Work-From-Home Lawyer? 5 Things You Need to Outpace Your Competition
Adapting your law practice to a work-from-home model takes planning and hard work. Here are our top 5 suggestions to help your law firm operate remotely and still achieve success.

One of the biggest issues facing lawyers today is the accrual of billable hours. During the early days of 2020, lawyers were forced to work remotely and reconfigure their entire practice. This led to a decline in billable hours across the board, with legal practitioners struggling to make ends meet. One study suggests that most law firms were only able to net an average of 2.5 billable hours each day. Virtual legal assistants are increasingly employed to resolve these issues.

At some point, small and solo law firms will have to deal with hiring or managing a team outside of themselves. While managing staff as a solo attorney presents a unique set of challenges, it is ultimately a sign of success: your business has grown and is thriving. However, time is of the essence: it takes work to build out your team, and you may be banking on time you can’t afford to spend on recruitment, training, and management.

The most productive law firm is one in which lawyers are spending the maximum amount of time practicing law, and minimizing the amount of time performing ancillary tasks that, while important, do not result in billable time. Regardless of a lawyer’s expertise or successes in the courtroom, the main financial commitment of a lawyer depends on spending time with casework.