By: Robyn Fortier, Director of Product Management
It’s a familiar journey.
Months of thoughtful design. Intentional architecture. Strong alignment with leadership. A successful rollout.
And then — reality sets in.
Questions surface. Feedback arrives quickly. Teams begin adapting the solution to fit how work actually happens.
When well-designed software encounters friction after launch, the issue is rarely the technology itself. More often, it reflects an opportunity to deepen inclusion—to close the gap between strategic intent and day-to-day operational reality.
Many of us at Purpose have seen firsthand how even strong legal technology can benefit from earlier and broader stakeholder engagement. Those experiences have shaped how we work today: anticipating adoption challenges sooner, engaging users earlier, and planning with operational context in mind—so change feels supported rather than disruptive.
In high-stakes environments like eDiscovery, where defensibility and precision are essential, adoption doesn’t happen by default. It’s built deliberately—through partnership, clarity, and trust.
Where Insight Takes Shape
Stakeholders are often first identified at the leadership level, but the most actionable insight comes from those closest to the work—analysts navigating edge cases, project managers balancing delivery and expectations, and operational leads maintaining quality under pressure. While early inclusion takes time and discipline, it is almost always less costly than retrofitting trust after resistance emerges.
Technology transformation accelerates when these perspectives inform planning early, revealing where processes flex, friction appears, and informal workarounds take hold. This allows executives to stay focused on growth and resilience, while product leadership bridges vision to execution.
Because subject matter experts carry heavy workloads, a core responsibility of product leadership at Purpose Legal is to make long-term value unmistakably clear. By articulating operational benefit, defining success criteria, and naming the cost of inaction, engagement shifts from interruption to investment—supported by executive sponsorship that reinforces change as organizational maturity.
Implementation Is a Beginning, Not a Conclusion
A software launch is not the end of the development lifecycle. It is the beginning of behavioral change.
Post-release support must be intentional:
- Ongoing training, both group and individualized
- Contextual refreshers aligned to real usage
- Workflow integration guidance
- Transparent review of adoption metrics
In eDiscovery, usage is often episodic. A feature may not be required daily, but when it is needed, it must be trusted. Confidence is built through repetition and reinforcement.
Usage data is nice, but it isn’t just operational reporting—it’s diagnostic. Where adoption slows, there is insight. Where teams revert to old workflows, there is signal. When interpreted thoughtfully, this data guides intentional iteration and gives business leaders evidence-based insight to make informed decisions that meaningfully impact the organization.
Change in a Stability-Driven Industry
In the eDiscovery industry, resistance to change is often rooted in experience. Defensible processes exist because something once failed—and no one wants to repeat that risk. When the stakes are high and data integrity is non negotiable, change is approached cautiously, with innovation weighed carefully against the controls clients rely on.
In this context, change can feel destabilizing. Resistance rarely stems from stubbornness. It stems from uncertainty. Two questions underlie most hesitation:
- Why is this change necessary?
- How will it affect my work?
Effective product leaders anticipate these concerns before rollout. They communicate the “why” clearly. They outline impact specifically — by department, by role, by workflow.
Designing Systems That Work for People—Not Against Them
One subtle but powerful shift in change management is this: Technology improvements should be framed as process enhancements, not individual corrections. In regulated, adversarial environments, adoption and defensibility are not competing goals—consistent, trusted usage can sustain defensible outcomes over time.
When change feels personal, it triggers defensiveness. When it lives within the system — positioned as structural improvement — it becomes collaborative.
Inclusion further diffuses resistance. Inclusion doesn’t mean consensus on every decision—it means meaningful input before paths harden. Inviting teams into user acceptance testing, workflow validation, or training programs creates ownership. Even small contributions transform change from something imposed to something co-created.
People support what they help shape—especially when they can see their input reflected in the outcome.
Adoption Starts with Trust
When adoption slows—such as teams reverting to manual workflows during peak deadlines—that signal is rarely about resistance. It’s about trust under pressure. In practice, trust is layered—confidence in accuracy, predictability in process, and belief that change is being made with care. Adoption is as much a narrative as it is operational, and what happens after launch matters as much as what comes before. For product leaders, this reframes success: not whether a capability was released, but whether teams can confidently rely on it when it matters.
I’ve had the opportunity in my own position at Purpose Legal to see teams successfully adopt new workflow automation technology—and to help build momentum through periods of uncertainty, particularly when leadership sets realistic expectations during transition. This is product management—not just releasing features, but building trust in the technology, the process, and the care behind change. In high-stakes environments, that trust isn’t optional—it’s foundational.
