Change isn’t coming to the legal sector – it’s here now and it’s agile

Nick Hayne, head of professional services at Quiss, discusses the rapid change SME law firms have had to undertake and the impact it has had, and continues to have, on IT and support teams.

The reasons for change in the working practices of most organisations need no further justification, and the impact of recent events will be felt long after the virus is finally defeated.

Most knowledge-based businesses, law firms included, had an immediate need when the restrictions hit, to ensure their people could be just as effective and productive when working from home as they were in the office.

It required a great effort on the behalf of internal and external IT teams to ensure disruption was minimised and the switch to agile working, a strategic goal for many firms anyway, was accelerated to deliver a satisfactory user experience.

As people settled into the new regime, productivity remained high and people appreciated this way of working – the new normal. Among senior managers, it raised questions about the expensive real estate lying empty and whether it would ever be needed again.

What’s an office for?

It has to be more than just a building full of equipment. Despite the problems of getting there for a lot of people, many of whom now wonder how they ever had time for a commute, the office was as much about the experience they had there as it was the work.

But while managers question the need for an office, they have to realise instead of just the one to protect, they now have potentially tens or hundreds of ‘office’ locations, all of which pose a potential risk as the security perimeter is pushed outwards – and weakened.

The focus of IT teams was to create an agile business, get people working as safely as possible and worry about the security of home offices later. Now the question of home routers, wireless printers, unauthorised apps, endpoint security and shadow IT is demanding answers.

With IT teams under pressure to improve agility and security to resolve the workarounds needed for lockdown, what happens when problems arise, when passwords fail, when apps don’t work and productivity stalls with no technical help to hand?

One location makes it easy for colleagues to help each other, but if technical support is not readily available, it can be tempting to seek help online, which brings its own risks, and to say nothing of the disruption to productivity while awaiting a fix over the phone.

Outsourced IT support will solve these issues and ensure firms deliver an improved user experience for people already suffering at home and feeling isolated. Bringing in the support before it’s all fully occupied might be a smart move for those looking to remain agile – which is all of you.