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17 I L T A N E T . O R G The Tools That Make Remote Work Possible Many of the tools that law firms were already using have seen their limits tested during recent remote work times, with some new tools – particularly video communication platforms like Zoom – being added in heavy rotation. While these tools have been crucial to keeping law firms up and running, firms that want to increase automation and achieve greater levels of autonomy need to be expanding their tech arsenals. The goal is to add tools that accelerate digital collaboration and innovation. Think about the tools you're currently using. Are you taking full advantage of their capabilities? An apt analogy is the early days of motion pictures, when movies were nothing more than films of stage plays with no experimentation in the medium to elevate the level of content. It was only later that movies became more dynamic and improved the viewer's experience. The same is true of your technology – are you just filming your plays, or are you making the most of your tools? Successful remote work depends on robust communication tools, task automation – particularly for routine, time-consuming tasks – tools that manage workflows and processes and analytical tools that can create valuable business insights. The more creative a task is, the more difficult remote collaboration tends to be, but solutions do exist to solve these problems. As remote work continues to accelerate, more and more offices will start looking to incorporate virtual reality into the workplace, which may also open the doors to augmented reality. While these remote and collaborative tools can be pricey, they're a one-time investment and typically far less than the cost of office space. The expense is worth it for the competitive advantage they offer. The Crucial Role of Analytics and Insights The more you use remote and collaborative tools in your daily work, the more data exhaust you create. Analytics and data science can be applied to that data exhaust to benefit firms in two major ways. The first is gaining insights. The programmatic use of tools creates data exhaust that can be analyzed to gain insights into work, such as success rates, what led to certain successes and what could have gone better. When you can analyze the factors that contributed to success, it's easier to replicate that success in the future and avoid bad outcomes. The other benefit of analytics is increased automation. If you're using your tools programmatically and performing processes the same way every time, you can analyze the data exhaust created to determine whether those processes can be automated. The ability to automate tasks is revolutionizing the practice of law. Junior associate time doesn't need to be devoted to manual tasks that can easily be automated but can instead be spent on work that is more insightful and leads to better outcomes. This is particularly useful in a world where the billable hour continues to decline in popularity. Scaling for the Future The combination of remote work, increased automation and more insights gained from analytics presents an opportunity for law firms to gain a massive competitive advantage. Remember that $11,000 per year per employee you're saving on average by working remotely? That money should be invested in better tools to improve remote work and collaboration. With analytics and data science, those better tools will lead to valuable insights and more automation, increasing the firm's profitability and attracting clients who are worried about their bottom line and increasingly demand that firms do more with less.

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