To those of us who have worked in the legal sector for a while (20+ years in my case), it’s clear that we are in a time of considerable change. As with most industries, the legal world shifted dramatically in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, but there are changes beyond this. For a long time, legal professionals have struggled with long working hours, high burnout and workplace models that have gone largely unchanged for decades. What we are seeing now is a reaction to this.
In 2023, firms are seeking out new ways of working that promote better work-life balance, make smart use of legal technologies and capitalise on outsourcing to legal Virtual Assistants (VAs). So, here are my predictions for the legal world in 2023.
1 | The drive for better work-life balance in the legal sector will continue
Working hours have long been an issue in the legal world. In their 2022 Legal Trends Report, Clio identified that 86% of lawyers worked outside of the typical work day and 73% worked at weekends. Increasingly, we are seeing lawyers questioning the viability of these working conditions. The pandemic caused people across all sectors to reflect on how they work, particularly when faced with working from home during lockdowns.
We’re now seeing an increased dissatisfaction with the traditionally held view of legal working conditions and it’s causing lawyers to act. In that same Clio survey, they identified that of those lawyers who had left a firm in the past year, 37% cited better work-life balance as the reason for their departure. This tied with better pay as the primary reason for leaving.
This trend is fuelled in part by the swelling cohort of Millennial and Gen Z lawyers in the workplace. They have higher expectations of a work-life balance, favour more technological working practices and will leave law firms that don’t meet their needs. The IBA Young Lawyers Report found that 35.8% of young lawyers expected to leave their firm within 12 months as a direct response to poor work-life balance.
As we move through 2023, I expect the impact of this quest for a better work-life balance in the legal sector will continue to ripple across the industry, driving change in working location, recruitment and outsourcing.
2 | Remote working for lawyers and legal professionals will continue to grow
Again, the impact of the pandemic and the desire for a better work-life balance play a strong role here. The majority of people now see benefits to working remotely. Removing commuting from the working day has significant time and environmental benefits and employers recognise that there are cost-savings in reduced office use.
Traditional assumptions about how lawyers must work have shifted rapidly. 49% of lawyers in Clio’s survey reported preferring to work from home and 45% preferred to meet clients virtually.
Remote working in the legal sector brings with it many opportunities. At Kellie Simpson Virtual Business Support, we specialise in supporting legal professionals. We have noticed an incredible growth in demand for remote support from law firms since 2020. A move to remote working can help law firms become more responsive and adaptive to client needs. Investing in cloud-based solutions and legal tech means documents can be shared virtually and clients can receive information and updates quickly and securely.
3 | More virtual, boutique and specialist law firms will be established
The rise in remote working has also contributed to the ongoing growth of the ‘virtual law firm’. These operate on a dispersed model with lawyers often working as self-employed or as consultants under an umbrella legal brand. The number of lawyers working at virtual law firms has increased by 38% from 2020 to 2021 (in actual terms an increase from 1,355 in 2020 to 1,875 in 2021).
We’ve also seen a continued expansion in boutique and specialist law firms. More lawyers are moving into niche spaces (for example working with start-ups or entrepreneurs) and choosing to start their own practice on their own terms. Inevitably this has led to a higher demand for specialist lawyers – those who can operate in the new niches that firms are expanding into.
It seems likely that the trend towards virtual, boutique and specialist law firms will continue to gain traction. They often support a better work-life balance for lawyers, can enable firms to operate with lower fixed costs and respond to niche client needs.
4 | Law firms will become more creative in the recruitment and retention of staff
Retaining good legal staff has always been more cost-effective than trying to recruit new team members. However, in the current market, demand and competition for talent are at an all-time high. Nearly 20% of the lawyers in Clio’s market trends survey had left their firm in the period April 2021 to April 2022 and a further 9% indicated they planned to leave a firm in the following six months.
To retain existing legal talent and attract new lawyers, firms will need to adapt to the current market – offering not only competitive pay but favourable working patterns and managing workloads. Another option for firms will be to move further into outsourcing and utilising legal Virtual Assistants (VAs)…
5 | More law firms will outsource business support work to legal Virtual Assistants (VAs)
Outsourcing can be an effective solution to many of the problems we’ve discussed here. Challenges in filling roles, workload pressures and a need for work-life balance are all exacerbated by the issue of lawyers being bogged down with the burden of non-billable admin occupying their time. The International Legal Technology Association estimate that as much as 40% of lawyers’ time is spent ‘scheduling meetings, searching for relevant documents and managing volumes of case history databases.’ It’s not productive, not fulfilling to lawyers and is a big drain on resources.
