Author:
Francisco Lezama
Master in Business Law

June 20, 2022

Regardless of the size of your Law Firm, you should always keep in mind that your responsibility as a legal advisor lies in two points. First, to provide your clients with the best legal advice and second, to carry out the due process to meet the client's objectives. That said, there are other services typical of legal activity that, although they are necessary and essential for the fulfillment of the objectives, these have a relative simplicity, being mostly non-billable activities. According to current trends, it has been calculated that approximately 69% of common legal work activities are non-billable, this increase is largely due to the increase in virtual work due to the pandemic.

The low utilization rates, related to the non-billable services we see across the sector appear to be the primary difficulty that law firms face year after year. On a per-lawyer basis, utilization is a measure of how much of an 8-hour workday is committed to billable work at a legal firm. In 2020, the average lawyer billed only 2.5 hours (31%) of an 8-hour day, indicating that many lawyers either don't have enough clients to fill their days or are hampered by inefficiencies in their companies that divert them from billable work.

So, what can be done to improve the utilization rates, and also lower the amount of non-legally specific work that as a lawyer you have to do The first thing you might think is to contract more lawyers, or legal assistants or even more interns, but this idea would be against the concept of profits, more lawyers imply more costs for only carrying out non-billable services. Since the average layer spends approximately 2.5 Hours on Billable Law specific hours of work per day, the rest can be handled by a Paralegal Team, a team who, when supervised by a licensed lawyer, can take on substantive legal tasks. Therefore saving the law firm and your clients, time and money.

Paralegals can do most of the same legal duties as lawyers, with the exception of those that are prohibited by law, as long as they are overseen by the attorney. Trained paralegals may handle a variety of non-billable responsibilities, including performing legal research and engaging with clients, as well as composing memoranda and letters. Their knowledge and assistance can aid to increase the efficiency of law firms. Firms can pass on cost savings to clients or reinvest in the business as a result of increased efficiency.

Paralegals are as diverse as attorneys, with a wide range of degrees and specializations. There are broad standards for what they may and cannot do, just as there are for attorneys.

On this hand we also present the opportunity to Outsourse the Paralegal team, with the Legal Process Outsoursing or LPO, Professionals and businesses now have access to a wide range of services as a result of globalization and internet expansion. For many organizations and legal departments the LPO option, has grown more widespread. Simply put, legal process outsourcing refers to the transfer of legal duties traditionally undertaken inhouse to external service providers abroad.

Legal outsourcing might help you save a lot of money on your legal bills. Labor and technology costs account for a significant portion of operating costs. When you engage a legal service provider, you won't have to pay for fixed costs like a full-time employee's salary and benefits, and you won't have to invest a lot of money on new technology. You just pay for the services you require and only for the time you require them with legal outsourcing. Because you have greater capacity to spend in things that can make your core capabilities more effective and efficient, these savings may help you develop as a company.

With an LPO you can expect a lot more significant level of productivity. This is especially useful for urgent legal assignments. Outsourcing legal work implies you have extra help, which essentially decreases the time expected to deal with cases, allowing you to finish projects faster. Quicker process implies your responsibility will also be easier to handle.

Legal process outsourcing firms provide you with high-level personnel and lawyers with a variety of specific knowledge who can meet your specific demands. This is because legal service providers were created with the express goal of resolving the issues you've brought to them. They have years of expertise and research, and they give specialized training to their employees to ensure that the quality of their services remains consistent.

The most successful legal firms understand time is money. Look no further than legal process outsourcing if you're seeking for strategies to make your law practice more profitable.