Futureproofing Legal Support Services with Workflow

Support staff structures in law firms have been steadily shifting over the past few years. We’ve seen a push towards more centralised support teams as firm leaders increasingly recognise the need to streamline workflows between lawyers and support staff to improve client service delivery.

However, firms are still battling high attrition rates, and the retirement of highly skilled, experienced legal assistants is a persistent challenge. With the latest BigHand market research revealing that the majority (69%) of firms report that support staff attrition has increased or stayed the same over the past year, it’s time to look towards the next wave of support staff and how firms must adapt to meet their demands.

Nurturing the new age of support staff

Digging into the data from our report, we can see that 25% of firms confirm support staff attrition is due to a lack of professional development. Again, we know about the centralisation of support staff as a method firms are looking towards to combat this attrition. Building skills in-house is a preferable approach to the costly option of recruiting from a market amidst a talent shortage. The issue is that only 25% of firms can currently offer those clear career paths for support staff.

To effectively develop internal assets, firms need to comprehensively understand the skillsets and experience they have at their disposal. Therein lies an opportunity for the remaining 75% of firms to differentiate themselves as employers. By adopting workflow technology, firms can broaden the range of work accessible to support staff and spot opportunities to upskill their workforce. BigHand Workflow Management helps firm leaders demonstrate to existing and prospective talent that they can provide avenues for professional development, which will prove invaluable in retention.

Bridging the education gap

Just as there is value in upskilling support staff, firms must address the current gap in understanding between support staff and lawyers. We often see lawyers defaulting to the same support staff due to limited visibility of the available resources. On the other hand, that support staff member may struggle to push back against work coming their way that isn’t in their remit because they also don’t know the correct process. Often, this disconnect is because of the lack of defined workflows.

33% of firms have only partial or no data about the type of work sent from lawyers to support staff. How can those firms be confident that their resources are being used to the best of their potential? Workflow technology uncovers support pathways that otherwise may have remained hidden. Opening these avenues narrows the education gap between support staff and lawyers significantly.

Optimising client service delivery

While the coalescence of lawyers and support staff is beneficial for internal efficiencies, it’s also increasingly important to client service delivery. A measurable result of the disconnect between lawyers and support is that 12% of lawyers spend over 5 hours a week on non-billable administrative tasks, which should be delegated to dedicated support staff. Clients, understandably, won’t pay expensive lawyers to do admin, and with 96% of firms losing clients over the past 12 months, it’s clear that firms are feeling the squeeze from an increasingly cost-conscious client base.

67% of firms focus more on delegating the right work to the right resource at the right cost. However, to ensure they succeed, firms must recognise the crucial role that support staff play in client service delivery. Optimal resource utilisation hinges on lawyers promptly leveraging the most appropriate support resource via clearly defined workflows.

The state of play is that 54% of firms have workflow technology in place, and 55% employ Workflow Managers to manage the allocation of work from lawyers to support staff. These numbers are encouraging, but firms that fail to address high talent and client attrition rates risk falling behind. Act now and get in touch with one of our experts to see how investing in workflow technology improves retention rates and helps provide unparalleled client service.

By
Ben Jennings, Global Director - Workflow