STATE OF LEGAL PROFESSION: POST PANDEMIC

This article discusses the following parts; it represents the change in thoughts as well as the trends and the crisis that arises from the following change. This article also tries to analysis change in client demands in light of this pandemic. Article also analysis the trends that might affect the commercial law firm platform. The article also provides recommendation strategy to overcome the pandemic.

There is no certainty on how and when will things get back to normal or will it be the new normal. It is necessary to get the basic functionality and financial viability to make things normal. The COVID-19 pandemic ultimately affected how businesses work. Pandemic has ultimately affected all the factors of business including social, political, cultural and economic foundations in every society across the globe. The unforeseen and immediate lockdown at nation-wide level has led to stringent of manufacturing sector and service sector to a large extent impacting in salary cut, spending capacity, transportation and communication.

The legal profession during the lockdown has been in great hustle advising the clients from non-performance of contract around force-majeure to employment law relating to workforce terminations, pay-related liability issues as well as insolvency of businesses in their respective areas. Being a service profession the option of work from home has given all the employees the opportunity to continue to cater to a great extent.    

How will tings change?

The major change would be change in clients need. The legal profession model that is the traditional in-house and external counsel model will remain unchanged. However the reliance for smaller issues on external counsel will reduce.

There would be a surge in technology adoption along with the simultaneous pressure on expense budgets in order to provide services they would have to meet the guidelines provided by the government, encourage greater use of commercial knowledge resources and technology tools to replace both in-house and external lawyers.The use of technology like blockchain and smart contras would be encouraged in order is more financially independent and efficient. Use of blockchain would require legal assistance only during the input stage and later would be taken care by technology itself.

The only change in need from customer side will appear in the absence of sporting events, bustling restaurants reduced number of start-ups the marketing and client relations will see a change.

It is only when the social interactions will become similar to the past the surge would reduce. Legal need in the short-run might not be affected but in long run the clients might prefer more cost effective method.

Being a service industry the companies might still prefer its employees working from home as well as they would be resistant from having clients in the office and the meetings would be mainly preferred on e-commerce platform. The pandemic have seen a gradual shift in court proceedings from physical form to online mode, which might continue for a longer period. The Online alternative dispute resolution had taken a leap in India around 2015; however there as lot of resistance from the clients, however due the pandemic there is a gradual shift in the use of such platforms. Also in case of arbitration where the clause states venue of Arbitration outside India the proceedings cannot be continued until the pandemic rests in peace, so until that time ODR can be utilized.

The firms can take following measures in order to overcome the pandemic and resume its activities and learn from the previous five lessons from previous downturns

The previous downturns other than the financial crisis of 2008–09 resulted as an opportunity for law firms not only to identify and foresee the problem and come across a solution to overcome the following pandemic. Another important suggestion is to have flexible strategies and adopt the pandemic as earliest as possible.

The downturn usually comes with a wide spectrum of demand calling for responses across the legal sectors and practice areas. The litigation and restructuring practice areas will flourish where as other transactional practices will suffer, but the reality will be more nuanced and legal firms providing full service can balance the losses and workforce from the same, while others practitioners might have to look for a shift in practice. While there are unprecedented near-term slowdowns in some court systems, over time, dispute and investigation practices are indeed less correlated with the rest of the economy than transactional practices. The company must adopt digital strategy in a time of crisis. They could create digital applications for their firm and the clients that could assure confidentiality and smooth functioning of the service.  There is an additional pressure of client demands and competition from alternative legal-service that would provide likely pressure on high-cost real estate, staffing pyramids, and other elements of the traditional service-delivery model.

These through-cycle priorities aim to sustain value in the near term and build value over the long term relationship. The firms must ensure its dedication towards the client and shall not change any billing process during this pandemic.

The firms should operate at pace on relevance

The clients at this particular time need sound information, hard data, and impartial advice. They should not be flooded with information but just relevant information as well as useful in graphical or model way.  In such situation model beyond the standard articles or emails should be used and same must be published through blogs (as form of blog) to aim for perspectives to clients. The times is a great essence for idea to publication or a client discussion, that is too long in this fluid time.

Employee must be embraced

Acknowledge and deal with the humanitarian and personal elements of the COVID-19 crisis with empathy. While serving the client, employees shall not be ignored and maximum support to employees must be provided. Following factor should also be ensured like  flexibility, collaboration, and connectivity through technology and frequent communications from firm leaders.

By

Vinakshi Kadan

Senior Advisor, INBA