How a Law Firm Can Adapt to the COVID-19 Pandemic

The members of a law firm should provide the utmost support to clients, team members, and visitors who continue to believe in their services.

Staying connected and remaining communicative are the best ways to overcome the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. The following are ways that law firms can find solutions to every problem they face.

1. Reassure the Public That You Are Open for Business

The first step is to prove to the public that your business has not closed permanently. Many post-COVID businesses have gone above and beyond their duties to keep their customers.

Alan Ahdoot, a San Jose Motorcycle Accident Lawyer says that “you have to “over-communicate” through text messages, phone calls or emails, to clients that you are still open.”

2. Show Concern for Clients

Today’s clients are concerned about the safety of stepping into a law office. They may not want to travel a lot or attend meetings with other lawyers and clients.

Lawyers must listen to all of their clients’ concerns and not dismiss them as being irrelevant or unnecessary. As always, attorneys should be focusing on giving every client the individual attention and accommodation that they need.

Remember that as a lawyer, you are there to provide legal advice and counseling for people who are dealing with serious financial and/or emotional problems and the pandemic may be adding to all of that stress.

3. Provide Online Services

All clients who step into a law office are at risk of contracting COVID-19 regardless of the mask and social distancing policies. Moving the business online is the most effective way to keep them protected.

To practice social distancing, lawyers still have to show up for work and occasionally talk to their clients and coworkers face to face. However, they focus more on picking up a phone and communicating through emails or video chats.

They can send all types of documents, from affidavits to briefings, through online sources; however, some meetings, such as videotaped depositions, may require face-to-face contact.

4. Provide Hybrid Services

It is not necessary to host all forms of communication online. There are special events that a law firm should host in person.

In a time of social distancing, everyone will benefit from having some kind of close, personal interaction. When hiring new employees, the law firm can host training seminars that are done onsite. Once training is completed, the new hires start working mainly online.

5. Reinforce Deadlines

With so many professionals having to break with their daily routines, there are increased risks of missing important meetings and not meeting filing deadlines.

Lawyers should follow team calendars that contain a list of the most important mandatory events and those events in which attendance is optional.

6. Stay Connected

The most important task is to remain connected with other professionals in the law firm.

During times of stress and uncertainty, it is difficult to remain positive and upbeat when bills are mounting and clients are leaving. Communicating regularly with coworkers, employees, and partners is encouraged to remain optimistic about the future.

In the middle of a pandemic, few law firms are going to be allowed to continue with business as usual.

There are new strategies that every successful firm must undertake to maintain a good clientele and continue winning cases. Promoting the company’s survival and wellbeing should be the number-one priority of every business in a crisis.

7. Learn to schedule Meetings in Client’s Homes 

Most law firms recommend clients to book appointments in their offices to have a one-on-one discussion. During this pandemic, such a practice should not be made a routine because it increases the risk of the client and the service provider contracting Covid-19 infection. 

As a law firm, you can start to tell clients to call and give their directions to their homes so that you meet for the discussions. By doing this, you reduce the risk of transmission not just in your office but also on your clients. 

8. Introduce E-Payments Methods 

Handling of bank cheque or bank slips is a risk form payment. During this pandemic, law firms must completely transform into e-payments forms so that they reduce the risk of transmission of the disease. 

It is also easy as clients will not have the burden to queue in a line trying to deposit money in the bank. As a law firm, it will show that you care about the safety of clients and your staff. If clients are used to this kind of payment, even the risk of transmission inside your office and workplace will go down.

9. Minimize Movements at Workplace 

During this pandemic, movements are highly not recommendable because they increase the risk of people contracting and spreading the covid-19 virus. As a result, law firms need to find a way to ensure every worker does little to no movements within the office area. 

You can have meals served in the offices instead of making the workers go out and have lunch. As for the visitors, make sure you have someone who will show the visitors where to go so that you avoid the wandering of people around your workplace. This way, services will be smooth and the risk of transmission will be down. 

10. Wear a Mask and Sanitize

There are clients who will still be coming to the law firm physically to be served. Make some writing on the wall that without a mask, no one would be served. That way, it would be easy for you to stop the spread of the coronavirus. 

Place water for handwashing outside the office and if possible a sanitizer so that people can disinfect their hands before they enter your offices. By doing that, you would be safeguarding your staff and your clients as well. It’s the new normal so as a law firm you need to adapt to these regulations.

11. Allow People to Work from Home 

Some cases cannot be handled online so workers will have to report at the office. That one is purely understandable.

There are some tasks that can be handled at home so workers can remain at home and work from there. That way, it helps to reduce the spread of the coronavirus. 

Some old workers are supposed to be allowed to work from home because in the event they contract the virus, it would not be easy for them to recover. As a result, law firms must adapt to work without these old employees coming to the office physically.

12. Don’t Stop Strategizing 

It is a new era with a lot of challenges but businesses should always keep going forward. Find a way that you can increase your clientele by reconnecting and communicating with friends. Reach out to them, listen to them and find a way that you can be of help to them. 

Even your former clients, you never know they could require your services. You can take this time to hone your business to another level since other businesses think it is an abnormal time where everything has come to a standstill. 

Conclusion: How Law Firms Can Adapt to the Covid-19 Pandemic

Covid-19 pandemic hit the world so hard but there has to be a way to run things.

The public needs law firms on a daily basis, so if they don’t operate, some individuals may end up suffering due to injustices. It is therefore the mandate of every law firm to come up with ways that will help in ensuring services are offered as normal.