A Five-Part Series
The global COVID-19 pandemic drove dramatic changes, placing a spotlight on key business outcomes and accelerated digital transformation efforts in law firms. Each of these outcomes, coupled with how people and processes can be empowered digitally through the application of technologies, will be explored in this five-part series for firms. The series aims to provide insights into the five critical business outcomes:
- Understanding Your Customer
- Optimizing Your Business
- Innovating For Growth
- Enabling Your Workforce
- Protecting Your Digital Assets
Part 4: Enabling Your Workforce
For law firms, the future is always a blend of uncertainty, risk and opportunity. With digital transformation a top strategic priority, law firms are evolving into more people-centric environments. Digital tools and resources that foster collaboration, community and collective efficiency are at the forefront of law firms’ digital transformation efforts.
Law Firms Preparing for the Future
The 2024 Report on the State of the U.S. Legal Market, published by the Center on Ethics and the Legal Profession at Georgetown Law and the Thomson Reuters Institute, highlights key trends for this year with the towering insight being the necessity for law firm leaders to respond to marketplace changes and pivot quickly enough to prepare for the future. As we discussed in our Part 3 Series of How to Grow Your Law Firm with Digital Transformation, we explored the importance of advancing digital technologies. By advancing technology as a strategic tool, law firms can optimize their operations − which positively impacts law firm culture, enhances customer satisfaction and trust, and helps recruit and retain top talent. Many law firms are rethinking their policies, practices and experiences. Given the disruption of the pandemic, many are re-envisioning business strategies to be more deliberate about their execution and digital transformation efforts.
About Digital Transformation
“Digital Transformation is about people, process and technology with the most important aspect of any transformation being people,” stated Jon Schrader, Director of Business Applications for Cherry Bekaert Digital Advisory. “People are core to your Digital Transformation journey and your top priority is to make it easier for your workforce to do their jobs.” Leveraging digital tools, organizations can elevate collaboration and collective efficiency via three key concepts: automate, connect and decide.
Automate
Automation has wide application and digital tools are vast from artificial intelligence (AI), no-code and low-code application platforms (LCAPs) to robotic process automation (RPA) to name a few. Business practices can be automated across departments from billing to expense management to employee recruitment and onboarding – the opportunities are limitless. Implementing process automation into daily operation efforts can significantly benefit an organization’s performance. Automation can eliminate repetitive and labor-intensive tasks, allowing employees to focus on higher value initiatives and do more with less. These practices can provide standardization practices, helping organizations meet regulations and maintain compliance. In return, data can be easily analyzed, quality of output increases, employee morale and retention increases, and overall customer satisfaction is enhanced.
Connect
The pandemic drove a massive shift from office to remote working where the latter has become the new norm. Teams now span cities, countries and continents, with sophisticated technologies at the core to maintain a collaborative and connected environment. Technologies and applications such as content management solutions, video conferencing, messaging and project management tools, and cloud-based platforms enable the workforce, clients and partners to collaborate, share and connect without disruption.
Decide
Through automation efforts, information is handled and standardized − enabling access to vast amounts of clean data. Competing organizations create strategic growth goals and track key performance indicators to measure effectiveness of performance. “With reliable standardized data, it is much easier to visualize and analyze performance for patterns, identify pain points and make informed decisions for future planning,” remarked Schrader.
How To Ensure Workforce Engagement
Sophisticated technologies are at the root of the digital transformation initiative and can enable a workforce to perform at an elevated level; but without the proper implementation and training, they remain just technology. “Ensuring your workforce has access to the right technologies that allow them to automate, connect and decide to perform their daily jobs is the first step to ensuring an engaged workforce,” emphasized Schrader. Next, ensure your workforce is properly trained on the technology, including the necessary skillsets to maximize all capabilities and functionality to achieve strategic goals. “Enable them as citizen developers of low code or no code platforms so they can enhance the tools and optimize performance,” stated Schrader. Lastly, it is important for firms to have the proper guidance during a transformation to ensure they are targeting the right tools and leveraging the correct resources. They should have a clear trajectory of how these tools and resources will assist them in achieving their strategic goals.
Law Firm Challenges With Digital Transformation
While digital transformation has endless potential for law firms, many firms still lag in their efforts. Resistance to change, legacy process and systems, and regulatory and compliance concerns remain key hurdles for organizations. “There is a strong reliance on travel knowledge rather than documented processes,” confirmed Schrader. With demanding clients and workloads, firms struggle to find time to dedicate to digital efforts on top of performing their daily tasks. “This is when a seasoned consultant can truly make a difference in a firms digital advancement,” commented Schrader. Below are use cases and outcomes on Cherry Bekaert’s engagement with several firms in their transformation efforts:
- Data Analytics and Business Intelligence: A national law firm with multiple locations was struggling with time and capacity reporting and billing. Processes were automated and data was standardized across locations. Data visualization scorecard dashboards were created by the client and team lead to assist with performance gaps and caseloads. The firm was data informed and able to address performance gaps, increase accuracy with their billing and balance caseloads. Technology used included: Azure Data Warehouse with Power BI datasets and visualizations.
- Full Featured Intranet: A national law firm was struggling with collaboration, content management and document control. A full featured intranet was built, leveraging Microsoft Teams-based project management capabilities. It included departmental focus areas and office specific sites for content management storage that adhered to document retention policies, as well as access controls for security. The project changed the way they the firm did their planning and document management for the better. Technologies used included: Microsoft SharePoint and Power Platform.
- Case Management Tool: A law firm was struggling with organizing their case management for their international law practice with no off the shelf solution to address their needs. A custom international trade case management tool was designed specifically to track the trade products and any cases related to those traded products. Technologies used included: Microsoft and Azure SQL database.
An Enabled Law Firm Workforce
An enabled workforce is a powerful medium to drive business growth. Through digital transformation initiatives, mid-tier law firms have an opportunity to drive impactful and lasting change that will stimulate growth, elevate their stature in the market and allow them to successfully compete with companies of all sizes. By leveraging sophisticated technologies, firms can automate end-to-end business practices, connect their employees with tools that fuel collaboration and provide the right information and data allowing their workforce to decide how to efficiently reach their organizations strategic goals.
Interested in learning more about enabling your workforce through digital transformation? Listen to Scott Duda, Leader of Cherry Bekaert’s Professional Services Industry practice and Jon Schrader, a Director and Business Applications Leader in the Firm’s Digital Advisory practice as they talk about digital transformation, benefits of an enabled workforce, and where to get started.
About Cherry Bekaert Digital Advisory
Cherry Bekaert’s Digital Advisory team is comprised of strategists who have broad industry experience and keen business acumen. Utilizing an agile and flexible approach, we help examine what you want to achieve with a focus on people, process, technology and culture. We are here to help organizations manage risks, enable growth and support sustainable operations. Leveraging our strategic process, we help digitally enabled organizations – especially middle-market companies – do more with less. Cherry Bekaert stays on top of the latest technology trends, but we know that technology is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Cherry Bekaert is here to guide you on what technology makes sense to adopt as it pertains to delivering the highest value to your organization.
Works Cited:
- “2024 Report on the State of the US Legal Market: The Challenge of Targeting the Right Markets with the Right Offerings.” Thomson Reuters Institute, 8 Jan. 2024, www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/legal/state-of-the-us-legal-market-2024/.
Related Insights
