As the business environment continues to shift to meet expectations and changes brought about by the ongoing pandemic, law firms and legal departments must ensure that workflows continue uninterrupted — even when teams are increasingly geographically scattered.
With almost half of all law offices embracing a remote workforce, it is critical to maintain control, oversight, and connection to keep staff working efficiently — and profitably.
This article will address several important factors to consider when managing your remote legal team for amplified productivity, personal safety, and compliance and diligence toward clients.
Important Factors to Consider When Managing Your Remote Legal Team
Managing a remote legal team requires a new way of thinking about typical workday interactions, including coming up with creative solutions for connectivity and applying new technologies — and third-party assistance — to keep employees productive and data safe from theft of loss.
Let’s dive in:
- Security is Job One
Legal teams often collect, share, and store a great deal of highly sensitive information, much of which falls under one of many regulatory compliance strictures. A remote team offers hackers additional inroads to data, since many will use personal devices to transmit and store information — including tablets, laptops, smartphones, and even printers.
Tackle it: To keep your remote legal team — and your data — safe and compliant, ensure you have deployed appropriate cybersecurity measures such as antivirus, firewalls, multi factor authentication, access controls, and others. For best results, consider partnering with a managed services provider (MSP) who will keep soft- and hardware up to date with the latest patches, perform routine maintenance, and remotely monitor equipment for suspicious activity.
- Communication is Key
As with any office setting, communication is essential for proper collaboration and a higher level of productivity. For remote legal staff, communication helps teams work together effectively, address challenges, and exchange ideas and information necessary to successful case management and resolution.
Tackle it: It is important to arrange for information to be shared in as many ways as possible — including face-to-face. Having access to video conferencing software and video cameras can help team members connect with clients and each other on a more personal level. Just be sure you have the proper bandwidth to handle video transmission to avoid laggy connections.
- Organization is Essential
Lawyers deal with a large amount of data with each case they handle. Being able to locate the right piece of information is often critical to the success of any matter, but it can be essential to case management. In addition to being able to access pertinent information, lawyers working remotely must also be able to share, edit, and track this data as other team members work with or on it.
Tackle it: Get control of your data by deploying knowledge management (KM) tools such as print management and document management solutions. Using these technologies, you can easily convert paper-based data to digital files that can be easily shared, managed, and protected. In addition, these tools will reduce costly man-hours spent searching for files and even reduce print waste for a healthier bottom line.
Doing Better Business Has Every Tool Your Remote Legal Team Needs for Success
At Doing Better Business (DBB), we take pride in staying abreast of changing issues and technology needs. That is why we have curated a complete suite of tools to help your remote team — and your law firm — thrive, even in our post-pandemic economy.
Our team of professionals can develop a communications program that encompasses your entire workforce — from in-house workers to remote teams — providing all the knowledge you need to stay abreast of current trends and changes.
With a range of tools to choose from — video conferencing tech, next-gen cybersecurity, and both print and document management — our team can offer your team solutions that will keep your remote staff productive, your data safe, and your firm profitable.
Get your remote team the tools they need for success. Contact a representative from Doing Better Business and discover the benefits our communication solutions and other tech tools have to offer.