Unlocking the future of law firms with technology and client interactions

One of the key concerns of law firms (large and small) is not being able to adapt to changes. They need to have the agility to pivot fast as new regulations and market influences impact their clients. A Briefing and sa.global webcast “How can law firms harness data to drive strategic advantage?”, featuring Fernando Antas da Cunha, Managing Partner at ECIJA – one of Spain’s most innovative law firms – had had a trove of insights into how this key problem can be approached through fostering a culture wherein law firms are ready to dip their toes into new arenas and use a foundation of data to provide new services to clients by joining hands with the right technology partners. Here, we have compiled insights from his discussion.

“I believe one of the secrets to having a successful legal firm lies in anticipation. If we pay attention to what’s going on around us, we can anticipate products or services that are likely to be well-received by clients. We need to put the client at the center of our business. This might seem like an obvious approach, but the truth is that lawyers have traditionally been trained to have an in-depth knowledge of the law, not necessarily to focus on the client experience and the business.

As a lawyer in Portugal, I have observed there is a significant challenge when we try to do something different compared to our competitors. So, at ECIJA, we try to talk and chat with different clients to identify what we can do in the short term that no one, or very few competitors have identified as an opportunity (in fact, we have a partner dedicated to developing new services). A clear example of this was the creation of a new practice area called “Legal Intelligence”.

Let me give you an idea of the impact. We started a firm in Portugal with five people in 2015. Now, in Portugal, we have a hundred people. In 2017, when we merged with a Spanish law firm, we were a total of 250 professionals. Now, we have approximately 1850 lawyers, only in five years.

This is something quite unusual, especially when we’re talking about Portugal and Spain, which are completely different markets than the UK or the US. We achieved this because we are completely focused on what we call “digital law” or new ways of providing legal services, even though we are a full-service firm.

I believe the key takeaway is to try to anticipate a vision of what we think the future will be in the legal sector and to provide our firms with resources and tools. It’s like a lab where we try and try again, and sometimes we successfully target the services we offer.

However, traditionally, lawyers rely on their experience to find solutions quickly. We know the law in detail and tend to jump straight to proposing solutions for our clients. However, a game-changing approach involves becoming attentive listeners. By truly understanding what clients want and what gaps they perceive in our services, we can fundamentally improve the way we operate. This is almost like a puzzle. You need to bring all the pieces together, and only then it becomes very clear that you need to do things differently or offer different products.”

What Fernando speaks of above where lawyers are able to anticipate or even forecast what clients want requires two key essentials –

• Their time needs to be freed up from mundane tasks so they can focus on the client experience.
• They need to have access to the right insights at their fingertips so they know when there is an opportunity to cross-sell and provide more to clients.

This is where a connected cloud platform steps into the picture. By automating tasks, providing defined templates and workflows that work well for your law firm, it helps ensure that lawyers are focused on more strategic work for their clients. Through centralized client data, improved communications, and easy client activity tracking – all of which is made possible through a connected cloud platform – firms can cater to their clients in a better way. This becomes increasingly important in a volatile economic environment. Great client interactions and delivering an exceptional experience could spell the difference between just staying afloat and being resilient.

By using an integrated cloud platform, law firms can gain a competitive edge in identifying new client opportunities, streamlining business development efforts, and ultimately expanding their client base effectively and efficiently.