November Edition 2020

33 One of the major impacts that a decrease in office-based activity will bring is how a team of individuals working on a matter (or matters) can be coordinated in their delivery of work. If everyone can work in a more flexible way, not sticking to ‘normal’ office hours, the focus needs to move away from the work day to task based measurements. It no longer matters if you work eight hours at a stretch provided you complete the tasks you are assigned in the time allotted. Given the somewhat chaotic ways of working that characterised some legal teams, this implies the assistance of technology to assist those in charge of the engagement. Similarly, tools and techniques to allow effective, secure and accurate collaboration will be key. In the same way as remote rather than face to face meetings affect the way in which relationships are formed, the same type of issue can be seen in remote collaboration. When a whole team is in a room, focused on a particular task and with the advantage of non-verbal cues, it can be easier to work as a cohesive unit to solve a particular problem. Being remote from a collaborative environment can engender feelings of remoteness from the responsibility of contributing. There is clearly going to need to be some changes to the way in which work is scheduled, controlled and monitored in order that the professional in charge of the engagement can feel in full control of work progress. It’s not just them, however, that needs to be fully aware of the current status of a matter. It’s clear that, where there is transparency between the firm and the client, the client is much more likely to be in a position to trust that firm. In order for transparency to be demonstrated the client needs to be proactively kept up to date with the progress of the matter. In order to achieve this, better solutions need to be in place to allow automated feed of progress, where appropriate, to be delivered to the client via an appropriate mechanism. This could be an app, a dashboard or via alert. Which of these mechanisms is most appropriate may well depend on the transaction type and the preferences of the client.