Assessing the impact of COVID-19 on legal operations

COVID-19 has had a dramatic impact on work practices across every industry, and law is no exception. The pandemic has turbocharged technology adoption across the sector for example, as law firms and corporate legal departments switch to enabling remote working and exploring virtual ways of delivering services. But what are the long-term implications of such developments and which of these changes might be here to stay?

To answer these questions, Ashurst Advance sought the views of some of the UK’s most senior in-house lawyers involved in managing operations within the legal departments of their organisations. We spoke to a cross-section of general counsel and legal innovation specialists from leading enterprises, across sectors as diverse as banking, insurance and local government. The themes that emerged from those conversations form the basis of this white paper, the first in the Ashurst Advance Breakfast Club Opinion Series. 

Leading crisis management responses

For most of the lawyers Ashurst spoke to, the initial COVID-19 ‘reaction phase’ involved rapidly executing crisis management plans designed to enable business resilience across the legal function. That included moving to virtual governance and stakeholder engagement, for instance, as office closures, social distancing and stay-in-place measures became the norm. Ensuring both in-house legal teams and external counsel had access to the technology platforms that could enable effective remote working also quickly became a priority.

Some legal functions had already established the technology platforms needed to shift to virtual operations and optimise flexible working. These teams found themselves well prepared to respond to the disruption more quickly and continue collaborating seamlessly with colleagues and others in the legal delivery supply chain.

“A number of lawyers in my team were already working from home several days a week, so we were used to remote working and holding team meetings by video conference,” one general counsel told us. “So, we just amplified what we’d been doing anyway. It’s worked really well. I feel I’ve been able to build on the trust that I’d already established with people that they’d just get on and do their jobs in the way they saw fit.”

Many clients also described how spearheading crisis management responses in these ways had given their teams a welcome chance to shine. “We coordinated the shift to remote working for our legal function and have been managing the business continuity planning as well. It’s been a really big thing for us,” said one contributor. “But frustrating and challenging as it has been on occasion, I also take it as a huge compliment that our executive team is relying on us to play this role. It shows the confidence they have in the work that legal operations is doing.”

This increased prominence is in turn creating new opportunities for legal operations teams to get the attention of senior leadership. “We’re hearing from a lot of people how the crisis has led to a focus on ways of working and transformation,” said Kate Bassett, Global Head of Legal Project Management and Process Improvement at Ashurst. “That’s making this time even more of an opportunity for the legal operations community to get traction for their agendas and have the ear of the decision-makers.”

Integrating new joiners and maintaining culture

Yet as many contributors also pointed out, the transition to remote working has not been without challenges. Where new joiners and junior team members are concerned, for example, some legal operations teams have found it more difficult to maintain cohesion through a virtual approach.

“We realised it’s much easier for those of us who are already a well-integrated team to keep connected and carry on relationships,” said one general counsel. “But with new starters and the junior staff, integration during this period has been so much harder.”

In response, some teams have begun exploring alternative solutions, including using technology to carry out, track and report on virtual professional development and training.

For Chris Georgiou, Partner and Head of Ashurst Advance, such new approaches are vital to ensure juniors and new joiners can build relationships in a remote environment. “In our current situation, it’s even more important to be clear about responsibilities and expectations, so that boundaries are set from the start and there is no ambiguity,” he said. “In the office, it’s much easier to set those boundaries through informal communications, so extra attention needs to be paid to communications channels and documentation of processes and procedures within teams.”

A related aspect is replacing the learning which juniors normally absorb through “shadowing” within an office. “New joiner packs and induction and training programmes should be produced or refreshed to mitigate this aspect,” Georgiou said.

Some contributors also told us that while initially there was a tremendous drive from everyone to pull together and support each other with regular check-ins and team events – generating a potentially stronger team culture than the one which had existed when people were physically in the office – 'Zoom fatigue’ had now set in. Consequently, team leaders were seeking new ways to motivate and bring people together.

“A key takeaway from this period is the importance of listening to the team, sense-checking what's working and what isn’t and being agile enough to change approaches so that organisational culture is maintained,” Georgiou said. “The message we’ve been hearing is how much people have valued the greater autonomy and trust which has been placed in them. That’s a really valuable lesson to preserve as we emerge from this phase.”

