Beyond features and functions of software, the complementary attributes of a package become more important

Some people, myself included, think of software for legal departments mostly in terms of features and functions. What the software can do and how well it does it dominates. But if a law department has several packages to choose from and those packages have converged on a fairly similar array of features and functions, then what?

Then ease of use moves to the fore, support provided by the vendor counts for more, training and customization tools take prominence, and congeniality of the vendor matters. Of course, cost always stands out, but my point is that what we first tend to notice – this set of fields, that style of drop-down menu, navigation tools, auto-backup, currency conversion, the ability to accomplish something in two keystrokes – fades when everyone offers about the same constellation of features and functions.