Legal · Demo Call
Legal Product Demo Script: Running a Demo for a Managing Partner, Litigation Chair, and Risk Committee Without Losing the Room
The person on this demo has already heard the pitch. They said yes to seeing it, which means they are not here to learn what it does — they are here to find out where it breaks in a firm that runs Relativity on-prem, iManage Work, Intapp for conflicts, and 3E for billing, and where the risk committee's default answer to any vendor touching client data is no. If the Litigation Chair on the call bills 2,200 hours, you have their attention for about forty minutes and every interruption they throw is either a buying question or a disqualification test.
The failure mode is predictable. You open with the admin screen, then a dashboard, then a feature tour, and somewhere around minute twelve the Chair goes quiet, you hear typing, and the call ends with "send me something and I'll circulate it to the technology committee." That is not a next step. That is a one-pager going into a committee inbox with nobody in the room who has felt the problem on a live matter.
This legal product demo script is built around three or four moments in a firm's actual week — the 1am privilege call, the write-down conversation the billing partner discovers eight weeks late, the intake that takes four days while the client is already on the phone with two other firms. Show those completely and skip everything else. Firms adopt sideways: one practice group makes it work on one painful matter, realization moves, and the executive committee follows the numbers rather than leading them.
The demo call script
Say it in your own words. The structure is the part that matters.
- 1
Confirmation email (send 3 days out — this builds the demo)
Subject: Thursday's session — two questions so I don't waste your time "Looking forward to Thursday. So I show you things that actually apply to your environment rather than my sandbox, two questions: 1. What are you running for review and for the DMS — Relativity Server on-prem, RelativityOne, Everlaw, DISCO? iManage Work or NetDocuments? And is conflicts running through Intapp or something the firm built? 2. Is there a live matter I should build this around? If you can give me the shape of it — volume after de-duplication, number of custodians, whether there's an ESI protocol and a 502(d) order in place — I'll load the demo with that instead of Test Matter 1. Also: who else is joining? If your Director of Legal Technology is on, I'll have the architecture and the security questionnaire open in a second tab so we're not guessing." If they won't share matter data, at minimum use their practice areas, their task codes, and a client name pattern that looks like their client base. A demo built around "Acme Corp v. Test Defendant" tells a Litigation Chair you didn't prepare.
- 2
The 60-second opening — set the contract, not the agenda
"Before I share anything. Last time you told me you've got a commercial matter with about 340,000 documents after de-dupe, two second-years coding privilege at one in the morning to stay on the production schedule, and you already know a chunk of that review is getting written down when the bill goes out. That still the picture, or has it moved?" [Let them answer. Then:] "Anything changed since we spoke — new matter, new client guidelines, anything on the committee calendar I should know about?" "One request: interrupt me. If you're thinking 'that won't survive a meet-and-confer' or 'our risk committee kills that on page one,' say it in the moment. That's the useful part of this call — me clicking through screens is not." "Last thing. What's the one thing that, if this can't do it, we should stop and save each other the hour?" Whatever they name, that's screen one. Reorder on the fly.
- 3
Naming the room — three demos, one hour
If more than one person joined, say out loud who you think wants what. It buys you enormous credibility in a partnership. "Quick check that I've got you all placed right. [Litigation Chair], you care whether this survives a fight with opposing counsel over the protocol. [Director of Legal Operations], you care what the cost per document actually is and who on your team owns it after we're gone. [Director of Legal Technology], you care where the data sits and whether my integration breaks the next time we upgrade the DMS. And [GC of the firm], you're going to want the Rule 1.6 and the OCG consent answer before anything else. I'll hit all four, but tell me the order. Who's got the hardest constraint?" If the firm's General Counsel or Loss Prevention Partner is on the call, do their question first. If you leave it to minute fifty they will veto in writing after the call, and you will never see the veto.
- 4
Core loop 1 — the privilege log (usually the whole demo)
PROBLEM: "So here's the moment. It's a Tuesday, production's due the 30th, and your second-year has 4,000 docs left in the privilege queue. Every one she pulls, she's checking whether the sender is one of your attorneys or in-house, whether there's a third party on the chain that blows the privilege, and then she's typing a log entry by hand. And the privilege log is the part the client absolutely will not pay full freight for." SCREEN — narrate as the associate, not as the software: "This is her queue. She opens the doc. Here's the chain, here's the recommended call, and here's why — it flagged your partner's name off the firm's own attorney list, not a generic name match. She agrees, hits the key, and the log entry is already drafted: author, recipients, date, document type, basis for withholding. She's editing a sentence, not writing one from scratch. Now the one that matters — this one it's not sure about. Third party on the chain, could be a common-interest situation. It doesn't guess. It routes to the senior associate's escalation queue with the reason." CONSEQUENCE: "The log is being built while review runs, not in a three-week scramble after review closes. And every call has a reviewer's name and a timestamp on it, which is what you want when opposing counsel challenges the log." CHECK: "Is that how your privilege pass actually runs, or do you have the second-years doing relevance and privilege in one pass?"
