13 minute read
Remote working
COVID-19 is bringing a host of different challenges to
junior law professionals, both in terms of their work and their mental well-being. Particularly as a trainee or newly qualified solicitor, working at home feels alien. A lot of junior lawyers live in a shared flats, which can add further pressure to the working day, particularly if you have 4 people sharing the already weak Wi-Fi.
A common issue amongst fellow junior lawyers is that they are expected to learn from colleagues, particularly senior colleagues, at work. We absorb knowledge, experience and skills from working with these colleagues in an office environment.
Most firms arrange for trainees and junior lawyers to sit with or in proximity to more senior people and there is a good reason for that: there needs to be direct interaction between individuals for the training process to work at its best. That is not to say that remote working makes such interaction not possible, but it certainly makes it more difficult.
Picture a trainee solicitor, new to a department, who is asked to work from home after only one week in his or her department or team. They might be glad to have interesting work to do, and might have regular communication with several lawyers with whom they are working. They are, however, already at a big disadvantage from not knowing the individuals within the team, not having had an opportunity to chat to them in the kitchen, or to be asked to attend meetings with the people they are working with (perhaps at the last minute). There are many examples which make it clear that this is very far from an ideal scenario.
There is a big difference between the trainee and/or the newly qualified solicitor, and the junior lawyer who has been with the team for a little while. The latter already has the rapport with his or her peers. The former is at a significant disadvantage in that they are trying to make a good impression from a distance, despite the virtual meetings.
So, what can we do about it? It is the responsibility of everyone in the team to ensure that the junior lawyers feel properly integrated, including the other fellow junior lawyers in the team. Anecdotally, the sort of things that can really help to keep junior lawyers integrated are the following: regular team meetings within a department, talks or training/ team-building sessions and offers for or from junior people to provide, for example, updates on legal issues, perhaps with regard to remote hearings or the law surrounding pandemics or unexpected events. This is a great way for junior people to use their skills to help to support their department, if they have the capacity to do so. Junior lawyers also shouldn’t be afraid to keep up regular contact with those supervising them, which is fortunately easy over the telephone and also over video, via Zoom or Skype.
Another common issue amongst fellow junior lawyers is that it they miss their friendships and the camaraderie of the office and feel isolated working from home. There are plenty of ways to keep connected with others in your team. Great ideas are organising quiz nights for the team, perhaps on Friday evening, as well as having regular team meetings. Even meeting up for a coffee break with a colleague over Zoom can help to make you feel more connected to your work-place.
It can also be more difficult to wind down after working at home. When working in a high pressure job, it is natural to want to unwind by, for example, going to meet friends, which we are currently unable to do. Developing a routine, eating healthily and taking regular exercise can really help with this. Although it is easy to carry on working past the time you normally would if you were at work when working from home, doing this can affect your sleep pattern and your energy and attention span the following day.
If you are feeling nervous about COVID-19, you are not alone. There are people and organisations available to talk to. If you feel as though you need some emotional support, you can contact charities such as Mind, Samaritans or SBA, Solicitors’ Charity (please see their advert in this edition). For further information on how the Junior Lawyers’ Division are supporting junior solicitors during the COVID-19 outbreak, please see our website. ■
Olivia Longrigg Solicitor Dawson Cornwell
Is this a permanent change to working life?
Asks Trevor Cook, MD of Go Internet, www.gointernet.co.uk.
There is no question that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way that many firms across the country are conducting their business. Employees who would ordinarily begin their working days in an office have begun to complete their work from home. Will COVID-19 serve as the catalyst for change within businesses with home working becoming the norm?
Cloud computing has become more popular in recent years with many businesses offloading on-premise servers in favour cloud solutions like Office 365 or Googles G-Suite. Perhaps it’s also time to consider your office phone system. Traditionally, old fashioned IDSN phone systems have consisted of on-site PBX (wall mounted private exchange) offering little in the way of flexibility and mobility. It is also worth nothing that by 2025 BT are phasing out ISDN, the technology used to deliver multi-line telephony over an copper line – so the market it slowly shifting towards hosted VoIP Phone systems, so don’t leave it until the last minute to investigate alternative solutions.
So what is VoIP and how can hosted VoIP help my business?
