Coronavirus and law firm strategy

Many firms are reacting to both the health and financial challenges by adopting home working for their staff and remote meetings with clients – using tools such as Skype for Business and Zoom. HMCTS is ramping up the use of telephone and video hearings.

These are trends that were happening anyway – but firms should use the necessity of the crisis as the opportunity to make permanent changes to the way they work using technology. How many clients in normal times would be happy to be offered an online meeting when the alternative is taking time out of their busy day to travel to a town centre office, find parking and sit waiting with others reading old magazines in a more or less well decorated reception? How many staff would welcome the chance to work away from cramped offices and to avoid the perennial struggle to reserve meeting rooms which, strangely enough, always seem to be booked out by the senior partners?

Is it also an opportunity to embrace more flexibility in your workforce over the longer term? Can you take more advantage of flexible lawyering models that ensure you keep a more diverse workforce engaged through different stages of life including parenting, caring and pre retirement? That rethink of your workforce should also lead to exploration of opportunities to train and use more paralegals and link that into SQE – making it easier to attract, develop and retain a flexible and loyal workforce.

Technology firms tell me that many solicitors in particular remain reluctant to move to cloud storage services and the paperless office, citing SRA regulation. There is a perception that SRA rules prevent firms from working in this way. The situation was hardly helped by the old SRA Code of Conduct and guidance which required firms when outsourcing to secure SRA’ access to the premises and data of the third party provider. This was completely unrealistic in an age of cloud services, and one can only imagine Bill Gates’ bafflement if faced by an SRA investigator at Microsoft’s Head Office in Washington State. All of this has changed, the SRA’s new Standards and Regulations introduced in November 2019 offer no barriers to outsourcing, and the SRA actively encourages the use of new technology through its “Innovate” space and participation in the Legal Access Challenge. 

The prospect of support staff having to risk their health during the epidemic by coming into the office to deal with post and DX should drive more firms to move towards the “paperless office”. The Court and Tribunal Service should embrace modernity by getting rid of the ridiculous rules that allow firms to continue to refuse to accept service of documents by e-mail. These rules should go the same way as the requirements to tie up bundles with a certain colour of ribbon or to file pleadings in Latin, or indeed, Norman French.  

The economic crisis is likely to continue well after the health crisis fades, and money will be tight for clients. Here again technology can help firms by making services more accessible and affordable. Online services allow clients to check progress on their case directly, without having to pay to chase up their lawyer for an update. They also facilitate the unbundling of services – allowing clients to fill in forms online for solicitors to check. The withdrawal of legal aid for family cases has led to a growth in online self-help services from companies such as amicable which allow consumers to draft court documents themselves. There is no reason why these tools should be left only to the unregulated sector – and solicitors should be able to offer them as part of a range of options at different costs for clients, including more fixed fees. 

It is natural in the middle of a crisis to concentrate on getting through the next few weeks and months, but firms can reap long-term benefits from the changes to ways of working that they are now being obliged to make. Once you are through the immediate crisis you can use some of the spare time you might have to ensure your business operations are aligned to your new strategic direction. There should be no excuse for a return to business as usual after the virus is beaten.