- 5
Core loop 2 — the write-down the billing partner finds too late
PROBLEM: "Second moment. It's the 8th, the prebill's out, and the billing partner is looking at a $60K invoice where the client's guidelines say they don't pay for first-level review at associate rates and don't pay for internal conferencing. He finds that now. The time was recorded eight weeks ago." SCREEN: "This is that client's outside counsel guidelines, loaded as rules — not a PDF in the DMS that nobody reads. First-level review capped at contract-attorney rate. One attorney at depositions. No intra-firm conferencing over 0.3. Here's the matter, here's the time posting against the L300 codes, and here's the flag — the day it's entered, to the timekeeper, not at prebill." CONSEQUENCE: "You're moving the write-down conversation from write-off time to intake time. Nobody's calling the GC to argue about an invoice they were never going to pay." CHECK: "What's your standard realization sitting at right now across the commercial group? And do you know which clients are driving the gap, or is that a per-matter archaeology exercise?" If they say 84%, 85%, 86% — write it on screen where they can see it. That number is the business case and it should be theirs, not yours.
- 6
Core loop 3 — conflicts and intake, only if they raised it
Skip this unless the COO or Director of Legal Operations named it. If they did: PROBLEM: "Client calls Monday with a new matter. Your target for new matter open is under 24 hours. Reality is three to five days — conflicts search, the name-variant problem, an email chain about a waiver, and an engagement letter sitting in someone's drafts. Meanwhile they've called two other firms." SCREEN: "Search runs across the corporate family, not just the name they gave you — subsidiaries, prior names, the d/b/a. Here's the hit list ranked, here's the one real hit, here's the ethical screen being set up on the two lawyers who touched the prior matter, and here's the waiver request going out with the prior matter details already attached." CONSEQUENCE: "Your intake turnaround goes from days to same-day on the clean ones, and the partner only reads the four that need judgment instead of forty." CHECK: "How many new matters a month, and what percentage need a human decision versus clear straight through?"
- 7
Handling 'will it handle X' — the pattern
STEP 1 — get the specific. "Will it handle privilege?" is unanswerable. "Tell me the actual case. Is this in-house counsel copied on a business email chain, or is it a common-interest problem with a co-defendant, or is it a foreign privilege question because you've got custodians in the UK?" STEP 2 — answer one of three ways, honestly: - YES, AND HERE IT IS. Go show it live. This is the strongest thing that happens on a demo. - YES, BUT UGLY. "You don't do that in this screen. You do it here, and it's an export and a reload — about ten minutes for a litigation support analyst. Buyers forgive ugly. They don't forgive finding out in month three." - NO. Say no. "No. We don't do foreign privilege regimes today, and it's not on the roadmap this year." Then: "How often does that come up — every matter, or was that the Deutsche matter last year?" Half the time the deal-breaker is an edge case they mentioned because it came to mind. STEP 3 — never say "we can build that." To a partner who's been burned by a DMS migration, that is heard as the exact promise that slipped last time. STEP 4 — write it down visibly. "Let me note that: redaction of PII across a produced set after the fact. I'll come back to you Thursday with a straight answer." Then do it Thursday.
- 8
Pressure line 1 — integration (what your Director of Legal Technology is really asking)
They are asking: how much of this lands on my two-person team, and does it break when we upgrade? Name the method, not the word: "We read from Relativity through the API. If you're on Server on-prem rather than RelativityOne, we install a connector inside your network — that's an afternoon with your sysadmin and I'll send the port list before we go further. Documents don't leave your workspace; we're pulling metadata and text, and the coding decisions write back into your existing fields." Direction and frequency: "Reads new documents into the queue every fifteen minutes. Writes coding decisions and the log entries back on save." Say what you don't touch — this calms people more than any capability claim: "We do not write to 3E. Ever. We hand you a file, your billing team posts it. We don't touch the DMS taxonomy in iManage. We don't sit in the docketing chain — nothing we do affects a court deadline calculation, because that's a malpractice function and it should stay with the people who own it." If they're on an older version or a heavily customised instance: say what that means, in hours, now.
