You are probably tired of reading and hearing the phrase “Covid 19”. However, there are no signs that we will soon stop talking about the virus. The number of infected people started to go down for a short period. It seemed that things are getting back to normal. Unfortunately, only 2 months later, things started to go in the wrong direction. Some countries once again closed their borders while others are planning to do the same.
People that are passionate travelers can no longer visit different locations. However, that is not the biggest problem that the entire world is facing. We are not even sure how the worldwide economy is going to look when everything ends. Many businesses stopped working, and no one knows exactly how many of them will decide on the same move in the future.
The crisis influenced every possible industry that exists in today’s world. Things are not different when we talk about law firms. Lawyers and other people that participate in the industry had to change the way of how they work. They had to go through the process of adaptation just like any other business in the world.
Websites like dailyinvestnews.com analyzed the financial impact of COVID-19 on law firms. We recommend you read their article as well to get familiar with certain pieces of information. However, we also decided on analyzing ways law firms are responding to the COVID-19 crisis. Without a high dose of creativity, many of them won’t manage to survive. No one expected that something like this is going to happen. That is the reason why law firm owners need to react promptly.
Difference Between COVID-19 Crisis and Economical Crisis in 2008
Before we get to the main point, there is one comparison that we need to talk about here. Everyone remembers the economical crisis back in 2008. Some people try to compare these two things, but there are many differences you should know about them.
Different structural issues in the worldwide economy were the cause of that type of situation. This time, the worldwide economy is dealing with the external factor. During 2007 and 2008, the legal industry was one of the strongest sectors of that time. Things are different now because the legal field is dealing with the same problem as any other industry. Despite that, the industries around the globe managed to recover quickly after the crisis occurred. It seems that the economies will need much more time to recover from the Covid-19 because the consequences are a lot bigger. Of course, we do not want to be negative here.
No one knows what exactly is going to happen in the future. It may happen that everything will stop at once. However, a certain number of doctors is predicting the second wave of the virus. If that happens, the influence on all business fields including the legal industry can be additionally negative.
Everyone In the Law Firm Needs to Participate
Finding the best possible way to respond is a challenging task. That is the reason why personal relationships are essential. When the circumstances are bad, everyone in the company needs to communicate with each other. Despite that, the external situation also needs to exist. The lawyers and other professionals from the field need to work together on finding a solution.
Because of that, the law firm companies need to show tolerance and try to respond in that way. We are not talking here about sharing a couple of emails with the law teams from other companies. Everyone, including team and practice leaders, administrative departments heads, and others need to ensure a direct personal conversation.
Despite that, the communication with the key clients is another essential thing. As we said, no one knows when exactly everything is going to end. That is the reason why you should be in regular touch with all the clients during the crisis period.
Thinking about the Changes in the Future
It doesn’t matter if the lawyer is a pessimistic or optimistic person. As we said multiple times, predicting things now is not going to be possible. Lawyers are trying to be optimistic, but they are preparing themselves for the worst.
Before everything, you need to understand that the law industry is not going to disappear after the pandemic ends. However, it may happen that the way how all the law processes are functioning is going to change.
For the first time, people that participate in the field realized how important advanced technology for the entire industry is. First of all, many law firms are not big supporters of remote work. In that way, they are trying to achieve a better work-life balance. Many pieces of evidence confirm that type of work can function. Despite that, online meetings now became a normal thing. In other words, the so-called meeting-related travel is not going to be an attractive thing for a long period. That can be good because you will manage to avoid the fees that those meetings can cause.
Because of that, we got another response from most professional law companies. They started to invest more money and ensure a good quality of technology.
Learning from Mistakes and Preparing for the Second Wave
Law firms started to analyze the mistakes they made during the first wave of the Coronavirus crisis. They are trying to find answers that will help them prepare better for the so-called second wave. There are a couple of things you should ask yourself when doing that. First of all, you need to determine what exactly surprised you. After that, you should analyze things that influenced your business functioning in a good and bad way. Continue using methods that worked good, and try to fix things that were not functioning.
Doing that is not going to be a challenging task. There are many signs that everything is going to repeat between November and March next month. Of course, we all hope that something like that is not going to happen. But, analyzing your previous pandemic response is the only way to prepare yourself for the next one.
