The Misuse of Paralegals
When it comes to group litigation claims, there exists a large cohort of paralegals whose role is completely misplaced and adds little value to the law firm they signed up to work for.
This is not only costing these firms large sums of money but is leading to a higher turnover of staff and an increase in self-inflicted data problems.
The issue.
The role of a paralegal is to support the senior fee earners. However, they are instead being used to compensate for poor processes in client data capture and management.
These are challenges that paralegals neither signed up for nor have the requisite skills to tackle effectively. As a consequence, the paralegals
- do not exercise the knowledge they’ve gained in law school.
- do not gain the requisite knowledge to take them onto their next legal role.
- cannot tackle their assigned work efficiently.
- become dissatisfied with their output.
- those worth their salt, look for work elsewhere.
These issues are causing law firms problems.
Does it really need to be like this? How did this happen? And importantly, what can be done to fix it?
The story so far.
At Claims Gate, a client onboarding service provider, we often see the following example of an approach undertaken by firms prior to adopting the service.
A firm looks to kick off its next group litigation claim. It sets up the marketing and lines-up resources to manage the intake of clients. The goal is volume, and the firm targets 10,000 retained clients.
The intake process does basic qualifications, gathers contact details, and runs an ID verification.
A few months pass and the campaign proves a success. The firm appears to have successfully onboarded 10,000 claimants via the aforementioned intake process. Everything is on target, right?
However, the claim details are not yet complete. Enter the paralegals.
Over the next few months, the firm mobilises a team of paralegals who
- ensure the simple data on claims is accurate.
- verify identity checks.
- run individual ID and conflict checks.
- ensure legal packs are e-signed.
- organise evidence surrounding claims.
- collect a statement of truth.
A number of these items either require significant follow-up with individual claimants from the paralegals or result in no response at all.
Over the next few months communication with 10,000 onboarded claimants drops to 7,500 then 6,000 and finally 3,500.
The fallout for paralegals.
Whilst the process has been running this way, issues begin to fester. All this manual effort has taken its toll. Customers become frustrated at the constant Q&A, either having to repeat themselves or having to ask questions because everything is in “legalese” and not English! The lawyers and litigation execs feel like everything is a waste of time. They are helping paralegals fix data in spreadsheets instead of focusing on the legal process. When they should be looking to file claims, they keep picking up discrepancies that lead to the merry-go-round with the clients.
And then there are the paralegals.
Fresh out of higher education, these ambitious souls march their way into legal offices. Loaded up on ideas of putting in their time, learning the ropes, and paying their dues on the way to becoming a lawyer.
At the outset, it’s all great and everything is an experience. But that experience starts to lose its shine when it can’t be reconciled with what they thought they were going to do. It doesn’t take long to realise that they are functioning as data operators. Becoming disillusioned with this, they then look to seek pastures new elsewhere.
For some more experienced lawyers, this may be all part of the learning curve; you simply do what you have to in order to get the claim moving. But if we deconstruct the tasks at hand, you can quickly see that the paralegals are being used in ways that are wholly unnecessary. It’s akin to using a plasterer when you really needed an electrician. Just because both might work in the same industry, it doesn’t mean they can or should be utilised cross purposely.
So why are the paralegals working across data in this way? And are paralegals really the answer?
The economic misconception.
Part of the challenge lies in the illusion that paralegals are ‘cheap’ and in good supply.
At first glance, paralegals do not appear to be the most expensive resource to employ in relation to a senior fee earner. Get enough of them and it’s still going to be cost-effective, right? Not to mention that their time can be recharged under billable hours. And of course, they have a grounding of legal knowledge that can be invaluable.
Unfortunately, in this context, it is not accurate.
Yes, they have a level of prerequisite knowledge around the law and this can be useful and billable when carrying out tasks that use this knowledge. But if they are doing data work for, let’s say, over 95% of their time, how much of their legal know-how is being utilised? Or being developed? Given the fee earners have to explain the processes anyway, could the average bright 18 to 22-year-old not pick this up?
Paralegals are being hindered in their progression and, used in this way, are of limited value to firms.
Dig a little deeper and we realise that even if firms hired data clerks, it would also be a waste of finances.
The only reason these activities are being carried is due to a lack of upfront thought being given to the onboarding process and the application of technology to simplify it.
Automation beats delegation.
Start looking at the activities you need to carry out and ask yourself, do you need human intervention, or can a systemised solution be put in? It’s rhetorical but maybe you are still not sure? Well, let’s take a different perspective then.
Imagine that you are a consumer looking for banking or insurance services. They also have onboarding processes, taking in your details and qualifying you. It tends to be a lot simpler than legal onboarding and they get it right the first time more often than not. You can bet they don’t have specially trained resources running manual data checks! So if they can do it, what is stopping you?
More likely than not, it’s a time constraint in not being able to stop long enough to properly define your onboarding process. If that’s true, then you should wonder whether you can afford not to. After all, not only is it costing you money on a resource that you don’t need but you are also ruining the careers of well-intentioned people. Save them! And put them to use properly. Get them to be the support resources they should be. Not have them working on pivot tables or running de-duplication in spreadsheets!
Let the systems take care of the mundane, repeatable, low-level data-driven tasks that don’t require thought or intelligent input. They will not only be thankful for it, they may just stick around long enough to realise their true potential.
Take the first step and take a wander across to Claims Gate. It will give you the power to take back control of your processes and optimise your service rather than trying to just get it done. Claims Gate might give you something that lets your paralegals (and lawyers) be great at what they should be doing, not compensating for what you didn’t.