- 9
Pressure line 2 — who owns it after you leave
They are imagining their litigation support manager, who is one person, and who is out in August. "Ongoing, this is about two hours a month and it isn't IT work. Adding reviewers to a matter, updating the attorney list when someone laterals in, adjusting the escalation routing on a new matter. Your litigation support manager or your KM analyst does it — the same person who builds review layouts today. On my side: implementation is [name], and after go-live you keep [name] — same person, not a handoff to a queue. If that person leaves you: the handover is a half-day and a two-page runbook. I'd rather tell you that now than have you find out at contract stage." If the product genuinely needs a technical owner, say so on this call. Discovering it at signature is how deals die in the risk committee.
- 10
Pressure line 3 — what happens when it breaks, at 2am, three days before production
Do not give them an uptime percentage. Nobody has ever bought because of 99.9%. "Here's the failure mode. If we go down, Relativity keeps running and your reviewers keep coding in the native layout — they lose the suggested calls and the auto-drafted log entries, and they code the way they do today. You don't lose a single coding decision, because everything's written back on save, not batched overnight. When we come back, the queue picks up where it stopped. Support: P1 is a phone number, and it's a human, and it's 24/7 during an active production window because that's when it matters. P3 is email, next business day, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. Escalation is your CSM, then [role], then me." If they ask about your last incident, describe it honestly and specifically. Firms trust vendors who can narrate an outage far more than vendors who claim they've never had one.
- 11
Pressure line 4 — time-to-value, in three dates against a court calendar
Never give one date. Give three, and hang them on their calendar, not yours. "LIVE — first documents flowing into the queue: about two weeks from a signed order form, assuming your Director of Legal Technology can get us the Relativity credentials and the attorney list. USEFUL — your second-years stop hand-typing log entries on that one matter: end of week four. FULLY ROLLED OUT — the rest of the litigation group: that's a quarter, and honestly it's gated by your partners, not by us. And we would not cut over inside a production window. You said the 30th. That means we start after, or we start on the next matter." Then name their workload, in hours, out loud: "What I need from you: the attorney and in-house counsel list for the privilege rules — that's about three hours from someone who knows the client. A user list. One hour with the reviewers for training, and that's genuinely one hour. If nobody's got those three hours in the next fortnight, tell me now and we pick a different start date." Buyers who get blindsided by their own workload stall in week three.
- 12
Reading the room — the recovery lines
Signs: shorter answers, 'mm-hm', a beat of delay, typing, 'yeah, no, that makes sense' said flatly, camera off. A partner who bills 2,200 hours will not tell you they've disengaged. They'll just start answering email. Stop. Do not push through. In order of preference: "I've been talking for a while. Is this the part you care about, or should I jump to something else?" "Let me stop the tour. What's the thing you're worried about that I haven't touched?" "Do you want to drive? Tell me what to click." — almost never offered, extremely effective with litigators. "I think I'm showing you the wrong things. Can I stop, take ten minutes to understand what actually matters on this matter, and come back Tuesday with a demo built for it?" What does not work: talking faster, adding a module, "one more thing I want to show you."
- 13
Closing the demo — gaps out loud, sponsor secured, next thing booked
1. SUMMARISE THE FIT AND THE GAPS. Say the gaps first if you want to be believed. "Three things landed: the log drafting as review runs, the escalation queue for the calls you don't want a second-year making alone, and the OCG flags hitting at time of entry. Two open: whether your Relativity Server version supports the connector without an upgrade, and the foreign privilege question, which I said no to and want to give you a proper answer on. Both by Thursday." 2. TEMPERATURE. "Where does this sit for you now — worth pursuing, or is there something that's already ruled it out?" Let them say no. A clean no beats six weeks of chasing a committee. 3. WHO ELSE. "Who else needs to see this before it goes to the technology committee? I'd run twenty minutes for your Director of Legal Technology that's architecture and security and nothing else — no workflow, no features. And I'd rather your Loss Prevention Partner ask me the Rule 1.6 question directly than read someone's summary of my answer." 4. THE COMMITTEE MOVE. "A one-pager to a committee dies. What survives is a two-page memo that answers each person's actual objection — the security answer for [GC of the firm], cost per document for [COO], defensibility for you. Can I draft that and you tell me where it's wrong before it circulates?" 5. BOOK IT ON THE CALL. Calendar open, date agreed, invite sent before you hang up. 6. SEND WITHIN 24 HOURS: the gap list with answers, the four screens that mattered, the security questionnaire pre-filled if IT was on, and the list of what you need from them with hours attached.
