[Webinar] Notaries, Lawyers, Accountants: How Legal Professions Are Reinventing the Way They Work

According to a étude PwC, 50 % of legal professionals consider themselves to have low digital maturity. And 81 % of lawyers say that the digital transformation of their profession is a priority¹.

To meet the challenges of this transformation digitale, legal and accounting professionals must urgently modernize their ways of working and their outils de collaboration.

But how should they go about it?

That was the topic of our May 27, 2021 webinar: “Notaries, Lawyers, Accountants: Towards a Transformation of Working Practices.”

Three speakers shared their real-world experience:

• Philippe Pinault, co-founder and CEO of Talkspirit
• Alizé Lecouvreur, Internal Communications Manager at Partexia (accounting firm)
• Hugo Delescluse, Partner Notary at Vacossin & associés (notarial office)

Here is a summary of their contributions.

Why and How to Transform Your Ways of Working?

The stakes of transformation digitale

For Philippe Pinault, two types of transformation are currently underway in legal and accounting professions:

• “The transformation of the profession itself, driven in particular by the explosion of legal tech”
• “The transformation of modes de travail”, which enables professionals to:
  • boost productivity
  • better manage access to information
  • improve the employee and client experience
  • develop knowledge sharing, peer support, and best practices
  • enable collaboration

Read also: Webinar “Methodology and Tools for Succeeding at Digital Transformation”: Recap

The limits of email

“Email remains the most widely used communication and collaboration tool among notaries, lawyers, and accountants.”. 

Yet its limitations show up every day:

• Email operates on a "proprietary view" of information: it lets you share information person to person, not across the entire organization.
• Information shared via email can end up scattered across different inboxes with different subject lines, making it hard to find what you need.
• Email is an asynchronous tool that is not always read immediately — making it unsuitable for exchanges requiring a quick response.
• Processing emails can quickly become time-consuming, leading to lost productivity.
• Relying solely on email can make the firm appear outdated to clients.
• Emails are the primary entry point for phishing attacks, putting the confidentiality of company and client data at risk.

Read also: 7 Reasons Why Email Is Already Obsolete

The alternatives to email

Today, there are two main alternatives to heavy email reliance:

• The "best-of-breed" tools — the top applications in a specific category (team messaging, video conferencing, project management, etc.)
• The all-in-one collaborative suites that bring a set of interconnected applications together on a single platform

Read also: 12 Alternatives to Replace Your Emails

By adopting one of these alternatives, legal and accounting professionals can :

• “Streamline and speed up exchanges”
• “Make information easier to access”
• “Modernize the image of their firm”
• “Improve data security”

Real-World Experience: Partexia

Context

Partexia is an accounting firm with 21 employees across 3 locations in the Gironde region of France. This geographic spread creates daily challenges in terms of internal communication and team collaboration every day.

In early 2020, Partexia also faced a sudden shift to remote work, which brought a risk of lost cohesion and declining ’engagement.

The firm therefore set out to find a solution that would:

• Maintain the connection between employees
• Streamline communication
• Reduce internal emails
• Facilitate information sharing

To address these needs, Partexia turned to Talkspirit.

New Use Cases Deployed

Following the deployment of Talkspirit, the main use cases identified were:

• “Using video conferencing internally and with clients, which made it possible to maintain client appointments and monthly meetings remotely”
• “Sharing news and specific information through topic-based groups” (for example, to share Covid-related announcements)
• “Centralizing documents, accessible by everyone, on the drive”

Benefits

For Alizé Lecouvreur, deploying Talkspirit brought several tangible benefits to the firm :

• “The company's culture and values (especially its closeness to clients) are better shared”
• “The firm’s image is more modern and innovative”
• “The bonds between employees and with clients have strengthened”
• Exchanges are more frequent

Read also: How Talkspirit Improves Team Cohesion in the Consulting Sector

Lessons Learned

Partexia's 3 tips for running a similar project successfully:

• “Introduce the project at a kick-off meeting”
• “Offer individual coaching based on each person’s needs”
• “Rely on a group of internal champions to support the rollout”

Real-World Experience: Vacossin & associés

Context

Vacossin & associés is a notarial office based in Lille with 6 notaries and 15 staff members.

Before the Covid crisis, email was the primary communication tool within the office. But this approach no longer met the collaboration and mobility needs of staff.

A new solution was needed — one that could accommodate the specific constraints of their activity:

• All exchanges must remain strictly confidential
• Partners must be able to communicate in real time, wherever they are
• Each person must manage large volumes of information

From the very start of Covid, Vacossin & associés set out to find a tool that would:

• “Reduce internal email volume”
• “Structure discussions within channels and folders, so that only the right people can access them”
• “Facilitate remote and mobile collaboration”

New Use Cases Deployed

Thanks to Talkspirit, Vacossin & associés successfully deployed several new practices, including:

• “Digitizing and structuring exchanges within the Accounting and Administrative Formalities departments, made possible through dedicated groups and posts for each file”
• “Centralizing all institutional documents (national regulations, deed drafting…) and office best practices on the drive”

Read also: Transforming Notaries’ Ways of Working: The Vacossin & associés Story

Benefits

Since implementing Talkspirit, Me Hugo Delescluse has identified several benefits for Vacossin & associés staff:

• “Information flows more easily and is simpler to access”
• Internal emails have been drastically reduced: “90 % of emails received now only involve external exchanges”
• “Staff are more responsive”
• “L’Onboarding new hires is easier than before”
• “There are more informal remote exchanges”

Lessons Learned

For the partner notary, three conditions are essential for successfully deploying a outil collaboratif like Talkspirit :

• “Make sure leadership is convinced of the tool’s power”
• “Lead by example and keep the network active”
• “Rely on internal champions” who will promote the tool among staff

Read also: ESN Deployment: Tools and Methods for Managing Change

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By replacing email with a best-of-breed tool or an all-in-one collaborative suite, legal and accounting professionals can streamline their exchanges, boost productivity, and ensure the confidentiality of internally shared data.

Read also: Best Collaborative Platforms: A Comparison

Want to learn more about the transformation of working practices in legal and accounting professions? Watch the webinar replay:

Watch the replay

¹ Ifop survey for Doctrine, May 2020

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Author: Emmanuelle Abensur