P2P

37 I L T A N E T . O R G T imes of crisis, while often seeming unbearable in the moment, can bring opportunity and an occasion for positive change. Indeed, the Japanese word for crisis has two characters: the first meaning "dangerous" and the second meaning "opportunity." March 2020 saw a notable crisis in the way law firms do business, with a significant surge in the use of technology to connect a remote workforce. Many of the necessary technology and operational changes were made under immense time pressure. In some cases, planned implementations were fast- tracked, while in other cases, firms that were unprepared had to implement short-term fixes to assure survival and minimize business disruption. What may have felt like a seismic shift or a trial by fire, however, was also a prime opportunity to implement lasting change around innovation. While law firms had notoriously lagged when it came to adopting technology as we entered the pandemic, being forced to adopt new technology tools not only presented firms an opportunity to catch up, but it also catapulted them to the forefront of innovation going forward. As the dust of the last two years continues to settle, law firms are now assessing the decisions they made about technology, work strategies, client services and communications and relying on the lessons learned in deciding how to move forward. Comprehensive systems have evolved to the point where adoption of many integrated systems can leapfrog a firm from behind the curve or inconsistently protected to positioned strongly to meet today's communication and collaboration needs, with room to gain even more efficiency in the years ahead. A Look Back at the Last Two Years and What We've Learned No one understands the upheaval of the past two years better than the firms and service providers who were in the trenches, making crucial decisions that allowed them to survive and even succeed through novel challenges. The following are some valuable examples that represent what law firms went through during the economic shutdown and its aftermath and how those experiences can position firms for a future of innovation. Whether they were completely unprepared for remote work or were already running a virtual law practice, firms of all sizes faced unique tech challenges in the last two years. These are just a few examples of how firms reacted and what they learned in the process. The Unprepared Firm: A Complete Switch from On- Premises to the Cloud Like many firms going into 2020, a Midwest firm was running a legal practice management system on-premises, on outdated servers to boot. When the firm was forced into "Firms of all sizes faced unique tech challenges in the last two years."

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