The Importance of Technology in a Growing Law Firm

The Importance of Technology in a Growing Law Firm 1

Regulation firm technology an increasingly more technological world, how can regulation firms use era to facilitate human interaction? Many companies are experiencing national and worldwide growth but are unsure how to manage a company spanning masses or thousands of miles and, on occasion, even time zones. Some would argue that generation in a greater “human” way is necessary to maintain contemporary firms connected and unified. Certainly, groups like Google and Facebook have led the price in creating workplaces that might be both synergistic and technologically state-of-the-art—even going up to now as to put in force open office plans without assigned offices. While this specific kind of layout plan isn’t always possible for many law firms, having a technologically sturdy collaborative area is precious in fostering nice work surroundings and managing a developing company.

Lippes Mathias Wexler Friedman has experienced the kind of boom that raises a few strategic and control challenges. Just 5 years ago, our firm had one workplace with forty-nine attorneys; today, we’ve got seven workplaces across the US and Canada and nearly 110 lawyers, coverage advisors, and specialists. One of the greatest demanding situations confronted via any company experiencing this type of growth is preserving a near-knit, high-quality work tradition centered on collegiality and inclusion—which requires an intentional and taken into consideration focus on building human connections.

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To that end, our company lately built a big collaboration area with unique seating configurations which can accommodate among 60-one hundred human beings. The room is geared up with 90-inch monitors, robotic cameras bearing in mind each target audience and presenter perspectives, generation structures to allow multi-consumer video conferencing and the transmittal and coordination of all computer programs in real-time, specialized lights and room-darkening features, in addition to a brand new audio and microphone machine. This collaboration room additionally carries a full kitchen and bar region used while the firm hosts clients, CLE packages, or social functions.

A high-tech collaborative area of this nature presents the possibility to talk “face-to-face” despite the firm’s growing geographical footprint. The importance of live, visible interactions should no longer be unnoticed. Countless research strains the importance of non-verbal communication, consisting of posture, hand gestures, eye touch or avoidance, and many others. In human interaction. Anyone who has misinterpreted the tone of a text message or email can recognize how nonverbal conversation influences the context of phrases.

Non-verbal communique in the administrative center is as important at work as it’s miles in a single’s private lifestyle. For instance, Alex Pentland, a professor at MIT, has determined fulfillment predicting the outcome of profits negotiations and business plan “pitches” in the office-based on nonverbal behaviors. His studies discovered that “people have a second channel of communication that revolves not around words however around social family members. This social channel profoundly influences fundamental decisions in our lives even though we’re largely blind to it.” Alex Pentland, “Understanding ‘Honest Signals’ in Business,” MIT Sloan Management Review (Fall 2008).

Researchers have also found that an audio-visible era can be a precious opportunity after physical presence is not possible. See normally Jon Denstadli, et al., ”Videoconferencing as a Mode of Communication: A Comparative Study of the Use of Videoconferencing and Face-to-Face Meetings,” Journal of Business and Technical Communication p. 65-91 (2012); G. Bradley Bennet, Richard C. Hatfield, “Staff Auditors’ Proclivity for Computer-Mediated Communication with Clients and its Effect on Skeptical Behavior” (January 2016) (noting that, “[o]ur findings propose that conversation mediums with decreased channels (e.G., no audio or visible channels), which includes CMC, are less appropriate for complicated and unique trouble fixing responsibilities.”). Telephone calls, emails, and letters are frequently insufficient to talk a complex count number fully. While not anything fully compares to in-person interaction, video conferencing technology affords a far extra holistic communique enjoy for anybody worried than traditional methods of communique.

Law corporations can make use of collaborative space and generation to foster company culture and the exchange of ideas. For example, at Lippes Mathias, our trusts and estates institution spans three places of work—Albany, Buffalo, and Jacksonville, Fla. As a result, the group regularly meets the use of video conferencing to discuss or strategize on problems of significance to their practice. The use of era is utilized to facilitate our quarterly partner and associate conferences, which contain colleagues in diverse geographic places. Video conferencing permits every office, or maybe the ones working at home or on the road, to completely participate in discussions, collaborate about firm coverage and tactics or talk about the company’s nation. This “face-to-face” interplay can offer a window into the expectations and realities special places of work may additionally stumble upon and permits all members to feel fully vested within the assembly.

The technology used for everyday management and prison paintings; also advances collegiality and community involvement. For example, the firm’s Women’s Group has used the collaborative area to strategize tasks to increase diversity and inclusion in our network and firm. This technique permits contributors throughout all the company’s workplaces to have a real, valued seat at the table in advancing company initiatives and contributing to firm success. As a result, individuals often experience an extended consolation stage with the group, resulting in greater honest and open ideas and evaluations.

Collaborative generation additionally fosters and enriches client relationships. Not simplest are law corporations turning into more technologically state-of-the-art—so are our customers. Clients have extra expectancies that their counsel is effortlessly available to cope with prison issues as they appear. In June 2017, a Forbes article by Mark Cohen titled “Are Law Firms turning into Obsolete?” distinct the seven methods regulation firms failed to cope with customer demanding situations. Notably, it listed the company’s “failure to deploy generation to streamline operations and offer organization solutions” above “poor customer support.” Essentially, it addresses a principal essential of contemporary-day regulation exercise: Evolve or come to be obsolete.

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