Tech Stack Audit: Use ChatGPT to Assess Your Law Firm's Tech
Yes, you can use Chat GPT to streamline your tech stack audit, pinpoint overlapping features and help eliminate unnecessary spending for your law firm! Here’s how.
Technology enables us to practice at our peak, but with legal technology platforms and productivity apps constantly adding new features, we started to wonder if we’re overpaying — and underusing what we had. Manually comparing everything in our tech stack seemed overwhelming. We’re always looking for useful ways to use artificial intelligence to save time, so when one of us spotted an article from WovenLegal on how to use ChatGPT to do an audit that would detect overlapping and extraneous services, we had to try it out.
Streamlining the Audit Process
I pulled all of our business support technologies into a single report listing each platform, with columns for monthly or annual cost, frequency of use, whether or not it provided a core business function, and the main thing we use it for.
I uploaded the spreadsheet into ChatGPT and used the following initial prompt:
PROMPT 1: Please review the attached spreadsheet of technology spend for my firm. Highlight any overlapping services or redundant expenses where multiple tools serve the same function. My goal is to eliminate unnecessary spending and streamline our tech stack.
Unfortunately, ChatGPT got a little hung up on my “Main Function” column and produced a list of overlaps based on what we use it for rather than what the platforms can actually do. Not helpful. I tweaked the prompt to get the AI to look at each platform’s features and ignore the “Main Function” column.
PROMPT 2: Many of the tools listed have multiple features. Disregarding the “Main Function” column and looking at the totality of features that each program offers (features are not listed on the spreadsheet — you will need to research them), tell me where there is overlap between the various platforms.
Enhancing the Comparison Process
This produced better results. I got a list of each tool’s core capabilities and functions and then a set of identified overlaps and recommendations.
Workflows and task management are critical to our business. I was curious to see if we could consolidate our task management into a single tool. But ChatGPT only compared Trello with Google Suite. It’s important to dig deeper with AI. I know that Evernote now offers some task management because one of our coaching clients uses it for his firm. ChatGPT didn’t consider this, so I asked a more specific question.
PROMPT 3: How does Trello compare with the task management features now available in Evernote? In particular, consider the two in the context of a small team.
Final Recommendations
ChatGPT went further and provided the pros and cons of consolidating everything into Trello versus putting it all into Evernote, as well as a hybrid approach — using Evernote for knowledge management and Trello for workflows and task management. It gave a final recommendation.
Because the point of this exercise was to determine the most cost-effective, consolidated tech stack, I decided to use ChatGPT to help me decide on a single tool that would accomplish what we needed.
It then offered to help me plan the transition from our current hybrid Trello/Evernote system to any one of the tools. I said, “Sure, give me a plan to transition from Trello and Evernote to ClickUp.”
Transition and Migration Planning
Chat GPT produced a phased migration plan, with tasks and milestones to be accomplished in each phase, instructions and anticipated timing. It also offered to create template workspaces I could set up in ClickUp with the appropriate folders, lists and custom views, along with a list of automations and integrations to streamline and automate workflows.
All of this took about five minutes from Prompt 1 to the generation of the ClickUp migration template.
Absolutely! Is it perfect? No. Be prepared to tweak your prompts as you go along, and make sure you start with a clear picture of the problems you’re trying to solve with technology. ChatGPT can quickly identify some key overlaps in your technology and provide alternatives for consolidating your tools, increasing your efficiency, and reducing your spending. It will even show you, step by step, how to migrate between tools.
Is it a useful exercise with the potential to be a totally absorbing rabbit hole? You bet … have fun!
