Advice on How You Can Free Up Your Legal Team’s Time

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April 27, 2021 Business

Every law firm and business with an in-house legal team is always looking for ways to increase productivity. As regulations increase and budgets decrease there is more work than ever for every member of a team to deal with. Attorneys are highly trained and highly paid and so they are a resource that should be used effectively. With so much paperwork, bureaucracy, and red tape, however, they can get bogged down in tedious work which doesn’t take advantage of their skills and expertise.

To help you reduce this workload and get the most out of your lawyers, here is our advice on how you can free up your legal team’s time.

1. Identify the Work That Is Most Valuable

Every lawyer has received years of specialist training and the vast majority command a substantial salary, and so it is extremely important that your business identifies work that is worth your lawyers’ time and effort. If you have a large business with an in-house legal team, divide all the legal work which needs doing into a three-layered pyramid. The largest section at the bottom of the period should be all the simple work that just needs to be done efficiently.

This can be done by the least experienced lawyers at your firm, outsourced to various paralegals, or can even be done through automated software. The middle section of the pyramid should take up most of your legal team’s time and effort as this will be the work where experience is needed. These tasks may not be the most complex but they will require your lawyers to balance efficiency and quality when completing them.

The very tip of the pyramid should be the least amount of work because it will be the most complex and require the highest levels of expertise. These tasks should only be completed by your most experienced and skilled in-house lawyers or outsourced to legal specialists. One of the advantages of the pyramid structure is that in the future you shouldn’t have to outsource much work at all at the top because your lawyers will gain so much experience and knowledge as they work their way up.

2. Implement the Right Technological Solutions

As explained above, with this pyramid structure, the most experienced lawyers will be at the top and those with the least expertise and experience at the bottom. There may even be multiple processes that don’t need a person to do but can be handled through automated processes or software. Efficient in house counsel software will reduce your team’s administrative duties and enable them to manage their project better. This will enable your lawyers to focus on the legal work itself which is what you pay for them for. Look at all your lawyers’ duties and ask yourself if this actually works that they need to be doing or whether there is a technological solution that can take care of it.

3. Cut Out Needless Work Altogether

When structuring your legal work pyramid and assigning tasks to lawyers and software, you may come across many things which do not need doing at all. These tasks often fly under the radar until businesses really break down all of their processes and operations. Ask yourself if there is enough value in each task to make it worthwhile or whether your company would be harmed at all by dropping it altogether.

With regard to your legal team, in particular, make sure that they are not doing any task just for the sake of it. No employee should ever be given “busy work” or pointless administrative tasks. Use everyone’s talents and get the maximum out of every member of your workforce.

4. Bring in More Lawyers

If your legal team is constantly struggling with the pressure of getting their work done or have to work huge amounts of overtime unwillingly, the solution may be as simple as adding more lawyers to the team. No company wants to hire extra personnel unnecessarily because this costs money, but it is your responsibility as the business owner to give your legal team the resources they need, and this may mean more members. Make sure you always have the right balance of experienced and less-experienced lawyers to fit your pyramid work structure.

5. Train Other Employees to Handle Legal Tasks

Not every legal task needs to be done by a qualified lawyer. One way to reduce the workload on your legal team, particularly those tasks at the bottom of the pyramid which can’t be done by software, is to train your other employees to do them. They may not need to have much (or any) knowledge of the law to do these tasks, especially if they have some technology to help them. Speak to your legal teams about which tasks take up all the time and have them train other, less expensive staff to do them instead.

This will free your lawyers up to do more difficult work befitting their skills and knowledge. It will also give more people in your business a greater understanding of the legal requirements and regulations which affect your business.

6. Set Clear Targets

Many lawyers think of their workload in one of two ways; one comprehensive body of work, such as preparing and presenting a single case; and tasks or consultations charged at an hourly rate. It can be very beneficial to your business to try and change this way of thinking among your in-house legal team. Setting targets will show individuals and your legal team in its entirety which tasks should be their priority. There are various ways to set targets for teams. You may delegate five unique tasks for one team of paralegals; alternatively, you might give an entire category of work to two lawyers to stay on top of continuously.

Freeing up time for your legal teams can provide your business with so many benefits. Identifying what tasks need doing and where your team’s talents are best employed is the ideal way to save time and allocate your resources effectively. Follow the advice in this article and you should see some major differences in how your legal team is able to operate.