Access Legal: The future of legal tech – Why the next generation of legal practitioners will expect intuitive tech
The expectations of technology in the legal sector have been changing for some time now, particularly in how the tech and its users carry out their responsibilities and tasks, as well as what legal practitioners expect from their firms.
We have now moved away from the stage where inputting information online is seen as a step-up from paper-based documentation and is now an expectation. As Generation Z workers enter the legal workplace they will have a different idea of what technology, features and functions should be available to them at the click of a button.
Now, technology has to be intuitive, reliable and should anticipate the needs of busy legal practitioners. This is happening right across lots of sectors, like pharma, retail, banking and warehousing – as Industry 4.0 takes shape.
Research from LawtechUK, a government-backed initiative to help modernise legal services, found that an investment in the right tech can reap financial benefits and productivity gains for law firms. In other words, technology could enable legal service providers to do more for their clients and employees.
Working more efficiently
Depending on the size of the law firm, their area of law, the IT equipment they use and their own views and strategy, technology can have an impact on a practitioner’s efficiency and ways of working.
All firms are trying to be as efficient as possible but if they have their data in different places, several systems to log into and many passwords to remember, one of their biggest challenges is working quickly, accurately and effectively. This is all while keeping their clients satisfied with the service and managing risk to remain compliant and keep all of their documents and data safe.
A survey by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority and Oxford University found that the main reasons why firms had introduced new technologies was to improve service quality (72%), improve efficiency (71%) and to allow staff more flexibility (44%).
These are all things to take into account so having technology like Access Workspace, that brings together multiple products and systems into a single, accessible view, legal practitioners can transform their typical working day and still produce results their clients are happy with – maintaining quality of service and driving demand for services.
The software can help with prioritising different tasks like case and practice management, CRM and analytics, and allows you to keep data all in one place. So a user can create dashboards or add info and capabilities when they need to, all through a single-sign on. Joining up working practices right across the firm.
Time for strategic thinking
When you do have a big case load it can sometimes be hard to see the wood for the trees. So not having to constantly stop and change systems for different pieces of information, or to stop and ask someone else questions, is really going to save a practitioner time and effort when technology is available to cut out time consuming interactions.
You suddenly have space and convenience to be strategic in your thinking on other tasks. Investing in the right tech for your firm and your employees means that everything can be more streamlined. Manual record-keeping is a thing of the past and it is easier to be compliant.
There is tech to help with training, to approve staff holidays, to field complaints and manage file audits, just to name a few functions. All these can help to take the burden away from practitioners.
Especially with hybrid working and many employees working away from their colleagues several days a week, using the right tech and software can help to achieve clarity and maintain collaboration, which is vital to achieve successful outcomes for clients and to remain compliant. For those times when you can’t pull people into a morning meeting it creates a convenient way of working and communication and keeps processes consistent.
Tech prevents burnout in practitioners
Knowing that you have the tools to organise your work, the apps you like to use in one place, and all the data for your case in one place, is obviously going to make a practitioner’s job easier.
It takes out the admin and the time wasting, frees them up to do other things and more importantly allows them to take breaks. All this in turn can only help a worker’s mental health and work/life balance and give them more time to focus on other important things outside of work.
And with Generation Z being more in tune with their mental health than previous generations, workers are no longer willing to stay in jobs where they do not have the right support from their managers, or the right tools to do their jobs – because they know they will find somewhere else that does. Therefore, in creating a more stress-free work environment, it can also help firms to retain staff.
Findings from YouGov and Legatics research of 100 practising lawyers earlier this year showed that nine in 10 had experienced stress or burnout at work, with a lack of support from firms and large workloads listed as the biggest issues contributing to their stress.
The National Law Review advised that one way to address this was to reduce manual processes and admin tasks and boost a practitioner’s efficiency by relying on legal technology. It said tools such as reporting software can help pinpoint holes in the productivity of staff and using a CRM can manage a client journey from beginning to end by keeping everything in one single organised place, while also keeping record of all interactions, enabling automatic replies and improving follow up processes.
Ultimately, tech is there to help make our lives easier and anything that can support or assist practitioners in the workplace to do their job to the best of their ability, is going to be well received. And in turn it will benefit their clients too. They can feel confident the law firm is organised and managing their case effectively, and importantly, their legal professional has more time to spend with them.