- 14
Language that works vs. language that loses a partnership
Instead of: "This is our unified legal AI platform..." Say: "This is the screen your second-year is in at one in the morning." Instead of: "We integrate with everything." Say: "We read from your Relativity workspace over the API and write coding back into your existing fields. We don't touch 3E." Instead of: "It's very intuitive." Say: "One hour with your reviewers. That's the whole training." Instead of: "We can build that." Say: "We don't do that today. How often does it come up — every matter, or once?" Instead of: "99.9% uptime, SLA-backed." Say: "If we go down, your reviewers keep coding in Relativity and you lose nothing. Here's who answers the phone." Instead of: "Most firms see ROI in six months." Say: "Live in two weeks. Your second-years stop typing log entries in week four." Instead of: "project" or "account" Say: "matter." Always. Everything is billed and conflicted at the matter level.
How the call actually sounds
Prospect on the left, the rep on the right.
Rep
Before I share anything — last time you said you've got the Hartwell matter, roughly 340,000 docs after de-dupe, production on the 30th, and two second-years running privilege at one in the morning. Still the picture?
Buyer
It's worse. The judge moved the production date up two weeks. So I've got about nineteen days and I'm looking at hiring more contract attorneys I'll have to write off. Look, I've got forty minutes and then I'm on a call with the client. What's the thing that, if it doesn't do it, we stop?
Rep
That's my question for you, actually. What's the one thing?
Buyer
Defensibility. We tried predictive coding on a matter in 2019 and spent more in motion practice fighting opposing counsel about the seed set than we saved in review. I'm not doing that again. If this is TAR with a new logo, say so now.
Rep
Then let's start there and skip the rest. Tell me what actually happened in 2019 — was the fight about disclosing the seed set, or about the validation protocol, or about statistical sampling on the null set?
Buyer
Seed set. They wanted every document we'd used to train it, including the non-responsive ones, and my partner spent six weeks and about $80,000 of unbillable time arguing about it. Ended up doing linear review anyway.
Rep
That's a first-pass relevance fight. What I'm going to show you sits on the privilege side, which is a different animal — nobody's negotiating a privilege protocol with opposing counsel, and there's no seed set to disclose because it isn't ranking your corpus. Every call has a named human on it. Can I show you the queue and you tell me whether that distinction holds up in front of your judge?
Buyer
Go on. But if I see the word 'AI-suggested' next to a privilege call I'm going to have a problem, because I'm the one signing the log.
Rep
Fair. Here's the second-year's queue. She opens the doc — chain's here, recommended call is 'attorney-client, withhold,' and here's the basis: your partner Dana Whitfield is on the To line and she's on the firm's attorney list, which you loaded. She agrees, hits the key, and the log entry's drafted — author, recipients, date, basis. She's editing a sentence, not writing one. Now this one — third party on the chain, possible common interest. It doesn't call it. It routes to the senior associate with the reason. Your name goes on the log; her name and timestamp go on the call.
Buyer
Where does the document go when it does that? Because our client's outside counsel guidelines are explicit — no third-party processing of their material without written consent, and our risk committee's standing answer to anything cloud is no. That's the Loss Prevention Partner's call, not mine, and he'll kill it in an email I never see.
Rep
Two answers. First, on architecture: your documents don't leave your Relativity workspace. If you're on Server on-prem, the connector installs inside your network and we're processing text and metadata in place — I'll send your Director of Legal Technology the port list and the data flow diagram today, and if he wants single-tenant in your own Azure tenant, that exists. Second — genuine question — does that client already have you on a hosted review platform or a cloud DMS?
Buyer
We're on iManage Work in the cloud, and half our matters are in RelativityOne. So yes. But that's different, those went through the committee three years ago.
Rep
Right — and that's the reframe I'd want in front of your Loss Prevention Partner. This isn't the firm's first cloud vendor, it's another vendor under a standard the committee already set. Most OCGs I read require notice and consent for third-party processing, not prohibition. Do you know which yours actually says, or is that a document nobody's opened since the panel appointment?
Buyer
Honestly, nobody's read it since 2022. Different problem though. Say all of that clears. My associates need the hours. They're carrying a 1,950 target and if I take review off them, half my class doesn't make their number, and that's a comp conversation I don't want.
Rep
What's your realization on the first-level review line for this client?
