Significance of Hiring Remote Lawyers in Times of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has devastatingly affected some in the legal industry. As a result, the firms have laid off partners and staff and are trying alternate ways to reduce expenses, like diminishing compensation and other perks. In the meantime, other law offices have done well and discovered approaches to sustain their businesses. Moreover, they had a strong strategy and other legal support capacities that they could establish to keep things moving.  

In addition, efficient legal firms have adjusted to get past the COVID-19 emergency by implementing practices such as working distantly and videoconferencing. These methods are relied upon to keep on being used to help law firms change, adjust and advance in a post-COVID-19 world. As the aftermath of the crisis is fading away, some experts foresee that there will be a remarkable degree of interest in remote lawyers.   

Therefore, now, due to the need of the hour, the time has come for the legal industry to implement changes. 

Legal Process Outsourcing is the new Normal 

While COVID-19 has affected the whole worldwide economy, firms that have taken the assistance of legal process outsourcing are devouring the benefits of remote lawyers.  

• As per a report named “Global Legal Process Outsourcing Services Market 2020-2024” by Technavio, the year-over-year growth rate for 2020 was 30.51%, and the market is accelerating at a CAGR of over 32%. In addition, incremental growth can cross USD 16 billion by 2024.  

• The stakes are continuously increasing, causing a flood of work for in-house law firms. In Gartner Inc’s. June 2020 overview, 68% of legal and compliance leaders say they struggled to deal with their workload in the midst of the pandemic. 

• Likewise, in Thomson Reuters’ Legal Department Operations (LDO) Index 2020 Report, 68% of divisions detailed an expanded responsibility in the past year, and 79% of them said it was because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Advantages of Hiring a Remote Lawyer  

Remote work can possibly help law firms in providing better services to their clients through: 

• Improving the efficiency of their workers.  
• Attracting better-qualified applicants due to being a solid occupation perk.  
• Collaborate all the more proficiently with colleagues. 

• Increasing representative steadfastness  
• Reducing the resources spent on in-office maintenance. 

Reasons for Hiring Remote Lawyers 

1. Implementing state of the art legal technology

The evolution of the internet from interest to universality made it workable for legal advisors to provide legal counsel in entirely unexpected manners that were conceivable even in recent history. The approach of email began the progress by permitting a quicker, more effective, and more open method for communication.  

The development of cloud computing and storage made working remotely significantly more straightforward, as it made far-off access conceivable for an expansive scope, not only for minor projects. Finally, the last bits of the adaptable work puzzle were virtual private networks and other safety efforts that made businesses comfortable giving remote access. 

The present different messaging tools have taken the convenience of email much further, giving various methods for quick remote communication and assuming a notable part in permitting topographically scattered teams to work efficiently. Thus, they are critical to assisting with building a remote communication culture in the legal sector. 

The LDO Index found that 27% of offices revealed executing more legal technology solutions on account of the pandemic, 30% expanded their lawful innovation spending plans, and 44% improved their work process by increasing their utilization of innovation instruments. 

A remote workforce brings another arrangement of contemplations with respect to contracts, billing, security, cyber protection, and usefulness; technology offers a proficient method to address these worries. 

2. Making flexible legal work a possibility

Over the long haul, remote work turned into an advantage that organizations would offer, wanting to draw in top ability who considered that to be as attractive. Before long, legal counselors made adaptability a stride further, asking why, on the off chance that you can interface promptly and have similar abilities from home as you can at the firm, they couldn’t work distantly more regularly. Today, as the legal industry has become more comfortable with specific innovations, the pattern toward adaptable work game plans keeps developing. 

When legal advisors saw the advantages of elective work models in the public eye everywhere, perceiving how non-conventional arrangements can function in the lawful space was the following intelligent advance. First, these innovative headways prompted the acknowledgment that adaptable, remote work didn’t mean lower-quality work. This, in turn, has increased work flexibility in the legal profession. 

3. Decreasing overhead costs

There are heaps of ways in which remote working can offer organizations cost savings. Many established organizations have effectively saved resources because of remote working. It keeps more representatives out of the workplace. So you might have the option to scale back to a more modest office space.  Sun Microsystems witnessed savings of $68 million annually in real estate costs, while Dow Chemical and Nortel have saved more than 30%.  

4. Increasing productivity

While utilizing distant attorneys requires a specific level of trust, your law office could profit with increased efficiency. A Stanford study tracked down that remote workers are 13% more useful when contrasted with their in-office partners.  

Flexible work hours are the greatest advantage of working from remote positions, as per remote workers overviewed by Buffer. Workers get to make a plan for getting work done that is generally helpful for their style of productivity. This plan control might be why remote workers are 77% more useful and 52% more averse to taking time off. Rather than missing time from work, workers can complete their tasks as per the need and whenever it’s convenient.  

5. Making the hiring process easy

Enrollment can be perhaps a big migraine for organizations, and it very well may be considered disappointing when those painstakingly searched out colleagues choose to leave.  

In case of history is our aide, law firms will by and by confront the test of enrolling and holding skilled representatives. As firms gradually rise out of the COVID-19 pandemic in the midst of the changing cultural and work scenes, they will indeed be confronted by talent deficiencies. Remote lawyers can turn into an incredible enrollment and maintenance apparatus for law offices surfacing in the post-pandemic world.  

6. Costing associated with a remote lawyer

The interest for lower-cost legal services came about straightforwardly from progressively cost-cognizant US and UK corporate clients. The contrast between the law and other different ventures is that outsourcing in the legal market has been customer instead of industry-driven. In the law profession, it was not law offices but rather corporate legal divisions that were the early advocates of the advantages of legal outsourcing. These major corporate clients are currently pressing their law offices to offer an alternative solution.  

Generally, remote legal work has frequently been locked in for cost savings, yet that tide is changing. In fact, depending upon the utilization of remote lawyers, law offices often treated cost as a third-place concern. All things considered, law offices seem, by all accounts, to be utilizing remote legal workers to access expertise that in-house teams could not provide, as well as to utilize their current assets all the more proficiently and deliberately. 

The Bottom Line 

Choosing to hire remote associates can significantly evolve your law firm. Regardless of whether you’re running a law office or you’re choosing to fly solo, having remote assistance that takes into account your and your customers’ necessities is fundamental. 
Further, law offices that secure a forward-looking vision for their tech-empowered labor force will acquire the upper hand in employing and maintenance. At the same time, firms that won’t adjust to the new, adaptable work scene will see their ability pool decrease. 

Hence, it can be solidly accepted that within five years, in a much-consolidated industry, issuing remote legal work routinely will become the standard for the world’s driving law offices and organizations.