15
I L T A N E T . O R G
T
he headline-grabbing events of 2020 have
had a fundamental impact on how today's
law firms do business, from how they work
to the cases they take on. As the COVID-19
pandemic and the nation's civil unrest
continue to play out across the country, many law firms are
finding themselves scrambling to accommodate a remote
workforce and scale their resources to take advantage of
new opportunities.
There's no question that
the current pandemic has shone
a harsh spotlight on companies'
abilities to work remotely, with
many law firms struggling to get
the right tools and infrastructure
into place. As a result, we've
seen an exponential acceleration
in digital collaboration across
industries and sectors – what
firms may have expected to be
doing in 15 years' time has now
been fast-tracked, meaning we'll
likely see significant advances in
the next couple years.
How law firms choose to
approach and embrace this new
wave of digital collaboration and
remote work will have a major impact on their ability to use
analytics and data science to gain insights that will improve
their practice of law in both the short and long term.
The Acceleration in Remote Work
By late March or early April, most companies had made the
switch to fully remote work. Many, though, assumed the
switch was temporary and therefore invested in little more
than quick fixes when it came to ensuring that they had the
necessary tools to support remote work. Fast-forward to
today, and everyone now realizes that remote work was not
just a temporary scenario. In fact, a number of prominent
companies have already announced that they'll continue to
be fully remote through the end of the year.
As workers continue to stay home, temporary remote
solutions have quickly become insufficient to sustain the
usual high quality of work at most law firms. This shift in
perspective to viewing remote work as a long-term scenario
that needs to be sustainable has
placed an emphasis on what tools
will allow for the best collaboration
and greatest efficiencies, as well as
how law firms can continue to be
the most profitable under this new
work model.
Between a decrease in real
estate expenses, greater employee
satisfaction and retention and
an increased ability to attract
top talent, it's estimated that
remote work saves companies
approximately $11,000 per
employee per year on average.
In addition to these direct
savings, in-person work during
the pandemic brings the risk of
additional costs. While it's not possible to put an exact
dollar figure on it due to all the unknowns associated
with COVID-19, there is undeniably an implicit cost
associated with every physical interaction, given the risk
of contracting the virus and the resultant impacts it will
have down the road, both from a personal and a business
perspective. Multiply those implicit costs across all your
employees, and the potential cost of conducting business
in person is significant.
"There is
undeniably an
implicit cost
associated with
every physical
interaction."
