For Progressive Legal founder and CEO Ian Aldridge, combating a pandemic was a challenge of its own that subsequently allowed the firm to thrive in a challenging environment.

“When the pandemic really kicked in, it was a [double whammy],” he told Lawyers Weekly.

“Although we knew there would probably be a correction given the all-time highs, we had planned for that, this was something else!”

Through a combination of a defining strategy and along with its unique firm model, Progressive Legal set out to take on COVID-19 amid uncertainty across its clients.

Mr Aldridge said the firm was able to reach a nimble stage and was ready to pivot and ended up being surprisingly busy in May, June and July. 

“We’re not perfect, and in hindsight, we should have done even more to contact all our valued clients and let them know we were there, to help them understand that we cared," Mr Aldridge said.

“But, we were there for as many as possible with our available resources and moved swiftly to pivot our services.”

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Mr Aldridge said they realised that the firm needed to concentrate on giving even better service to clients during this period.

“They were going through a lot of stress, we gave them time, we called them more, we made financial accommodations for them, we gave them payment arrangements and did the work up-front, we trusted them to pay and working with them from a budget perspective – we know it’s just a matter of time,” he said.

“The initial shock for most clients was pronounced.”

A unique model to tackle the pandemic

Mr Aldridge said that before the COVID-19 impact was in place they were heavily involved in setting up a unique structure that allowed it to pivot efficiently at the time of pandemic.

Progressive Legal had made preparations in technology that allowed it to move quickly to fine-tune to pandemic demands.

Mr Aldridge said the benefit of effectively being “born in the cloud”, the history of having remote staff and having to overcome the challenges helped enormously.

“Being almost entirely paperless (apart from litigation), and also investing heavily in technology and software over the past five years made a big difference,” he said.

“We have heard some very interesting stories about firms scrambling to get on top of all this in a very short time. They were hit with a Tesla [truck]!

“We were also heavily engaged on social media beforehand, which is something that a lot of law firms continue to ignore and I don’t know why.

“Because a lot of clients were working from home, they were on social media a lot more. They were seeing our presence, our articles, our videos.”

The Progressive team also moved quickly to focus initially on a whole set of areas the business was going to do for some time and especially in trend for SME firms, more content creation, SEO, marketing and business development. 

“When everyone else went “dark”, we were visible. We adopted a “contrarian” approach (it’s kind of our thing),” he said.

Mr Aldridge said he also made the pivot to having a varied service offering. 

“Not putting all your eggs in one basket. Offering [intellectual property (including trade marks), corporate, commercial, workplace and dispute resolution] services meant that the areas shifted within the firm in terms of needs, but we were able to adapt,” he said.

Navigating the waters post-pandemic 

As pandemic moves into later end of the year Mr Aldridge says they are going for growth now. 

“We’ve been fortunate to be able to actually hire lawyers during this period (not downsize). There is a big opportunity for those smaller firms now to grow and compete with larger ones,” he said.

Yet with the pandemic changing the processes for lawyers and their clients Mr Aldridge said that post-COVID-19, law firms and lawyers will need to be even more client-focused. 

“They will need to give better service. They will need to be more responsive. They will need to be faster and better, give really good advice and charge reasonably for doing so. Otherwise, clients will simply walk elsewhere,” he said.

“Clients will be looking more carefully at the value they receive for their services (I say this generally, not just from a legal perspective). They will look carefully at all their costs, they will be scrutinising bills and advice.”

Technology and morale will also be crucial, with Mr Aldrige learning the biggest lessons from the pandemic in getting a firm ready for an uncertain and challenging environment.

“Law firms will need to be more engaged with their team, if they want to keep them. Morale for a lot of [law firms] will be at an all-time low, especially after a few prolonged months of this thing. They will need to invest more in human resources,” he said.

Mr Aldridge has reinforced this notion as not only the founder but the chief morale officer (CMO) of the firm.

“We all need positive feedback in this environment, people are craving encouragement. Coach junior members more, be strong for them and protect them,” Mr Aldridge stated.

For technology, with the pandemic forcing law firms to embrace new adopting new tech use, Mr Aldridge believes many things will change around the delivery of legal services post-pandemic.

“Lots of firms will have to change all their onboarding procedures, their client verification processes and their meetings with clients,” he said.

“In person may not be an option for a while. Big firms and traditional firms are really going to struggle with this.”