Law firms are getting older, wiser and futuristic. Like any major industry today, the legal industry is operating in a wildly different and technologically advanced world. Because of this, law firms are adapting to changing times by slowly gravitating toward a new way of doing business, which includes embracing virtual workplaces and new fee structures.
“When it comes to creating the next generation law office, law firms are all in a race to be second, as most do not want to be on the bleeding edge of change,” says Lenny Beaudoin, senior managing director and co-leader of CBRE’s Workplace Strategy practice. “Nobody wants to be first. It’s a risk-averse business.”
Whether law firms want to be the first or not, the new dawn for the legal world is already here.
The rise of automation is already impacting legal tasks. A more remote workforce is impacting how and where attorneys work, while alternative fee arrangements and the rise of non-traditional law firms have impacted the traditional billable hours pricing model.
“Some of the dynamics in these law firms have had to adapt to be able to address changing expectations among attorneys,” Beaudoin says.
AGING LAWYERS
The legal profession is getting older. An estimated 16 percent of partners will retire in the next five years, with an additional 38 percent expected to retire in the next decade, according to The American Lawyer.
Jobs for recent law school graduates, meanwhile, have slowly gone up. The overall employment rate for law grads from the Class of 2016 reached 87.5 percent, a 0.8 percent uptick from the year before, according to the National Association for Law Placement (NALP).
Rapidly retiring baby boomers are creating challenges for law firms when it comes to succession planning. The low national unemployment rate, at 4.1 percent in October 2017, is creating intense competition for attracting and retaining skilled talent, according to the 2017 CBRE Research report, Legal Sector Trends in the United States: Witnessing Change.