Ops Expectations For the Legal Industry Moving Forward Jonah Paransky, executive vice president and general manager of Wolters Kluwer’s ELM Solutions, reflects on the effects COVID-19 will have on the legal industry moving forward, as it relates to diversity, alternative legal service providers, and what he’s both concerned and excited for looking ahead.
CCBJ: At a high level, what effects do you expect COVID-19 to have on the legal industry in the near term and moving forward? Jonah Paransky: I expect to see acceleration of all the trends we were already seeing before the pandemic. In particular, on the professionalization of the legal department, I think there will be an increased focus on cost optimization. All the major trends related to spend control will continue, and many will become more important under the pressure of our current and near-term environment.
Those leveraging technology in these efforts, and who have a comfort with using technology, will clearly be in a good position coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. The willingness for corporate law departments to adopt technology certainly has increased in this environment. Before early 2020, if you had told corporate legal departments that they could relocate all of their employees to work from home using technology, they would have full on laughed at you. Now that organizations have proven they can drive acceptance of technology and don’t need to be technology laggards, I think the biggest question that will come out of this time is whether that can accelerate. On the law firm side, there may be a remix of roles within the firm. They have always relied upon significant staffing support for practicing attorneys. Suddenly, they're working remotely and attorneys are managing to do more of the work themselves, so we may see a shift in investment CORPORATE COUNSEL BUSINESS JOURNAL
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