Over the past few years, we’ve seen a dramatic shift from office-based working to hybrid-based models, designed to get the most out of current technologies and futureproof businesses. However, despite the covid pandemic introducing a shift to remote working, the majority of firms have now returned to the office – often with varying outlooks and appetite to hybrid-working.
According to research on the state of the UK’s legal market in 2022, by legal publisher Thomson Reuters, less than 1in 10 lawyers wish to return to working in the office full-time. The report revealed that 63% of lawyers are asking for flexible arrangements, up from 22% prior to the pandemic. On average, lawyers would want to spend 2.1 days a week working remotely. This hybrid working model allows them to perform at their best, so long as the technology is there to facilitate remote working.
With that in mind, it’s clear to see that having an internal IT team, particularly with skilled resources ‘on the ground’, lends itself well to ensuring that staff remain productive and billable hours are maximised.
However, the optimal output from your IT team can depend on a varying number of factors; most of which will need to be addressed by looking outwards for the best results. Let’s break this down in terms of the challenges the team will likely be facing in the wake of the hybrid working preference many businesses are adopting now.
The challenge facing internal IT teams in the legal sector
Although there will be varying skills, knowledge, and levels of experience within your IT team, one thing is true for all legal sector IT teams – the roles, responsibilities, and expectations of the internal team will have increased over time.
This can leave the team stretched to their limits and unsure of where to go next in order to meet those expectations.
At a high-level, an effective and successful law practice will need to allocate attention and focus across the following areas:
- Identifying ways to create business value and competitive advantage such as leveraging data, optimising processes, and modernising client engagement channels
- Developing and delivering a technology strategy that is well aligned to the firm’s objectives and goals
- Maintaining a comprehensive and sustainable Cybersecurity posture that ensures the safety of client data and compliance with SRA and GDPR regulations
- Managing and supporting key systems and software applications
- Delivering support to end-users, some of whom may now operate outside of ‘traditional’ office hours
- Delivering projects and upgrades, as well as supporting staff through the adoption of those new tools and platforms
- Procurement and set up of new equipment to support new starters or refresh existing tech that is no longer fit for purpose
With these in mind, it might be starting to become clear that there is potentially too much for your IT team to manage in house; missing knowledge and technologies are hindering you from effectively moving to a more modern working environment.
This is where a co-managed IT partnership can benefit you greatly.
Read our blog on building a strong business case for technology investment in your Law Practice
Competitive advantage is the key to success in today’s business world. To maintain this competitive advantage, law firms must adopt new technologies to remain competitive. By deploying IT systems that keep up with their clients’ needs, law firms can build a solid foundation for their practice growth and profitability. Read more in the blog.
What are the benefits of a co-managed partnership?
A collaborative co-managed partnership will ensure that you get the most from your internal resources, whilst accessing a wider and deeper network of expertise to help you keep up with the pace of change.
By choosing to have a co-managed IT partner, you’ll see a number of benefits, including:
- Maintaining a competitive advantage and keeping up with the pace of change in the technology industry
- Flexible services with the ability to scale your resources up and down as needed
- A reduction in overheads and requirement for permanent resources
- Greater value from your existing technology platform, and insights into relevant innovations
Choosing TSG as your co-managed IT partner
We act as an extension of your team, whilst allowing your team to retain full control over all operational aspects of the business. You can pick and choose the processes you wish to have streamlined with our help, and we’ll ensure we understand your business, internal resources, the existing skillset of your team and how best this can be utilised to achieve your ideal outcomes. Our goal is to work with you to design a service model that compliments your existing strengths and helps to fill in any gaps, or opportunities that present themselves.
We operate as IT partners; we look at your business, understand what you want to achieve and go the extra mile to ensure that you have everything you need to achieve that – whether that’s the knowledge of our accredited specialists, or technologies we can help you to adopt and train in.
Better yet, TSG has a proven track record in supporting Legal firms across the UK, taking a blended approach to IT delivery alongside internal teams.
