Going Hybrid: A New Working Model for Remote Legal Services

Legal professionals are looking to modernize how they interact with their clients as businesses see a steady rise in remote working. In recent years, both lawyers and their clients have enjoyed the flexibility to request legal aid and offer consultations remotely with any device they choose and at their own convenience. But despite the surge in all things digital, human connection is still highly valued in legal assistance. To balance digitization with client expectations for a human connection, the human-digital hybrid model is an effective strategy for law firms. Whether nonprofit, pro bono, or traditional legal advice, it allows professionals to replicate the in-person experience in the digital world – and provide a differentiated client experience for their legal issues.

In the webinar, Hybrid Work Model: The Future for the Legal Profession, Aaron Davis, Director of Product Marketing, and Francois Leblanc, Director of Technical Sales at OneSpan, share examples of how lawyers, legal aid organizations, and legal services providers can apply technologies that integrate a human connection into their processes and how a hybrid model will build a stronger connection and loyalty with clients over time. You can watch the full presentation on-demand.

How the Human-Digital Hybrid Model Enables Better Client Experiences

Clients are looking for holistic digital experiences, and this will only continue to increase as other customer-focused industries like retail and banking integrate more tools to enable smoother online journeys. People are putting a premium on convenience and value. It’s the “anytime, anywhere” effect that digital communication technologies have created. By just tapping an app on their phone, clients expect to be able to get the legal information they want fast, in a personalized way. They want differentiated services that speak to them and solve their unique problems.    

For more complex legal matters and agreements, the need for remote legl support in the form of high touch, high impact digital client engagement is crucial. Legal practitioners are integrating a mediated virtual experience to supplement traditional face-to-face meetings. Common use cases include client intake, real estate closings, virtual witnessing, and many more. These all require what’s referred to as human-assisted agreements.

Zoom is simply not enough. These digital agreements require secure access and robust authentication, real-time communication, simultaneous review, and clarification that allow clients to be walked through an agreement, e-signing and notarization - all while capturing electronic evidence that is compliant with legislation requirements.

Technologies like OneSpan Virtual Room help recreate the power of the face-to-face meeting. It brings the human element to your remote signing and agreement processes by allowing legal documents to be reviewed, modified, and signed in a secure, live videoconferencing session between the lawyer and client.

What is Virtual Room?

Virtual Room is an all-in-one digital mediated agreement solution that helps law firms and legal professionals guide clients through complex, multi-step agreement processes. Virtual Room includes built-in videoconferencing, collaboration, e-signature, and recording capabilities.

Benefits to legal professionals:

1. Speed and convenience. This platform is built on OneSpan Sign e-signature technology, with videoconferencing to eliminate the need for in-person meetings to review and sign documents.
2. Real-time assistance. You’re able to provide clients with a premium experience to address questions in real-time and get them the help they need, when they need it.
3. Fully branded experience. The platform can be fully white-labelled to keep the spotlight on your brand and maintain trust and credibility with your clients.
4. Secure agreements. Data and documents are always secure throughout the entire process, whether in transit or at rest. Digital signatures ensure document integrity.
5. Strong electronic evidence. You’re able to capture vendor-independent audit trails with the option to keep a video recording of the Virtual Room session.

How It Works

Explore the virtual signing process below:

7 Steps to Implementing a Human-Digital Hybrid Model

For legal professionals interested in integrating a human-digital hybrid model into their business, we’ve highlighted a few key steps as part of the roadmap:

1. Assess corporate culture. Keep an eye on the culture of your firm and whether a readiness for change already exists or significant education will be required to persuade decision-makers.
2. Develop a holistic strategy. If adopting a hybrid model, it will be important to consider what’s required for the entire end-to-end experience as opposed to quick wins for rapid digitization.
3. Start incrementally. You’re not going to be able to solve all your problems and gaps with technology right out of the gate. Integrate step-by-step, test, and optimize as you go.
4. Be clear on the role of technology. Be sure to identify which specific issues will be addressed, and whether it's expected to be a quick win or require more investment.
5. Identify and prioritize high value opportunities. Prioritize the areas that can yield the greatest impact and return on investment.
6. Measure and evaluate outcomes. Since technology should be implemented incrementally, evaluation should be done frequently.
7. Develop a framework for sustainment. These technologies are going to evolve very rapidly in the next decade as the industry moves to a digital cloud paradigm. Developing a framework that can be sustained within your own practice will be the key to long term success for legal services organizations.

In Conclusion

Clients prefer remote digital interactions that are fast and convenient, but when things become more complicated, they want help from a trusted advisor. Technology will never going totally replace that human need, so the hybrid human-digital blended experience helps you effectively bring together the best of both worlds.

Learn More About Virtual Room

Webinar

Hybrid Work Model: The Future for the Legal Profession

In this webinar, expert speakers share examples of how lawyers and other legal professionals can integrate human connection into their processes and build best-in-class remote experiences.

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