Changing Times, Changing Technologies
LAWYERS are not noted to be at the cutting edge of technology – indeed, conjure up a mental picture of lawyers at work and it probably includes piles of weighty leather-backed books, yellow scratch pads and highly polished wood. But, as with industries across all sectors in the economy, the legal profession is not immune from the changing tides of technology.
Those firms that embrace the changes are finding they can work faster, and much more productively, while gaining new clients who are used to using apps and software in their own work and home lives. The legal profession is notorious for working slowly, but this is changing – and this change has only been accelerated by the current pandemic.
With the traditional face-to-face meetings so typical in legal work suddenly not possible, law practices have found themselves faced with finding digital alternatives if they want to stay in business – or their clients will simply be forced to go elsewhere. And, along with many related industries, tech platforms like Zoom, GoToMeeting and Microsoft Teams have been able to step seamlessly in to provide the solution. With a web connection and pretty basic technology – be it a tablet, laptop, or phone – we can now have face-to-face meetings remotely. Multiple parties can be brought together around a digital table wherever they may be in the country or even the world.
All of a sudden, the way things have been done for decades – the waiting in a reception with an old magazine and an unnecessary cup of coffee – seem like a huge waste of time. Even if lawyers want to go back to this world post-COVID, there is every possibility their clients will not allow it. Why use up several hours of a valuable day driving to an office, paying for parking, waiting…when you can be in your home office and just log on for the meeting you need?
As Millennials are now well into their thirties, with partners, jobs, children and mortgages, this generation and the Generation Z-ers behind them, simply will not accept their time being used in such a way when they have grown up in a digital-first environment.
Technological developments are allowing progressive legal firms to not just meet clients digitally, but also service their needs in new and more efficient manners. The need to physically get together to sign documents is long since over. DocuSign allows complex legal forms to be completed literally at the click of a mouse button or the press of a smart screen. What would have been a two-hour meeting to buy a house can be done in a coffee break on a phone.
And, of course, much of a lawyer’s work is behind the scenes – painstaking research through three hundred years of legal precedents and case law to prepare cases. But with legal archives now increasingly digitized and cross referenced, a good lawyer can complete that work in a fraction of the time – allowing clients to be serviced much more quickly and cheaply. Harvard Law School’s entire 334 years of case law library is today fully digital and available to a lawyer practicing anywhere in the country. Search algorithms allow the paralegal to find the relevant documents and case law quickly and easily.
Throw in email and networking tools online, and the progressive lawyer can build much more extensive professional networks to help them serve their clients to the best of their abilities. With customized CRMs, a legal firm can keep accurate and up-to-date records on all its cases easily, and available remotely rather than locked in a dusty basement. The CRM can handle integration with calendars and invoicing systems and well as client communication.
Lawyers as a group tend to err on the traditional side – after all the whole point of the profession is to use tried, tested and true legal history to help protect clients from encountering problems in the first place, and to help resolve problems when they do inevitably arise. But today’s legal practitioners have a golden opportunity to harness new and emerging technologies to provide a superior service to their clients.
