REMOTE LAW
Lawyering from Home
As the workforce has spread to a hybrid set-up, how has the legal industry dealt with a demand to work from home?
Along with the mass adoption of video collaboration, there were always going to be a few viral moments. A personal favourite came from the legal world where a lawyer in the States had joined a virtual courtroom hearing as a cat and tried to proceed, reassuring the judge that “I’m here live, I’m not a cat.” Thankfully those days are largely behind us, and courtrooms are back to being in-person affairs. However, the second-order effects of the pandemic have hit the legal sector as much as any business, with working from home
“Working from home has revolutionised lawyers’ lives. In a profession famed for long working hours and high workloads, the ability to conduct some of their work from home offered new-found freedoms. “A recent survey revealed just how highly lawyers view these flexible working arrangements, with 87 per cent stating that they enjoy working from home, and almost half saying that they would look for another role if their firm asked them to come into the office for more than three days a week.” Millennial Mindset But while the lawyers are enjoying the hybrid working approach, those running the firms may not be as happy. According to Steve Foster, Solutions Engineering Manager EMEA at Netskope, working from home was a privilege reserved for senior partners as, before the pandemic, there were cost implications to ensure that employees could work from home securely. Another factor explaining why law firms may have been slow to adopt collaboration platforms in the past is that communication has largely been in person, and documents have been on paper rather than a screen. However Foster added that the next generation of lawyers is having an effect on the technology that’s used. “Some of the traditional legal companies are slow to change because they have processes in place that have to be followed but haven’t changed for decades,” said Foster. “The problem is that they have a workforce that is digitally native and are joining with the expectation of agility and frictionless use of technology because that’s what they used to. They’ve done their law degree, they’ve passed their bar exams, and they want to use digital tools like social media and instant messaging. “The new workforce doesn’t work in the
Andrew Lawton Founder & CEO
reskube.com
a big part of modern law firms. What’s more, as Andrew Lawton,
Founder & CEO of ResKube points out, the change has been well received by those in the legal sector. “Like so many industries, the pandemic has shifted how the legal industry functions, even as the era of lockdown measures become a faded memory.
Steve Foster Solutions Engineering Manager EMEA
netskope.com
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