Small Law Firms

Smaller Firms Have More Advantages Than Ever Before

Advances in technology have lowered barriers of entry at smaller shops.

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In the past, practicing law was an often onerous profession that required extensive time and resources to accomplish the most basic tasks. Since legal research and writing often involved so much work, bigger law firms had numerous advantages since they could marshal the resources needed to handle a given project. However, with technological advances in the past decade or two, law firms do not need to possess as many resources to complete work, and the cost of legal tasks has plummeted. As a result of all of these changes, smaller firms have more advantages than ever before.

Legal Research Costs

I do not consider myself an old timer in the legal profession by any stretch of the imagination, but I can remember when legal research was an extremely expensive proposition for law firms and their clients. The top legal research companies used to charge users either by the minute or by the transaction for using legal research platforms, and the cost to conduct even the most basic legal research was extremely high. For instance, I remember conducting one search of federal cases at the beginning of my career and looking at several cases over the course of about 10 minutes, and I was shocked that I had billed around a hundred dollars in legal research costs! It was extremely hard for smaller firms and their clients to front such costs, and this gave larger firms significant advantages. I am convinced that larger law firms used to cite to unpublished opinions that were not accessible in cheaper databases just to burden lawyers at small firms!

However, the legal research landscape has changed dramatically over the past decade or so. Now, lawyers at small firms can obtain monthly memberships to legal research platforms for a tiny fraction of the cost lawyers used to bill toward legal research at larger firms in the past. This means that smaller firms can access some of the best legal research tools that only used to be available at larger firms because of the cost, and this is a substantial resource for smaller firms.

E-filing

Numerous courts have adopted e-filing platforms in recent years, and this has made it much easier for smaller law firms to handle cases. Back in the olden days (which I am old enough to remember), secretaries, paralegals, and lawyers needed to spend untold time and resources printing motion papers, binding them, organizing them, and preparing them for filing. Then the papers were given to a service that would dispatch them to the court and provide a receipt that the papers had been filed. The papers also needed to be mailed to each party to the case, and depending on the matter, there could be numerous parties that needed to be included in the mailing. It was very difficult to act on short notice because of this extensive process, and lawyers at small firms would have more trouble completing the administrative work needed to file and serve motion papers and other documents.

E-filing has democratized the system by simply requiring that parties upload documents to the e-filing system, and in many instances, mailing is no longer necessary. This was especially helpful during the pandemic when many lawyers were working from home, since it would have impossible to assemble at an office the team needed to print, organize, and mail motion papers and other documents. Now smaller firms can operate leaner since they do not need to have the staff necessary to handle the multitude of administrative tasks needed to file and serve papers.

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Practice-Management Resources

In the past, law firms needed to spend substantial amounts of resources and time completing administrative tasks. For instance, billing was often an onerous chore that included preparing invoices, mailing invoices, and recording payment. Moreover, law firms often needed to have receptionists in order to handle calls and direct them to the right person at a firm. In addition, many of the firms I worked at earlier in my career had numerous file clerks and similar professionals in order to track and handle all of the documents received and stored at a firm. Earlier in my career, some old timers still kept their billing records by hand, and administrative professionals needed to properly record time entries on computer applications.

In the present, all of these administrative tasks can be handled by affordable and seamless technology. Billing tasks can be performed by numerous practice management systems that may be connected to other practice-management operations at a firm. In addition, virtual receptionist can ensure that someone picks up the phone when a contact calls a shop and that the call ends up with the right person. In addition, timekeeping software is more sophisticated than ever and can almost automatically generate entries whenever a lawyer completes a task.

All told, advances in technology have affected all types of industries and have lowered barriers of entry at smaller shops. Lawyers are more capable than ever at embracing advancements in legal technology to manage a lean but fully capable small-firm practice.

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Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

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