdotal and qualitative information will be useful, it’s important to rely on numbers, metrics or statistics where possible.

For example, a legal efficiency and savings calculator can help quantify the potential cost of inefficient legal technology and process – and by extension the business value of improving legal operations.

Additionally, industry reports and statistics also provide useful evidence, trends and benchmarks to include in your business case. For example a white paper by International Data Corporation (IDC) called Legal friction; the real cost to your business’ – surveyed both legal teams and business leaders to quantify the impact of inefficient legal process.

Tip! Be sure to articulate the problems and opportunities that align with broader business objectives.  You can use a tool like the this Legal tech alignment survey to  identify stakeholder priorities and pain points. 

2 Key vendor details

Key details – who are they?

Provide an overview of your recommended solution. Start with the basic information that matters to stakeholders and to reflect that you’ve done your due diligence. For example, details should include:

• Core capabilities of your proposed solution
• Key vendor information
• Information that’s important to internal partners like your IT team – such as security and privacy credentials
• How the solution aligns with key business initiatives such as your organizations AI strategy

Showcase the benefits it will provide

The next step is to outline how your preferred supplier or proposed technology solution solves your problem and meets your requirements (as previously outlined). How will the tool help your legal team achieve its goals or key priorities in your strategy? And don’t forget benefits for the wider business. For instance, are there efficiency or velocity objectives that this solution should align with?

A good place to start is by referring back to the problems you identified earlier, and how the proposed solution addresses them.

The next step is to outline how your preferred supplier or proposed technology solution solves problems, creates value, and meets key requirements.

While it’s important to express how the the tool help your legal team achieve its goals or key priorities, don’t forget to include benefits for the wider business. For instance, are there efficiency or velocity objectives that this solution should align with? If you’re trying to get buy-in  from the wider business, positioning the solution as providing them with value too will only help your case.

This could look like:

• Faster turnaround times for sales contracts
• Improving business user experience for legal service delivery, like sending requests to legal and receiving real-time updates through a consolidated platform
• Transparency into legal team performance
• The ability to control costs and save on legal spend
• The ability to scale the function to and support growing workload relying on tech to automate certain tasks instead

4. The financials: Costs and ROI

When it comes to budget approval, numbers speak louder than features.

Outline the total cost of ownership – including licenses, implementation, and ongoing support – and balance it with clear estimates of ROI, such as time saved, reduced outside counsel spend, or faster revenue recognition.

Even directional figures build confidence that your request is grounded in business value, not just legal needs.

5. Outline what implementation looks like

A strong business case doesn’t end with purchase – it shows how the technology will be rolled out and measured.

Include a simple overview of the implementation plan with clear milestones and success metrics (KPIs) to track adoption and ROI. This not only reassures stakeholders that value will be delivered but also sets the foundation for effective change management.

Partner closely with your vendor’s Customer Success team – they should guide the process, provide regular reviews, and help you present a clear timeline to stakeholders.

Don’t forget to include information to help your IT team plan if they’ll need to be involved – this will help you get up and running faster.

Good examples of target success metrics that will resonate with business stakeholders can align wit value, efficiency and cost savings, such as:

• Adoption rate: percentage of users actively engaging with the tool
• Cycle time reduction: measurable decrease in contract turnaround or matter resolution time
• Spend visibility: percentage of legal spend tracked and reported in real time

6. Executive summary

Last but not least, we suggest going back to the beginning and completing your executive summary.

This is where you can tie in the problems you’ve calculated, the impact they have on your team’s performance and the objectives of the wider business, and summarize your proposed solution.

If you’ve done all the other parts well, the executive summary should be quick and easy to write succinctly, putting across a strong case for the business to make a decision.

Next steps

So you’ve sent the business case to the business and they’ve made a decision. What’s next?

What to do if you’re successful

If you’re successful and the business approves your proposal, you’ll need to get ready for implementation. But because you’re so onto it, you’ll already have an outline of the implementation process from building your business case!

Here are some considerations when getting ready for kick-off that will likely be taken on by your project leader/sponsor:

• Bring the legal team along on the journey with any other affected stakeholders
• Communicate why this change is coming
• Communicate the benefits
• Ensure everyone knows what’s required of them
• Communicate what to expect during the implementation process

Once the software is live, the change process doesn’t stop there. Here are some further considerations:

• Onboarding commences after implementation – this is when any training needs to be done, and a good vendor will have a learning platform or academy to help with this process
• You’ll want widespread adoption of the tool by your legal team to ensure you get the expected return on investment, so just leaving it to onboarding might be insufficient. Regular check-ins to ensure people are completing any learning required, using the product and able to provide feedback will encourage usage
• If you want the business to use the tool for legal requests and updates, starting a communication plan on how to bring them into this as well will be important
• Communicate your success at key milestones! The business has approved a key piece of technology, so communicating back to those decision-makers things like:
  • When implementation commences
  • When onboarding commences
  • Once live, what wins you’re seeing like time savings or faster processes and quantifying them in ROI terms
• What’s next? After a period of embedding, a good vendor will encourage you to make a plan for what success looks like in the next 12 or 24 months and help you get there

What to do if you’re not successful

On the flip side, if you’re not successful in getting your proposed legal tech solution approved by decision-makers, it’s not the end of the road. Ask for feedback and find out:

• Was it pricing?
• Was it timing related – eg, there isn’t budget now, but might it come later?
• Was there another tool being implemented instead?
• Do you need to adjust your approach and do a better pitch?

With the feedback you receive you can create a plan B! It might just be that you need to wait until the next financial year when budgets and priorities align better.

So, there you have it – a blueprint for preparing a business case for legal technology. Good luck on putting your best foot forward.

Ready to build your business case?

Start quantifying time and money spent on manual administrative tasks with this legal efficiency and savings calculator, so you can get started on your business case with this free business case template!