As one of our clients, Loney Stewart Holland LLP, explains, ‘Our biggest factor is time. We sell time, in essence. Particularly as a small business, as partners, we were trying to do the work, run the business and grow the business. We were very time-poor. We were spending a lot of time on tasks that were better done by other people.’
Outsourcing to a legal VA is an effective solution to this problem of lawyers being burdened with admin. An experienced legal VA knows the sector, is familiar with legal terminology, legal technology and software, and how law firms operate. They can ably assist law firms with critical admin and support functions such as client onboarding, CRM, invoicing, legal document management, transcribing, legal marketing and business development.
Returning to Loney Stewart Holland, they reflect on how we’ve helped them by taking on their admin and business support work:
‘For a business like us, the expertise that you offer is exactly what we need…Going back to the value of our time and what it would take us to do certain jobs, it’s certainly money well spent.’
As a business providing legal VA support, we’ve noticed a big growth in demand for our services in the last two years. Law firms are recognising the value of freeing up their lawyers in favour of outsourcing this to more affordable VA resources.
As one of our clients, RW Blears LLP, explains:
‘the great thing about this kind of virtual setup is, you only pay for the support that you need. So…this means I don’t have to recruit a full-time VA or PA. The cost of it scales up and down in accordance with our support. So, if we do have a month where we might be quiet from a work perspective the cost of Kellie’s support drops significantly so it’s a really flexible way of working.’
We’re also seeing more and more new legal VAs entering the space. It’s a big shift in how legal professionals are working and we expect to see this growth continue this year. We’re also seeing the range of support that firms require growing in scope. Law firms want to put more efficient processes in place and are asking for our help with onboarding clients and consultants, document formatting, business development support and more.
To find out how your business would benefit from outsourcing to an experienced legal VA, contact us today for a free chat.
6 | The legal technologies market will expand and more firms will utilise legal tech
Cloud-based software has facilitated remote and virtual working and made secure document sharing more accessible. This has benefits for firms, lawyers and clients, with quick and secure document sharing now possible. There has also been a rise in demand for integrated CRM systems. As an Affiliate Partner for Clio, I’ve helped several law firms in the last year to embed their onboarding and client relationship workflows into Clio Grow. This has helped them to streamline their processes and work more effectively. Find out more about our client onboarding packages.
As Richard Tromans, Founder of Artificial Lawyer & Tromans Consulting, explains;
‘Using legal tech can help reduce the burden of ‘process work’ e.g. high frequency or high volume activities that can be mentally draining, but rarely mentally stimulating to do those tasks.’ (Henchman, 10 Legal Experts on Work-Life Balance & War for Talent)
Legal technology can save time and help with job satisfaction, particularly when combined with outsourcing. It’s no surprise then that we’re seeing more and more legal-specific technologies being used in the workplace, including:
- Legalesign & Docusign – e-signature software that allows you to send documents to be signed, witnessed and approved.
- Clio Grow – which manages the client intake and onboarding process and transforms the way your firm attracts and retains prospective clients.
- Legl – client onboarding, risk management, compliance and payments.
- SmartSearch – for AML checks.
As more businesses realise the benefits that legal tech can bring to their law firm, we’ll see more and more technologies enter the market and usage increase. Legal VAs in particular are likely to help champion this rollout as they introduce more firms to technologies that they are familiar with and that can save firms time and money.
We provide more detail on the technologies and tools that could benefit the legal sector in our free eBook: 11 essential actions to make you and your law firm more organised.
So, what does this all mean for law firms in 2023?
I think the clear message is that change is already here. If firms want to continue to attract strong legal talent and retain that talent, they need to adapt. Flexible working conditions, legal technologies and different law firm operating models can all make a law firm more attractive to work for and also offer some cost savings to firms. There is also a big opportunity around outsourcing – to reduce lawyer stress and workloads, free up valuable fee-earning time and work more effectively.
Get legal Virtual Assistant (VA) support for your business
At Kellie Simpson Virtual Business Support, we work with busy legal professionals every day to make their working lives easier and more productive. If you’re interested in how we could help your business, contact us today for a free chat.
