There is little room to argue that the COVID-19 crisis has fundamentally changed how businesses operate.

As we all scramble to adapt to remote work environments, social distancing, stay-at-home orders, self-imposed quarantines and much more, it is important to take a moment to reflect on those changes and what they mean for the future.

How many are actually beneficial and can be continued after the dust has settled and the world goes back to semblance of normalcy?

What takeaways from the last several weeks can law firm owners implement to improve organizational strategy and operations?

And outside of work, what changes have you made in your personal life that you’d like to continue?

It would be easy to slide back into old routines once this is over; however, we’d like to see everyone challenge themselves to use the lessons learned during COVID-19 to improve.

Finding Opportunity In Overcoming COVID-19 Challenges

Organizations were forced to rapidly pivot over the last several weeks and adapt to a new normal: The end of all non-essential human interaction.

As society worked to adjust everything from the way businesses handle clients to a new home life dynamic, a number of innovations (and revelations) arose.

Probably most immediate for attorneys was the dramatic increase in tele- and video-commuting. As it turns out, many of the essential operational functions of a law firm still work even without an office.

While there is certainly something lost in losing out on having your team in one place, there is certainly room to strike a balance with remote and office work environments.

The legal industry has also seen an increase in things like virtual mediations, which is likely to stick as the logistics of getting everyone together on tools like Zoom is actually much simpler than it may have seemed in the past.

We have also seen a dramatic increase in the number of people picking up the phone; an old tried and true business tactic that has been somewhat lost with the advent of email and text messaging.

If you’re struggling to find new leads like many law firms, now is the perfect opportunity to pick up the phone and reconnect with old clients and past business connections.

Improved Work-Life Balance In The Future?

The instant reduction in things like commute times and in-person networking opportunities has also given back time to many that they didn’t have available before.

How you use this time is up to individuals – you can certainly catch up on your backlog of TV shows (and many are) – but you can also use this for other things too.

Has it always been easy to put off working out because you have to get up early to go to work and rush hour means you get home late with little motivation? Not anymore.

It’s easier than ever to use what used to be your daily commute to get into a healthy workout routine.

And while you’re working on bettering yourself, why not use this extra time to learn a new skill? There are limitless online tools and resources that let you learn everything from how to turn yourself into a potato in Zoom to learning a new coding language.

While COVID-19 has certainly caused a dramatic upheaval in almost every aspect of life, there’s no reason we can’t find beneficial lessons from this crisis.

On the contrary, we need to be actively looking for how we can use overcoming these challenges to improve both our business operations and personal lives.

Be sure to join us for next week’s Law Firm Leadership Collaboration Circle as we dig further into using technology to keep up with clients.