Optimising resourcing

The question of whether work practices may transform more fundamentally, post-pandemic, has been a key part of our client conversations. Most contributors agreed that the disruption brought about by the crisis could in fact be a positive catalyst for long-term change.

“Even before COVID hit, there had been a growing clamour among departments to have more workplace flexibility,” said one general counsel. “The virus has accelerated some of the changes that were being discussed and mooted, so it’s definitely presenting us with more of an opportunity to make a big reset in that regard.”

But what might such a reset encompass? We asked contributors whether they might now consider adjusting resourcing plans, for example, as their organisations come out of lockdown and move into recovery mode. With more virtual operations underway, could more activities be performed in-house or sourced externally? And what about the potential to hire from a more geographically diverse pool? After all, if teams do not need to be co-located in a single space to access a shared organisational purpose and vision, then the entire country could be seen as a recruitment ground – not just the major urban hubs.

“The success of remote working definitely brings a new meaning to nearshoring,” said one contributor. “After all, why would you set up an office in Bristol or Birmingham when actually people are quite happy to work on a dispersed basis from their own homes and can do so effectively? So yes, our current circumstances are bringing us a lot of new scope for thought on how we develop that further.”

Another described how her legal operations team was setting up training sessions across the global function to consider just such questions. “We’re saying: ‘Let’s acknowledge that the environment is changing, and we’ve got the opportunity to optimise operations and try different things.' And linked to that, we want to proactively design a new operating model for our own team – one that is quite likely to reduce our office footprint, for a start. Clearly, there are some cost savings to be made there if we’re not all going to be together in the office five days a week.”

Others, however, were more circumspect. “There’s an element of ‘wait and see,’” said one general counsel, adding that her team was waiting for things to settle down before making any decisions about how the office might be deployed in the future. “We’ll also be looking to see whether specialist talent would want to move out to the regions, as many have suggested they might be – in which case we’ll happily employ them there. Certainly, we’d be very interested to support people outside of London.”

Driving innovation and transformation agendas

As mentioned, many clients have told us how the pandemic has brought about a fast-track digitalisation of legal operations.

“During the crisis management phase, my team had a lot of emergency issues to deal with – everything from working out protocols for risk management to implementing tools for the electronic signing of documents,” one general counsel said. “But after those challenging first few weeks, it was great to see people embrace the technology they needed to operate and quickly settle into a productive work pattern.”

Some clients also told us that as their teams experimented with new ways of connecting and collaborating, including remote working technology, they were energised to think about further developing their digital capabilities, adopting solutions that could bring about more efficiencies and better serve business needs. However, where organisations are experiencing investment budget cuts or freezes, there has been less of a drive to buy and implement new technology.

“In such cases, we are seeing an increased appetite for teams to fully understand the problem at hand and work out if there are non-technical solutions that can be deployed in the medium term,” said Bassett. “We are also seeing legal functions looking within the firm to see what technology already exists and how they might better leverage it – making use of such things as workflow systems and electronic signing tools, for example.”

Embracing new opportunities

Central to all our discussions with clients has been the notion that the current period has brought about an increased acceptance of change. “Legal operations is based on changing the way that people do things, and the crisis has forced people to change their ways quickly and embrace change,” said one contributor.

As part of this shift, there has been an increased interest in legal operations from clients with less developed legal operations strategies, as their businesses start to come under significant economic pressure.

“Over the last few months, we have been talking to several clients about how to start a legal operations transformation programme – previously, they hadn’t thought they needed one,” said Bassett. “We’re also noticing that clients who already have some form of legal operations strategy have been keen to progress more aggressively with their programmes to see the results faster.”

Our contributors agreed that the current period has shown how even the traditionally more risk-averse legal culture can, when pushed, rapidly alter entrenched methods of operating, embracing alternatives to the status quo and an adaptive mindset. It is this sense of speed and openness to change that the legal operations community can now capitalise on.

One general counsel put it this way: “There are lots of possibilities. I’m a big believer that COVID and lockdown has really moved forward the agenda for a lot of us in legal operations teams around the country. We just need to keep building on that. After all, it’s unlikely that we’ll be going back to normal.”