Thomson Reuters’ legal team breaks down why lawyers need tech tools more than ever, and how they can access the tools they need
Sponsored article
Now more than ever, lawyers’ focus is on their clients. Their priority is to continue to be that familiar and trusted resource during an entirely unfamiliar time. While that focus isn’t new, the legal technology required to seamlessly serve clients has changed.
As lawyers confront changes related to new urgent client inquiries, shifting priorities, and working from home, they are asking themselves: ‘How do I best serve my clients through all of this?’ The workspace is different. Human resources are limited. It may seem daunting or simply unrealistic to help clients in the same way lawyers could before.
Fortunately, there are resources that can help you be the lawyer your clients need you to be. Yes, there are going to be more challenges ahead and agility will be key, but it’s possible with the right technology. One legal tech provider: Thomson Reuters Law, has broken down some of the new issues lawyers are facing and laid out the legal tools that can help.
Lawyers need to be the trusted legal advisor … for everything
While lawyers provide legal guidance in a variety of areas, there are some practice areas each lawyer is more familiar with than others. Previously, clients may have come to a single practice with wills to draft, divorces to negotiate, and real estate agreements to finalize. Now, some of those same loyal clients may unfortunately be coming with bankruptcy or foreclosure questions and concerns.
Today, some of those clients’ new concerns may not be in a lawyer’s usual wheelhouse. While no lawyer ever wants to turn clients away, keeping clients is especially crucial now. To meet clients’ changing needs, lawyers need to expand their practices, their knowledge, and their resources.
Collaborating looks a lot different
Not so long ago, when one of a lawyer’s regular clients brought them work that was outside of their expertise, they could walk down the hall and ask a colleague about it. That colleague may be more familiar with the matter. They may know the right person to ask. They may know just the right way to do research and get the best results.
Now, that’s not an option. Those quick and easy in-person conversations with colleagues have turned into scheduling a time to chat over the phone or video. It’s certainly possible, but the convenience has diminished. While most lawyers are still part of a firm, they are also learning how to manage as semi-solo practitioners. And now it’s vital to have everything they need literally at their fingertips.
A lawyer’s digital skill set is now a must have
Clients have always depended on their lawyer’s depth and breadth of knowledge, their resourcefulness, and their insight. Now clients need to know that their lawyer can do everything they did in an office, from their residence. Clients may expect their lawyers to run a fully functional law firm from their home office for a long time to come.
With those new requirements comes the need for digital agility. Research tools can empower lawyers to do things they previously relied on others for – preliminary research, accessing forms and precedents, or simply picking a colleague’s brain over coffee – are tasks a lawyer can complete “on their own” with the help of technology.
Find the right legal technology
In the last few months, almost every lawyer’s life and way of practicing law has dramatically changed. Clients’ expectations, however, haven’t. They need their lawyers now more than ever. As their circumstances continue to evolve, what they need and demand from their lawyers will shift. The only way to provide the same great client service they have come to expect is to lean on legal research technology.
Tools like Practical Law, for instance, give practitioners access to the knowledge of hundreds of other lawyers whose job is solely to keep you updated on the ever-changing legal landscape. When lawyers need to venture outside of their usual practice areas, Practical Law provides access to up-to-date information, easy checklists, and other content to give lawyers the confidence to take on any case that comes their way. It’s like having all of the knowledge a lawyer would normally glean from their colleagues, available instantaneously.
With their help, lawyers can answer questions like: ‘How do I take on an unfamiliar matter,’ or ‘how do I keep up when things are changing so quickly?’ Armed with the knowledge and confidence of those answers, every lawyer will ultimately have the solution to the most important question: ‘How do I keep my clients happy?’
To see how our legal technology can help your firm, contact us for a free consultation.
