Rick Howell was quoted in "Diverging Paths, Same Goals: Inside 3 Firms’ Tech Buying Approaches," an article in Law.com, regarding how law firms address and buy technology.

At Perkins Coie, it’s all about getting a large group of people on board with new purchases—even if that means a longer and more arduous process. When it comes to large-scale tech changes, “we always have a steering committee that is going to be comprised of a group of shareholders and stakeholders, so people who are going to have to support it and people who are going to use it,” said Rick Howell, the firm’s chief information officer.

Significant tech buying decisions are “consensus driven” at Perkins Coie, and Rick noted that the committee looks both inside and outside the firm for feedback.

“Our standard process for onboarding technology [includes] a sort of rigorous RFP that would go through the right type of due diligence [and] the right type of conversations with our peers, because there is so much great data that comes from law firms that have gone through this,” he said.

“I do believe that is an important process because it allows us to make sure the technology decisions we are making are looking at the entire system as a whole—that we’re going to integrate processes and we’re not speeding up one thing and causing a bottleneck somewhere else,” he said.