Hosted VoIP is a service where a virtual phone system is hosted on servers based in the service providers data-centres, meaning that your business can have a fully functioning phone system without needing to purchase or pay to maintain an on-site PBX. Hosted VoIP includes all of the features that you would expect from a modern telephone system. Those benefits include Interactive Voice Response (IVR) / Auto Attendant, Ring Groups, Music on Hold, Conference Calling, Voicemail to name a few.
Calls are delivered to the business over an internet connection. There are a variety of ways to connect to a hosted VoIP service, of course the most popular form is an IP desk phone – however there are alternatives. If your team work out of the office regularly, then a connected mobile app is perfect and can be used either exclusively or it can mirror your desk phone. Therefore, calls to an extension within the business can be picked up at the desk or on the move. Outbound calls from the mobile app also present your customers with your office number keeping your business calls on brand.
Hosted VoIP is perfect for businesses working out of multiple offices at different locations or where staff work from home. By putting your telephone system into the cloud, all of the phones within the business become a part of a single phone system. Calls can be answered in London and transferred to Southampton with the press of a few buttons.
So what does this mean for my internet connection?
By moving your phone system to the cloud, it does increase the reliance on your business internet connection so choosing the right kind of internet connection is important. Choosing a broadband product with the correct SLA (Service Level Agreement) for your business is essential. A perfect entry level internet product for most businesses considering a shift to Hosted VoIP is EoFTTC. Ethernet over FTTC is very similar to ordinary fibre broadband except it is assured for voice, and has a guaranteed fix time of 7 hours 24/7/365. What does this mean for your business? Because it is assured for VoIP the definition of a fault on this product is different. If there is excessive jitter or packet loss on the connection affecting the VoIP service we can have this looked into, whereas on an ordinary broadband connection this would not be possible.
Getting the end to end solution is the most important thing. By providing the internet connectivity, a managed and monitored router and the hosted VoIP service, the journey for the user is all complete. Find out how this can transform your business working. ■
www.gointernet.co.uk
Remote Working Is Easier With VoIP
Lower costs Complete portability Clearer voice quality Supports multitasking Higher scalability & flexibility
For more information visit:
Taking software integration from zero to hero
When it comes to software, attempting to be ‘all things to everyone’ is a naïve goal necessitating a never-ending journey. You’re going to have a number of software applications, from business intelligence and case management to document management and legal accounting, plus everything in between.
Central to any law firm is, of course, your clients and matters:
■ It’s your clients you need to undertake checks for money laundering ■ It’s your clients for whom you need to complete statutory forms and e-submissions ■ It’s your clients for whom you need to present evidence for court ■ It’s your clients with whom and about whom you need to correspond ■ It’s your clients you need to service as best you can
At Quill, we focus software development on integration relating to managing clients and matters. With our complete practice management software, pick ‘n’ mix solutions and third-party integrators, you get the right systems for optimum client and matter management. Whether you select Quill-only or Quill-and-other-suppliers, it’s best-of-breed IT with full and seamless integration.
Compared to running standalone systems with data stored disparately, integration streamlines processes, enhances efficiencies, simplifies administration, reduces costs, provides analytical insights, strengthens security, improves collaboration and more. These benefits add up to superior customer service provision. Happy clients who bring repeat instructions and recommend your legal services to others are good for business.
Let’s take a moment to think how you do your daily work. Your desktop is central, right? The majority of us begin, return to and end the working day on our desktop. It’s the central area behind the windows in our graphical user interface where we host shortcuts to our most-used systems and documents.
That’s why we’ve made integration with the desktop environment the focus of recent software development efforts. Integration between your desktop and our Interactive application keeps getting cleverer.
You can easily hop between a client’s matter in Interactive and Word or Outlook, and vice versa. With our new qSync application, you can send any documentation from your desktop to Interactive’s Document Hub with a right click allowing you to save the correct documents against the correct matter ready for reviewing or bundling (more on this later!) on another day.
Essentially, qSync empowers local working and global sharing. To all intents and purposes, you work locally on your desktop. In actuality, your desktop’s connected to the cloud so you work collaboratively as a team.
