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Adjusting to the new normal that the pandemic situation has brought upon us is just not an option with the businesses today. It’s something that has to be made a habit now….just like eating heathy diet and exercising every day. Anyone missing out on this adaptation, would have to deal with its repercussions, if not immediately…perhaps in times to come.

There are always two ways of dealing with tough situations – you feel dejected and pressured by it and let your stance go down OR you seek that silver lining that shows you ways to learn, update, strengthen yourself and not only deal with it, but also make yourself future proof. 

Unlike some of the other industries that have been facing the wrath of COVID-19 crisis and have been taken out for a good time, the legal industry fortunately should only be seeing a temporary slowdown. We have witnessed in the past that crisis situations bring in an increase in crimes, defaults, commercial disputes, health problems, relationship troubles etc., quite a few of which end up with a solution though a legal recourse. Thus there would always be consumers of legal services that would require the counsel of smart lawyers. 

Even with revival in sight, most of the law firms still had a tough time keeping afloat during the past few months. The single biggest reason seems to be the high manpower and operations costs.      

The Legal Process Outsourcing lays down the solution for the law firms to future-equip themselves in dealing with unanticipated events outside of their control that have the potential to negatively impact their business. As per a recent report, amid the COVID-19 crisis and the looming economic recession, the Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) market worldwide is projected to grow by US$10.5 Billion, driven by a compounded growth of 20.7%. This strongly backs the idea of taking advantage of the outsourcing model for aspiring law firms and their astute leaders seeking to find success in the now changing legal market landscape.

Below list are some of the many reasons for the law firms to consider switching to an outsourcing model:

• A Financially Effective Approach – With the average hourly wage for paralegals or associate attorneys touching anywhere between $32-$40, an outsourcing option can directly reduce your manpower (and other associated costs) by 50-70%, thus increasing your profitability and helping you build reserves for any unprecedented situations.
• Keep the Ad-Hocs Away – You can outsource all the small value ad-hoc sourcing requirements that are unavoidable, yet essential and take away a lot of yours/staff’s time. You would need to hand hold the outsourced team for a few initial requirements, post which they would be fairly independent and you would be only required to do sample checks.
• Focus on Management and Avoid Micro Management – Outsourcing routine tasks ensures that while you focus on overall firm management, drawing plans for client acquisition & growth, laying the ground rules, managing cross functional teams, take key decisions, the outsourcing team can support with all supporting activities like medical record review and analysis, preparing medical record summary, document conversion, paralegal services like data capture, bate stamping, template-based document drafting etc. Thus, a win-win for both the law firm and the outsourcing service provider.
• Dispersed workforce – Post Covid-19 crisis, most law firms resisted the idea that sophisticated legal work could be done by a dispersed workforce. COVID-19 forced a grand experiment, the results of which suggest that today the end clients seem agnostic as to where work is being done as long as it’s getting done at a satisfactory level of quality. This argument rests in favour of outsourcing the requirements to an experienced and reliable legal outsourcing partner – if the work can be effectively handled from employees working from their homes in same or different cities, why not by an offshore team in a different country?
• Technology Driven Collaborative Culture – Today’s technologies can equip you and your team to operate and control all your processes, even when working remotely. With effectively use of project management tools and collaborative channels, keeping a tab on the progress of your tasks has never been easier and transparent.
• Increased Resilience towards Volume Fluctuations – COVID crisis forced most legal firms to dealing with low case volumes and may have forced unavoidable staff layoffs. With unlocked economies where a case volume surge is expected, getting the staff back on handling those could further post a challenge. Outsourcing your routing tasks ensures all your botheration related to volume management are passed on to the outsourcing partner while you only aim focusing on client acquisition and retention.

COVID-19 has affected us all. But smart companies and law firms have to use this time to reconsider past approaches and retool for what will inevitably be a rush back to the new normal of the legal system. Taking control of what you can do and OUTSOURCE the test is the key!!!