Have You Tried This Solution To Attorney Burnout At Your Firm?

29 November 2022 by UV eDiscovery attorney burnout

Takeaway: Attorneys burn out when overloaded with too many mindless, unfulfilling chores. So, the solution is for law firms to minimize their attorneys’ grunt work, giving them higher-value, challenging projects instead. And the right tech can help with this rebalancing.

Attorney burnout is a rising problem that higher salaries won’t fix.

In a survey of lawyers, Wolters Kluwer discovered that 70% of corporate lawyers and 58% of law-firm lawyers are ‘very’ or ‘somewhat likely’ to leave their current position in the next year. That’s an alarming statistic, and the only fix firms currently use is to offer higher salaries. But throwing money at the problem doesn’t address the underlying fault, which is that talented attorneys want challenging work that taps into higher-level thinking skills. They don’t want mindless data crunching that’s better outsourced to a computer.

Here’s where it’s worth exploring the link between a law firm’s success and the technology it uses.

Profitable law firms seem to invest in legal tech, but we don’t fully know what that implies. Are these firms profitable because they invest in tech? Or are they just investing in tech because they’re profitable, and that’s what profitable firms do? Also, even if tech helps, how much of the profits is it responsible for? And finally, are all technologies equally useful? Or do some help more than others?

The good news is that many leading applications are affordable enough for most firms to experiment with.

All our questions about causation vs correlation don’t matter because legal tech is now cost-effective enough for even small and solo firms. For instance, eDiscovery service ‘GoldFynch’ starts at just $27 a month for a basic 3 GB case (more on this later) – something that any law firm can afford.

Making this tech switch can help attorneys focus on more rewarding tasks.

The challenge in building a defensible case is in uncovering the story hidden within. Yes, there’s data to process (e.g., emails to read, PDFs to skim, spreadsheets to examine, etc.), but it all goes towards exploring the ‘story’ of the case. I.e., What happened? Who did it happen to? When, how, and where? How is everyone involved connected? And so on. This detective work keeps things interesting, making a heavy workload bearable. And the right technology can free up attorneys to spend time on high-value, rewarding work.

For example, eDiscovery tools can take over large chunks of boring grunt work.

The best tech applications always have a suite of time-saving tools. For instance, the latest eDiscovery applications have an advanced search engine, a ‘tag’ feature to group similar documents, a redaction tool to protect sensitive information, and a production wizard to help produce files in multiple formats. Each of these takes on boring grunt work that a human would usually have to do. For instance, an advanced eDiscovery search engine lets you give niche search commands like, “Find all emails Richard Ramsey sent Lauretta Lasiter, which mention the Reed meeting. And which were sent before 2016.” Without this tech, you’d spend days reading custodian emails and searching for relevant keywords. Also, you might overlook valuable contextual metadata that search engines use by default.

The right tech makes your workforce’s lives more flexible.

Most of the latest tech is cloud-based. That is, the software and data sit on a global network of cloud servers you access via your web browser. This frees you up to travel, work remotely, and collaborate with people internationally – because the only resources you’ll need are a laptop and an internet connection. Further, cloud servers have bank-grade security to keep your data secure, and they back-up data on multiple hard drives – protecting it from natural disasters like floods, fires, etc. Importantly, since multiple cloud users share the same server, everyone splits the bill, lowering your tech costs.

Remember, all these features come with a surprisingly modest price tag.

As we mentioned earlier, price is often the biggest obstacle for smaller firms looking to try new software. Thankfully, legal tech often comes with transparent and predictable pricing. For instance, GoldFynch uses a storage-based pricing system charging a single, all-inclusive monthly fee. So you won’t have to pay piecemeal for individual eDiscovery steps like uploading/processing files and optical character recognition (OCR). As an example, if you choose a 10 GB plan, GoldFynch charges you for 10 GB of storage space. That’s it. You can upload, process, delete, re-upload, etc., as many files as you want for no extra charge. (Learn more about storage-based pricing.)

Finally, experimenting with new software is a low-risk venture because there aren’t any large upfront investments.

Since you’re subscribing to an eDiscovery service (rather than downloading eDiscovery software), you don’t have any start-up software/hardware costs. So you can opt-out at any point without losing a large upfront investment. Also, you won’t have to troubleshoot tech issues because your eDiscovery provider has a team for that. You’re free to just log in via your web browser and start working.

To explore these advantages yourself, try attorney-friendly applications like GoldFynch.

If your firm does much eDiscovery, GoldFynch is a great eDiscovery service to explore. It’s designed for small and midsize firms, has a full suite of eDiscovery tools, and gives first-timers a free starter case to experiment with. GoldFynch also comes with the following advantages.

It costs just $27 a month for a 3 GB case: That’s significantly less than most comparable software. With GoldFynch, you know exactly what you’re paying for: its pricing is simple and readily available on the website.
It’s easy to budget for. GoldFynch charges only for storage (processing files is free). So, choose from a range of plans (3 GB to 150+ GB) and know up-front how much you’ll be paying. You can upload and cull as much data as you want, as long as you stay below your storage limit. And even if you do cross the limit, you can upgrade your plan with just a few clicks. Also, billing is prorated – so you’ll pay only for the time you spend on any given plan. With legacy software, pricing is much less predictable.
It takes just minutes to get going. GoldFynch runs in the Cloud, so you use it through your web browser (Google Chrome recommended). No installation. No sales calls or emails. Plus, you get a free trial case (0.5 GB of data and a processing cap of 1 GB) without adding a credit card.
It’s simple to use. Many eDiscovery applications take hours to master. GoldFynch takes minutes. It handles a lot of complex processing in the background, but what you see is minimal and intuitive. Just drag-and-drop your files into GoldFynch, and you’re good to go. Plus, you get prompt and reliable tech support (our average response time is 30 minutes).
Access it from anywhere, and 24/7. All your files are backed up and secure in the Cloud.

Want to find out more about GoldFynch?

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