The results, BigHand Asia-Pacific managing director Tony Bleasdale (pictured) said, are “alarming” for law firms in APAC.

Restructuring support teams

Four in five law firms in both NA (80 per cent) and the UK (81 per cent) have undergone restructures of their support teams in the past 18 months. By contrast, only one in four (25 per cent) of APAC-based firms have restructured as such.

This, Mr Bleasdale said, is a “massive difference”.

“It’s been well-known that the legal industry has been slow to change in the past, but the research demonstrates this is no longer the case in other regions,” he noted.

APAC’s concerns don’t end there. In NA (56 per cent) and the UK (49 per cent), firms expect between 20-40 per cent of support staff to retire in the coming five years, and over three in five firms in both regions (61 per cent in NA and 64 per cent in the UK) believe they will lose similar staffing numbers due to natural attrition in the next five years.

In APAC, however, just 51 per cent expect to lose less than 10 per cent of support staff, and 49 per cent think they will lose 10 per cent or less to attrition.

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Uptake of flexible working arrangements

It appears that APAC firms might be slow on the uptake with non-traditional working arrangements: 80 per cent of lawyers in NA and 78 per cent in the UK are working outside of office hours, while just 56 per cent of those in APAC are doing the same.

Fewer legal and support professionals in APAC are embracing flexibility, too. Fifty-eight per cent of those in NA and 60 per cent the UK are embracing flexible hours, compared to 47 per cent of those in APAC.

“Hybrid working is thought to be welcomed by both lawyers and support staff, but it is still a work in progress,” BigHand wrote.

“Individuals are concerned about the way work can be effectively allocated to support teams, but they also recognise the opportunities to achieve improvements both in efficiency and work-life balance.”

Such results in APAC may be partly explained by perceived hurdles to productivity. Fifty-three per cent of those in APAC are worried that lawyers will have to undertake more administrative work instead of being able to delegate to support staff if they work from home, while just 30 per cent of those in NA and 35 per cent of those in the UK feel the same way.

Perhaps as a result of this, APAC firms are indicating less likelihood to implement hybrid working arrangements. Facilitating hybrid working for support staff is seen as a priority for 52 per cent of NA firms, 37 per cent of UK firms and just 25 per cent of APAC firms.

Cost-efficient delegation of work

Less than half (47 per cent) of APAC law firms say that they encourage their fee earners to delegate work to the most cost-effective resource, BigHand reported, which means that more than one in two firms in this region are likely to have their more senior, and therefore more expensive, lawyers doing “lower value, unbillable work”.

There is, the company added, a 20-30 per cent difference between the APAC firms and those in other global regions. 

Such an approach for firms here “has a huge financial impact”, particularly against the backdrop of how NA and UK firms are operating, Mr Bleasdale said.

Reliance on outsourcing

Both NA and the UK (39 per cent and 42 per cent respectively) have experienced an increased reliance on outsourcing, and further, 40 per cent of firms in NA and 37 per cent of firms in the UK say that outsourcing will become a strategic priority in the next two years.

Elsewhere, less than one in five (18 per cent) of APAC firms are relying on outsourcing.

This shows, Mr Bleasdale said, “that the APAC region are not focusing enough on ensuring work is completed by the most cost-effective (and correctly skilled) person”.

“Short-term, this impacts firms’ productivity and profitability as support structure to lawyer ratios remain high. But, long-term, it will give global firms operating in the APAC region a competitive advantage as not only will they be focused on the right person at the right cost, they will be able to demonstrate these efficiencies to customers,” he warned.

Reflections

While there were promising signs for APAC firms with regards to the implementation of technology – 53 per cent of firms in this region are planning to implement workflow technology in the next two years, compared to 45 per cent in NA and 40 per cent in the UK – the broad impression, BigHand deduced, is that APAC-based practices need to restructure both their workplace make-up and their thinking if they are to compete globally.

The results, Mr Bleasdale mused, demonstrate the “risk that APAC firms may fall behind on the global playing field if they don’t act quickly and make changes in line with the wider legal market”.