32 HAMPSHIRE LEGAL We also cater for the trend of spending each day working in Microsoft Word and Outlook with our MS Office add-ins. Add-ins create deep integration between your Microsoft systems and Interactive database and matter files, affording productivity enhancing features such as auto-detected-and-stored caserelated emails, auto-saved documentation and appointment calendaring. A comprehensive library of all Word-and-Outlookgenerated correspondence is then readily accessible from your Document Hub.
On the subject of correspondence, Interactive Forms is our latest integration addition. Comprising an extensive catalogue of legal forms, you sign in singly to Interactive, edit popular and template forms from the customisable control panel, enter data once which is populated from your database to merge fields, and assign part or fully completed forms to the relevant matter in your Document Hub.
There’s a whole lot more to Interactive Forms than this, not least e-submissions to government agencies, document bundling for court packs, and sharing of forms with clients, peers and counsel.
Even better, choose outsourced typing for dictation via our Type App with typed-up forms saved straight back into your Document Hub. The bonus being that our pay-as-you-go outsourcing model can lead to 40% overheads reduction compared to in-house costs and you’ve got more time for servicing clients.
Taking into account the growing demand for remote working, due to court attendance and other off-site commitments, Interactive has its own smartphone app. This is another example of smooth integration in play. With an internet connection and using the same secure log-in, you can perform all manner of tasks to progress matters on the go. Functionality has pretty much the same capabilities as the standard version of Interactive.
At the outset of this client-centric activity is the requirement to execute due diligence with anti-money laundering and credit checks. Doing so ensures your customers’ identities are legitimate and they have sufficient funds. Our integrated AML tool gives protection against financial crime by enabling AML or AML-plus-credit checks during client set-up, with instant pass or fail status, and lifetime storage of results.
So far, we’ve covered only Quill products on their own and demonstrated how Interactive is more than just a legal accounts system. There’s Quill-and-other-suppliers as well. Our API with third-party vendors facilitates auto-transfer of data between the two systems. Whatever’s entered into the third-party system is auto-populated to ours. They operate as one.
We have integrations in place with various case management, legal forms, document bundling, compliance management and workflow automation software suppliers. And we’re dedicated to continued third-party integrations.
We offer these integration options on a pick ‘n’ mix basis. You’re in control. We sort out the integration accordingly. Every bespoke package is surprisingly affordable and comes with awardwinning support. ■
Millennials comprise around half of today’s workforce and are set to takeover 75 percent of the global workforce by 2025. A generation often mislabelled as entitled are simply different than the generations past. In order to retain millennial talent in an unpredictable economic climate, businesses need to focus on what employees expect from their careers. What I can tell you is, it isn’t all about ping pong tables, bean bags and free drinks on a Friday.
Arecent study from Gallup suggests a staggering 87 percent of employees worldwide are disengaged in the workplace. That translates into an ineffective workforce with reduced productivity, increased sick leave and general negativity. However, there is good news! It isn’t too late to ensure we’re set up for the future.
First, we must recognise what expectations millennials have of their careers. For many, it is purpose, fulfilment and the appropriate tools to complete that work. As digital natives they have grown with technologisation of the modern world. Born in the 80’s and 90’s, they watched televisions and radios switch from analogue to digital, cassettes transform into CD’s and then streaming services, and personal computers became a part of everyday life. Taking this rapid uptake of tech in their stride, they understand the value of the right tools at home and in the workplace.
While addressing purpose and fulfilment will come from a cultural shift and a shared understanding of the ‘why’, technology still seems to be a sticking point. 67% of millennials said it was the biggest source of intergenerational conflict in the workplace, according to research from Robert Walters. When staff, regardless of age, are bogged down by arduous administrative processes, they can struggle to find purpose in their work. Especially those who have studied to specialise in law, who are spending their days saving, uploading, printing and posting documents. They demand automated processes using the right technology to free up time to practise their chosen career more efficiently and rewardingly.
The reality is, implementing this sort of valuable technology into your business model not only aids staff retention and satisfaction, but also provides rewarding customer experiences – more home movers than ever are millennials and expect the tech to match – as well as increased profitability and productivity. Embracing the evolution of workplace technology will not only keep you in stride with your employees, but also your customers. ■
Adam Bullion General Manager of Marketing InfoTrack
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