Buyer
Standard realization across the commercial group is about 84%. On review specifically it's worse — they knock a chunk off every quarter and we stopped arguing about it.
Rep
Then those aren't billable hours, they're recorded hours you're giving back. You're not cutting billables, you're cutting write-offs. The harder version of your question is whether the second-years have higher-value work to move into — and if they don't, that's a demand problem and I can't help with it. But you told me on the last call your attrition in the first three years is running around 20% and the exit interviews say 'I did nothing but review for eight months.' Is that still true?
Buyer
Two out of my four second-years left last year. Fine. Send me a deck and I'll circulate it to the technology committee.
Rep
I'll send something better than a deck, but I want it to survive the room. Who sits on that committee, and which of them has actually felt this on a live matter?
Buyer
Six people. Our COO, the Loss Prevention Partner, the CIO, two practice group chairs, and a senior partner who's been here thirty years and stalls everything by saying he'd like to look at it more closely.
Rep
Then a one-pager dies in that room. What I'd send is two pages that answer each person's specific objection — Rule 1.6 and the OCG consent language for your Loss Prevention Partner, cost per document and the realization math for your COO, the architecture and the upgrade path for your CIO, and defensibility for you. And I'd rather not put it in front of them until your CIO has seen the security questionnaire, because that's a four-week document, not a call. Can I get twenty minutes with him next week, architecture only, and can you be the one who sends the memo rather than me?
Buyer
Twenty minutes with the CIO, fine, he's in Thursday. And don't scope this firm-wide in the memo — one matter, Hartwell, my group. If it works there I'll take it to them myself.
Rep
That's exactly the scope I want. Let me get Thursday in the calendar now while we're both here — and I owe you two open items by then: whether your Relativity Server version takes the connector without an upgrade, and the foreign privilege question you raised, where my honest answer today is no.
Objections you will hear
What they say, and what you say back.
| Objection | How to answer it |
|---|---|
| “Client confidentiality — our risk committee will veto anything cloud-y.” | Don't take it to them as a cloud product. Two moves on the call: first, ask what the outside counsel guidelines actually require — most say notice and consent for third-party processing, not prohibition, and usually nobody has opened the document since the panel appointment. Second, ask whether the firm already runs RelativityOne, a hosted e-discovery platform, or iManage in the cloud. Most do, and that reframes you from 'the firm's first cloud vendor' to 'another vendor under a standard the committee already approved.' Then offer the on-prem or single-tenant option and get the security questionnaire in front of the CIO or Director of Legal Technology in the first week, because it's a four-week document, not a phone call. |
| “We tried predictive coding a few years ago and the fight over the protocol wasn't worth it.” | Don't defend TAR. Ask what actually happened: 'Was the fight about disclosing the seed set, the validation protocol, or sampling the null set?' Most of the pain lands on seed-set disclosure and the negotiated protocol, and the case law has moved considerably since the early disputes. Then separate first-pass relevance from privilege — nobody negotiates a privilege protocol with opposing counsel, and the defensibility question is different. Firms that got burned on relevance ranking often have never looked at the privilege workflow. |
| “Our associates need those hours. Cut review and my class misses 1,950.” | 'You're not cutting billables, you're cutting write-offs. What's your standard realization on the first-level review line for that client?' If they're at 84% across the group and worse on review specifically, those hours were never revenue — they were recorded time handed back at prebill. And on any capped or flat-fee matter, every review hour you don't spend is margin. Then ask the honest follow-up: do those associates have higher-value work to move into? If they don't, that's a demand problem and you should say so rather than pretend the product solves it. |
| “We already use an ALSP at $28 an hour. You can't beat that.” | 'That's the right comparison — let's run it properly.' What's the fully loaded cost per document including your own associates' QC pass and the privilege log? Where does the second-pass privilege work actually sit? And if a production date moves up two weeks — which it just did on Hartwell — can they scale in three days? Most firms find the ALSP handles raw volume fine and the real cost sits in supervision and the privilege pass that never leaves their people. |
| “Our clients' outside counsel guidelines won't let us pass technology costs through as a disbursement.” | 'Then this is a margin conversation, not a disbursement one — which is the better conversation for you anyway.' On hourly work it shows up in realization. On AFA work it's how you win the panel spot and still make money on it. Then get specific: 'Which of your top ten clients is pushing hardest on flat fees or phased budgets with caps?' That's the matter where this pays for itself first, and it's usually a matter the Managing Partner already knows the name of. |
| “Partners here have practiced the same way for thirty years. Nothing moves without three committee meetings.” | 'Agreed, which is why I'm not asking for a firm-wide rollout.' Ask which practice group has the most painful live matter — usually litigation on a production with a moved date — and scope it to one matter, one partner already complaining about write-downs, and a defined end. Firms adopt sideways: one group makes it work, it shows up in realization or lockup, and the executive committee follows the numbers instead of leading them. A pilot a Litigation Chair asked for beats a rollout a vendor proposed. |
| “Send me something and I'll circulate it to the technology committee.” | 'Happy to — I just want it to survive the room. Who sits on it, and which of them has felt this on a live matter?' A one-pager to a committee dies. What works is a two-page memo written to each person's specific objection: Rule 1.6 and OCG consent for the Loss Prevention Partner, cost per document and realization for the COO, architecture and upgrade path for the CIO, defensibility for the Litigation Chair. Then ask for the sponsor: 'Can I get fifteen minutes with the litigation chair first, and can the memo go out under your name rather than mine?' |
Questions reps ask about this call
- How is a legal product demo script different from a standard SaaS demo script?
