{"id":972,"date":"2017-10-17T14:44:14","date_gmt":"2017-10-17T18:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/?p=480856"},"modified":"2017-10-17T14:44:14","modified_gmt":"2017-10-17T18:44:14","slug":"thomson-reuters-helping-overburdened-government-lawyers-do-more-with-less","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/legal-innovation-center\/2017\/10\/17\/thomson-reuters-helping-overburdened-government-lawyers-do-more-with-less\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomson Reuters: Helping Overburdened Government Lawyers Do More With Less"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Government employees have long embraced the task of helping to create safer communities with very little fanfare or praise. While it\u2019s never been easy, these days, government lawyers are facing even more of an uphill battle. Today, our government legal workforce is being asked to tackle larger and more complex workloads with tighter budgets and fewer resources. Add to that the widespread retirement of baby boom-era civil servants who are taking with them a wealth of institutional knowledge, and you have the perfect storm of a work environment that presents government lawyers with complex challenges to be conquered every day.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, Thomson Reuters offers a wide range of technology solutions <\/a>that are aimed at easing the burdens faced by the busy government lawyer. Legal software designed specifically with the needs of government attorneys, courts, libraries, and investigators in mind helps civil servants to do their jobs more efficiently and effectively, by taking into account the biggest challenges these dedicated workers face.<\/p>\n

Tackling the Real Challenges<\/h2>\n

There\u2019s no question that things need to change. Thomson Reuters recently took a look at the landscape of government legal work to uncover the biggest challenges that are making the status quo unsustainable. Some eye-opening statistics<\/a> emerged. Flat or decreasing budgets were reported by 80% of government attorneys, even though 79% of the workforce anticipated that their workloads would be increasing over the next few years. The average government lawyer reported working on 32 unique legal matters each week, with 6 hours of the week spent on getting up to speed on new and unfamiliar areas of law.<\/p>\n

While these figures might come as no surprise to our overworked civil servants, they clearly highlight the need for technology that will help government attorneys not only manage, but thrive, in such a challenge-rich environment. The demands on a government attorney\u2019s time are ever-increasing<\/a>, and there need to be resources available to help streamline processes and find the information needed to get the job done.<\/p>\n

While practicing law has always been a juggling act, few people are expected to be Jacks or Jills of all trades more than government attorneys. Facing a wide range of issues and matters every day means countless hours spent staying on top of new laws and regulations. The task of being up to speed becomes even more daunting in the face of an entire generation of institutional knowledge that\u2019s slowly disappearing. Nearly half of the state and local government workforce is eligible to retire by 2019, taking their decades of knowledge and honed expertise with them.<\/p>\n

Their successors are staring down a huge chasm of knowledge that they need to fill. The answer to conquering the problem lies in innovative solutions and tools that increase efficiency and improve the ways government law departments practice, even when budgets are tight and resources are limited.<\/p>\n

Take Back Your Time with Government Resources from Thomson Reuters<\/h2>\n

Speak to nearly any government attorney, and they\u2019ll tell you that there\u2019s just not enough time to get it all done. Government lawyers are increasingly seeing a loss of control over their time, due in large part to routine tasks that eat up about 60% of the average day. By automating these tasks, Thomson Reuters is allowing attorneys to recover lost time and use it to strategically manage workloads.<\/p>\n