Legal Trends Indicate Pandemic’s Lasting Impact on the Workplace
June 21, 2021
Now that COVID-19 vaccination rates are high enough for many Americans to slowly resume normal life, law firms are mapping out their strategies for returning to the office. But it won’t be business as usual, according to information technology and cybersecurity experts Sharon Nelson and John Simek of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
At a June 17 Lunch and Learn program sponsored by the D.C. Bar Practice Management Advisory Service, Nelson and Simek looked at Clio’s 2020 Legal Trends Report showing that 85 percent of law firms use software to manage their practices, 79 percent of lawyers rely on cloud technology to store firm data, and 83 percent of firms are meeting clients virtually. Additionally, the report found that 62 percent of firms allow clients to securely share and sign documents electronically and 73 percent allow online invoicing and payments.
“Finally, lawyers and clients are agreeing on something — that office space really isn't that important anymore,” said Simek. Big law firms will negotiate more efficient use of their office spaces, rely less on secretarial support, increase the use of digital technology for meetings, and reduce business travel, he added. “Certainly, in larger law firms we're seeing a trend that [firms] are reconfiguring, downsizing, and subletting space because they have these legal lease obligations.”
The Clio report also showed that solo practitioners who adopted remote work earned $50,000 more than their colleagues. “The consensus is that the solo attorneys were better outfitted to be more flexible and change and respond a lot quicker than law firms,” Simek said.
According to a March 2021 survey by the Robert Half International staffing firm, one-third of employees who were working at home during the pandemic would look for a new job if required to be in the office full-time. Twenty-six percent of those surveyed wanted to be fully remote, while 25 percent wanted to be in the office only. Almost half of the respondents wanted a hybrid model.
“The one thing a lot of firms don't consider is the insurance impact [of remote work],” Simek said. “If you start moving toward a more work-from-home environment, what if someone gets injured while they trip over the laundry while they're at home? That whole liability thing from an insurability perspective is certainly something that you should consider.”
Nelson noted that another major challenge of remote work is keeping the company culture intact. “I think everybody admits that the [work] culture suffered under the pandemic,” Nelson said. “Nothing quite replaces [gathering at] the water cooler, getting coffee together in the kitchen, or walking down the hall spontaneously. Mentoring suffered a lot during the pandemic.”
Also driving much of the change in the legal landscape are clients’ expectations. Some of those expectations include wanting law firms to focus on being proactive problem solvers, more diversity and inclusion in law firm teams, and more data-based results. “Clients don't like the billable hours,” Simek said. “They'd rather have some sort of flat fee. The primary interest is in the result. They don't necessarily care how long it takes. They just want to know how much it’s going to cost and what [they] are going to get.”
Some law firms are also increasing their reliance on allied professionals and specialists, improving their internal operating system, outsourcing certain services, and expanding the use of technology to improve the legal work process.
“We really are undergoing a paradigm shift,” Simek said. “It really is a new way of thinking. We're never going to go back to what people believe was the old ways, or at least [when] all was normal.”
