Ride the Lightning

Stats from the 2021 Wolters Kluwer Future Ready Lawyer Survey

June 17, 2021

On June 15, the 2021 Wolters Kluwer Future Ready Lawyer Survey was released. The survey included interviews with 700 lawyers in law firms, legal departments and business services firms across the U.S. and nine European countries to examine how client expectations, technology and other factors are impacting the future of law and how legal organizations are prepared to address them. The survey was conducted online for Wolters Kluwer by a leading international research organization from March 4 to 18, 2021.

So, what are some the key findings?

After a very strange 2020 and 2021, lawyers expect the trends they’ve seen to accelerate. The top trends expected to have the most impact are:

Increasing Importance of Legal Technology – 77%

Coping with Increased Volume and Complexity of Information – 77%

Meeting Changing Client/Leadership Expectations – 76%

Ability to Acquire and Retain Talent – 76%

Emphasis on Improved Efficiency/Productivity – 75%.

Across all trends, there is a significant gap between trends and readiness to address them, which probably doesn’t surprise most RTL readers.

36% or fewer lawyers say their organization is very prepared to keep pace with these trends.

Faced with the need to improve productivity, corporate legal departments are more aggressively turning to technology solutions and they are pressuring law firms to follow their lead:

Within three years, 91% of legal departments will ask prospective firms about their technology use – a 10-point increase over 2020.

An increasing number of corporate legal departments expect that the law firms they work with will:

Use Technology to Deliver Best Service Possible – 78%

Use Technology to Drive Productivity/Efficiency – 76%.

The Future Ready Lawyer Survey also revealed significant gaps between legal departments’ expectations and law firms’ ability to deliver on them. The disconnect may be impacting client satisfaction: Only 30% of corporate legal departments are very satisfied with their law firms, and an increasing number plan to switch firms: 24% say they are very likely to switch firms compared to just 13% in 2020.

The pandemic intensified pressures on legal departments, as they simultaneously tackled bigger workloads and smaller budgets. Legal departments participating in the survey say their top challenges are:

Automating Routine Tasks and Leveraging Technology in Work Processes

Reducing/Controlling Outside Legal Costs

To help overcome these challenges, 57% of legal departments report they plan to increase their investment in technology over the next three years, while 84% say they will make greater use of technology to improve productivity in the future.

Faced with both cost-cutting and growing demands, legal departments report that they are making changes to how work gets done and who does it. The majority of legal departments are planning to make greater use of third-party or outsourced resources (77%); in-sourcing of legal work (76%); contract staff (75%); alternative legal service providers (73%); and non-legal staff (70%). Each of these areas showed increases over 2020 levels.

Clearly there are challenges. Only 28% of corporate lawyers believe their organization is very prepared to effectively implement change management processes, and only 27% say they are very prepared to implement transformational technology.

Law firms also report accelerated changes. They are responding to greater client expectations, and investing and innovating at higher levels to drive efficiency and deliver value.

The areas where most law firms anticipate change in how they deliver services over the next three years include:

82% expect greater specialization of legal services

81% expect greater use of technology to improve productivity

78% expect increased emphasis on innovation

78% expect greater collaboration and transparency between firms and clients.

Overall, 63% of law firms say they will increase their technology investment, and as firms focus on clients’ changing expectations 74% report they are investing in new technology to support firm operations and client work. They need to step up progress as today only 32% are very prepared to use technology to be more productive and just 28% are very prepared to use technology to improve client services.

Law firms are also looking at new ways of working. Compared to 2020, more law firms now anticipate greater use of non-legal staff (69%); more self-service by clients (68%); greater use of third-party or outsourced resources (68%); and greater use of contract staff (65%).

Most of this seemed consistent with what I had previously read in other surveys – but I was struck by the fact that only 30% of corporate legal departments are very satisfied with their law firms, and 24% say they are very likely to switch firms compared to just 13% in 2020. That’s quite a jump. I hope the law firms are taking note of those stats and making changes.

Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., President, Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
3975 University Drive, Suite 225|Fairfax, VA 22030
Email:  Phone: 703-359-0700
Digital Forensics/Cybersecurity/Information Technology
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