The Future Of Remote Attorney Work

It’s always difficult, as an observer of the legal world, to answer this question: what’s next? We often ask this question of expert guests at our webinars and other events, and while they can take educated guesses, they can’t predict the future.

In this blog, we’ll be trying to predict the future. Not that we think we’re more equipped than our favorite experts to do so! But, given the arc of remote attorney work, from the pre-pandemic early adopters through the necessities of quarantine until today, we think it actually won’t be too difficult to see where things are going.

From the rapid advance of legal technology to the ever-increasing ease of client access to their attorneys, the legal world, long a slow-moving industry, seems to be changing quite quickly. Using the data available to us right now, we’re going to try to see what the future of remote attorney work will look like in the next few years.

Growth And Increasing Adoption Of Technology

First and foremost, the legal tech world is constantly evolving. That, of course, makes prediction harder than normal. The rapid pace of the legal tech world will have a big effect on remote attorney work, which is a tech-intensive phenomenon.

One thing is easy to predict, however: automation will continue to grow in its importance for all firms but especially for remote ones.

Firms that embrace new legal technology in billing, communication, and document management see better revenue than those that don’t, according to the 2023 Legal Trends Report published by Clio.

Those three work streams are prime places to automate, and to integrate. Imagine a firm that secures a new client and immediately, automatically sends them a representation agreement. That client can request a document on their client portal, and a document management system will send them the requested legal document to be used for their next steps. And, when all is said and done, the client can be automatically billed based on prior authorization for every legal service rendered!

The trend toward automation and integration will be further boosted by a rising AI presence in legal software. Though AI’s effect on other industries is yet to be determined, it’s already present in a lot of the software lawyers use every day. We don’t necessarily mean large language models like Chat-GPT, either. Any software that learns and anticipates your needs by suggesting workflows, automations, or even reminders has some element of machine learning to it. These tools will become more powerful and more popular as time goes on, making data entry and administration less of a chore for smaller firms and freeing up their time to do more actual legal work.

In 2023, at the start of the spread of AI tools into the legal world, the Legal Trends Report found that clients already had a positive view of lawyers using AI technology, with about half of surveyed clients saying they would be comfortable using a lawyer who used AI tools.

These changes will affect remote attorneys more than traditional, in-office lawyers, simply because remote work has greater technological demands. Virtual law firms will adapt faster to technological changes and be in a better position to take advantage of them.

Better Access To Attorneys, Better Access To Justice

Unfortunately, It’s long been true that the more money you have, the greater your access to legal services.

According to the US Justice Needs Survey, 66 percent of the population experienced at least one legal issue in the four years before the survey, but only 49 percent of those issues had been resolved.

The “justice gap” or access to justice has long been a controversial topic in the legal world. It’s an uncomfortable truth of our legal system, and one that many organizations in the legal industry have been trying to change.

The efforts of those organizations are certainly valuable, but industry conditions are changing things, too. Remote attorney work has been increasing access to justice, and it will continue to do so. Big law firms, obviously, are more advantageous for wealthier clients and businesses. Those firms, however, are less likely to adopt remote work as the standard. Larger organizations in general are slower to adapt to big changes than smaller businesses.

While biglaw isn’t going anywhere, attorneys that want to work remotely will move to smaller, more flexible firms or go out on their own. These small and solo firms are more likely to offer discrete or unbundled legal services and other alternative fee arrangements, which benefit less well-off clients. A client without a lot of money who just wants a will drawn up will be more likely to use a firm that will charge them for just that discrete document, and not bill them hourly.

Better access to justice is an unalloyed positive of remote attorney work. What’s less clearly a positive is that it’s a product of better access to attorneys. Virtual lawyers are much easier to contact than an attorney who works in a physical office. Technology like client portals and high-tech firm websites make it easier than ever for clients to communicate with their attorneys. For clients, this is a big win! Especially for attorneys who might not be billing hourly, their clients will relish being able to more easily communicate with their attorneys.

It’s not all sunshine, however. Attorneys will need to establish better boundaries, with clients, non-clients, and with themselves. Always being available is no way to run a law firm, as you’ll never get any work done, and there will be no distinction between work and relaxation. The latter is an especially important boundary to set up for lawyers working from home! Clear boundaries and schedules of when you will respond to client inquiries will help keep remote attorneys from overworking themselves.

More Productivity, More Profit

As we mentioned above, remote attorney work is tech-intensive. There will never be 100 percent adoption of remote work. At some point, the percentage of attorneys abandoning the office for a virtual firm will plateau. As more and more attorneys switch to virtual firms, though, they will invest in more and more technology. The legal tech industry, therefore, will continue to invest in itself and grow.

New tools and improvements to existing tools will be rolling out constantly. Each of these will incrementally optimize the legal world, cutting down on dead time and making remote firms very efficient.

Some attorneys, like Mathew Kerbis, host of the Law Subscribed podcast, often make the assertion that tools like generative AI will make legal work so fast and efficient that billing by the hour will no longer be feasible. While we won’t go that far, there are certainly benefits to be reaped by firms that are agile and efficient that larger, more traditional firms may not be able to access.

On top of that, overhead costs will fall. Firms will become more willing to shed their leases and make the switch to remote attorney work. Commercial real estate prices are already on their way down. While this will have bigger impacts on the wider economy, for those not working remotely, overhead might fall as well! All of that, in the short term, leads to greater profits for the firms who cut their costs.

Invest In Your Future With Answering Legal

This is the final entry in our series on remote work. If this is the first post in the series you’ve read, you’re reading in the wrong order! Click here to start from the beginning, with a deep dive into the pros and cons of remote work and a look at the data behind our findings. If you’re interested in the tech behind remote work, click here. And check out this blog post to find out how a virtual receptionist makes remote work easy.

We’ve talked about the future of remote work. What about the future of Answering Legal?

We’re always moving forward with improving our service for our customers. We are constantly adding new legal software to our list of integrations. We also have a mobile app, where we are always looking for ways to make life easier for our attorney customers.

However, sometimes there’s value in the old school way of doing things. Prospective clients still prefer to speak with a lawyer over the phone before hiring them. Our virtual receptionists are a key bridge between the old school and the high tech. With our aforementioned integrations and mobile app, your firm will be able to keep up with your increased lead capturing potential.

Embrace your firm’s full potential. Click here or call 631-686-9700 to sign up for our free trial. For a limited time, we’re offering firms that sign up for our service their first 400 minutes free.