A Digital Law Firm in the Making

Digitalization is not just a trend, it is a necessity in today’s hyperconnected world, and more so when global economies are battling a pandemic that saw a major shift of workforces to function virtually, away from close physical contact. 

The Covid-19 pandemic has unintentionally polished the eloquence of lawyers in the usage of various digital tools to boost efficiency and aid communication, from cloud storage to social media, and efficiency tools. This wave of upskilling is heartened by initiatives taken by the Malaysian judiciary to enhance the digitalization of legal practice, having evolved over time to cater to the increasingly digital world we live in. The chart below shows the Malaysian judiciary’s progress towards digitalization: 
 

Digitalization Journey in Thomas Philip

The legal industry is undefeated in its usage of paper. A recent U.S. based survey of law firms found that each lawyer generates up to 100,000 sheets a year. Assuming a 2,000-hour work year, that's 50 pages an hour. Almost a sheet a minute. Enough paper laid end-to-end to wrap around the U.S. Supreme Court Building 66 times.

In an industry where the generation of documents is core to its operations, to go completely paper-free within the very near future may be just a tinge capricious. However, to go paperless is already a positive movement that has been ongoing globally. This movement saw the Covid-19 pandemic as a launchpad for its acceleration. 

Almost a decade ago, Thomas Philip digitalized its accounting system, and 3 years later, its document management system with the objectives of gaining secure remote access to crucial information, and reducing physical storage space by going paperless where possible. When the Covid-19 pandemic brought about the first Movement Control Order (MCO) in March 2020, the firm ramped up its digitalization efforts with the aim of creating a viable virtual workspace that fits the firm’s organisational culture and workflow. The emergency digitization project was initiated through succinct division of work, whereby necessary tools such as printers, scanners, binding machines and laptops were delivered to the homes of respective personnel to minimize disruption to the existing work processes. A project management platform integrated with a secure virtual data room was adopted to help members of the firm organise, track and manage their files and tasks while working from home. Internal knowledge sharing was consistently done through virtual conferencing platforms, while social media platforms were optimized for external knowledge sharing efforts. A virtual library was also created to cater for remote working, specifically to support legal research and precedent management capabilities. 

An Ongoing Effort

The Covid-19 pandemic became the unintended catalyst that the legal industry needed toward tech adoption. The switch to work from home meant more meetings than ever and more processes getting stuck waiting for review, approval and other pipeline tasks. The new legal landscape can no longer tolerate inefficient workflows. 

As the legal practice fraternity scramble to digitalize, cybersecurity and data privacy threats rose at an alarming rate. Experts predict that in 2021, a cyber-attack incident will occur every 11 seconds (source: Cybersecurity Ventures) while nations continue to battle data leaks and privacy security breaches. 

Digitalization is never an alone effort. While active utilization of secure cloud storage with collaborative document editing and sharing functions have allowed Thomas Philip to synergize at work, the firm’s immense ability to swiftly adapt to the usage of various virtual platforms and systems to improve efficacy played a pivotal role in its digitalization journey.

For Thomas Philip, digitalization is an ongoing effort. The ultimate goal would be to have an integrated solution that allows the firm the freedom to function virtually anywhere on earth at optimum efficacy, and an organisational culture that promotes agility and innovation at the heart of its workforce.