Law Technology Today From the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center
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Every year, the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center (LTRC) publishes TECHREPORT—a collection of easy-to-read breakouts of the annual ABA Legal Technology Survey Report, one of the leading surveys on how attorneys use technology. Practitioners, firms, and legal tech companies alike can use TECHREPORT to get a better grasp on legal technology trends and predictions.
Today’s excerpt is from the “Mobile Technology” report by Aaron Street. Click here to download the full report.
For years now, lawyers have been working more and more frequently from places other than their law office. Many lawyers work from home, shared office space, coworking offices, or operate virtual law practices. Even lawyers with traditional offices frequently do legal work from home, while traveling, or anywhere else they are with their smartphone. Over the course of a week, it’s common for lawyers to do online legal work (like checking email, working on documents, or scheduling appointments) away from their office as much as from their desk.
Two-thirds of lawyers still have a traditional private law office, with 16% primarily working from home, and 17% working in a shared office. Solo lawyers are almost equally divided between traditional offices, home offices, and shared spaces. Not surprisingly, traditional offices are the norm for most law firms once they have more than one lawyer.
Even lawyers with traditional offices spend a lot of time working on law firm work outside of the office. 77% regularly work from home, 33% regularly work while traveling, and 20% regularly work from clients’ or opposing counsel’s office or from court.
The amount of time lawyers do this remote work seems to be increasing, too, with almost 85% of lawyers working remotely at least 10% of the time, over a third of lawyers working remotely at least 25% of the time, and more than 10% of lawyers working remotely more than half-time. In fact, over 30% of lawyers say they telecommute at least once per week.