Three structural differences. First, there is no single buyer — you are demoing to a Litigation Chair who wants defensibility, a COO who wants cost per document, a Director of Legal Technology who wants to know what breaks at upgrade, and a Loss Prevention Partner whose default answer to any vendor holding client data is no. Name each of them and their constraint out loud in the first two minutes. Second, the vocabulary is non-negotiable: everything is a matter, not a project or an account, and it is billed and conflicted at the matter level. Third, the business case runs through realization, lockup, and write-downs rather than headcount savings, because cutting hours in a firm sounds like cutting revenue until you show the buyer their own realization number.
- What should the first screen be in a demo for a law firm?
The one workflow the partner complained about on the prior call, narrated as the person who lives in it. If they said their second-years are coding privilege at 1am to hit the production date, open on the privilege queue — the reviewer opening a document, the recommended call with its basis, the log entry drafting itself, and the escalation route for the call nobody wants a second-year making alone. Never open on setup, admin, or a dashboard. A Practice Group Leader billing 2,200 hours will stop listening before you finish the second screen, and they will not tell you.
- How do I answer the Rule 1.6 and outside counsel guidelines objection live on a demo?
Answer architecture first, in one specific sentence — where the documents physically sit, whether anything leaves their Relativity workspace, whether single-tenant or on-prem exists. Then ask two questions rather than arguing: what do the client's OCGs actually say about third-party processing, since most require notice and consent rather than prohibition, and does the firm already run a hosted review platform or a cloud DMS? Most do, which moves you from 'the firm's first cloud vendor' to 'another vendor under an existing standard.' Then commit to getting the security questionnaire to the CIO or Director of Legal Technology that week, because it takes about four weeks to move through a firm and it is the real gate.
- What do I say when a partner tells me cutting review time cuts their associates' billable hours?
Ask for their realization number before you respond. 'What's your standard realization on the first-level review line for that client?' Mid-market commercial firms often sit in the low-to-mid 80s, and review is frequently worse. If clients are knocking a third off that line item, those were recorded hours, not revenue — you are cutting write-offs, not billables. On capped or flat-fee matters the argument is simpler: every review hour not spent is margin. Then ask the honest question about whether the associates have higher-value work to move into. If they don't, say that's a demand problem you can't fix; the credibility you gain is worth more than the answer you avoided.
- How do I stop a law firm demo from ending in 'send me something for the technology committee'?
Treat that sentence as a request for help, not a next step. Ask who sits on the committee and which member has felt the problem on a live matter. Offer a two-page memo written to each person's specific objection rather than a generic one-pager, ask to send it under the sponsor's name rather than yours, and book two things before you hang up: a twenty-minute architecture-and-security session with the CIO, and a follow-up with the sponsor. Scope the ask to one matter in one practice group with a defined end. Firms adopt sideways — a pilot the Litigation Chair asked for survives the committee; a rollout the vendor proposed does not.
- Which metrics should appear in a legal demo, and how do I use them without sounding like a vendor?
Use their numbers, not market averages. The ones that move a room are standard realization rate, cost per document and documents per reviewer hour on the active matter, associate attrition in the first three years, lockup measured in WIP plus AR days, and conflicts clearance and new matter open turnaround against the under-24-hour target. Ask for each one as a question during the relevant screen — 'What's your realization on that line right now?' — and put their answer on screen where they can see it. A number the buyer said out loud is the business case; a number you brought is a slide.