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Lawyer's Weekly Show, in partnership with York Hamilton, discusses the future of law firms in Australia, focusing on remote talent, offshoring, and business automation. The legal profession has been receptive to changes, adopting automation software and new technologies. Law firms are realizing the cost savings and talent optimization benefits of remote talent. Offshoring and utilizing remote talent can lead to a complete rethink of business structure and objectives. Important questions to consider include talent availability, cost savings, retention, and opening up new business opportunities. However, some law firms still have concerns about security and qualifications. This is a Momentum Media production. Welcome to the Lawyer's Weekly Show for an in-depth look at the issues facing the legal profession. Hello and welcome to a special episode of the Lawyer's Weekly Show produced in partnership with York Hamilton. My name is Jerome Dorosami and I'm coming to you today from Cammeraygall Land in Sydney and I'm very pleased to be joined by Evan Kostopoulos who is the managing partner of York Hamilton. Evan, welcome to the show. Hi, Jerome. Thanks for having me. Now today, Evan and I are going to be discussing the future of law firms in Australia, particularly as it pertains to remote talent and offshoring, as well as getting into some questions around business automation, including and especially through the use of AI. There's a lot to discuss here, so we may as well jump right in. Evan, before we get started on this conversation of what the future can and will look like, I'm curious to learn a little bit more about York Hamilton. For those listeners who maybe haven't heard of York Hamilton, could you give us a bit of an overview? Yeah, sure. So York Hamilton basically started as a bit of a passion project behind changing the way businesses operate in general. Growing up in the construction industry, I saw a lot of business owners doing it the old school way and wanted to help optimise, make things more efficient. Five years later, working across a range of different industries, we worked out that law firms are stuck in a certain hierarchical system, such an industry that's fixed in its ways for good and bad reasons, but definitely needs to adopt a bit more of an automatic approach. And I believe they're doing so. I'm not sure if we planned to be in law at the very beginning, but it's just happened to be that it's been such a successful little niche for us and something we're proud of because it shows we can make impact. You mentioned there that law firms seem to be starting to make some changes. Do you think that the legal profession has been receptive to the idea of making changes or is there a bit of pushback? I think in the last five years, things have definitely changed. There obviously was a very strong belief in the way law firms had to be run and had to practise and had to operate. But I think in the last five years, things have changed so much. Law firms are using obviously a lot more automation software, have different structures around the way they run and are adopting new different technologies and obviously people being in house or out house, COVID obviously forced a lot of that. So I think they are changing and I guess for us because we're on this side of the fence, we see it a lot. So even though the industry doesn't necessarily want to show, because we're on the inside, we understand that they are adopting, they are changing it. And I think the next step would be that it'd be public knowledge that law firms are adopting to these new changes in business. Yeah. So just before we get into some of those questions around offshoring and automation and other such matters, do you think that maybe we're at a point in the market where if law firms aren't looking to make these kinds of changes, that perhaps they're going to be left behind by their competitors? Yeah, because cost saving is one thing, optimising your firms is another thing, specialised talent, no word of a lie that we all know it's difficult finding good qualified staff locally and keeping them. There's a lot of movement with staff around the country, especially within obviously each state because it makes sense it's found in the local jurisdiction. So I do think there's a huge advantage. Obviously, if we can even see the numbers on our end and we see how much firms are saving by making those few changes, whether they be through technological changes or bringing sections of the business offshore, it's obviously saving them a lot financially and improving their bottom line. Secondly to that, also optimising their talent. If you're working in a global workforce, you can get specialised talent which you may not be able to get locally and there's limitations to certain roles. But once you open to the global market, you got millions of people to choose from, right? Yeah. And just further to what you were saying there, we've now started talking about some of the benefits of remote talent. Perhaps it would be worth zooming out a little bit to clarify for our listeners what we mean when we're talking about remote talent and why it's such an important thing to be looking at in the current climate. Talent working remotely, most people would understand a virtual assistant they may call it or the industry as a whole called the BPO industry. We try and steer away from those terms and those words because they do hold a bit of a stigma in low end admin, data entry, Indian telecom marketer type of set up. However, when we speak about remote talent or remote professionals, we're talking top tier qualified, specialised talent we recruit from all over the world. And I guess it's a premium version of selecting from a global workforce. Yeah. And why, Evan, do you think more and more firms are starting to look into this kind of resourcing option? Are firms sort of really starting to realise the benefits of it or seeing an urgent need for it on the ground? It's a bit of both. I can sit here and talk about the benefits and the features, but every company sells the same stuff, right? They sell that they're the cheapest and they got the best. However, I think now firms are realising that there is really high level staff. There is real high level operators who are providing the staff. It's been a trial and error for this whole industry because it's been wrong. The first five, 10 years of it was a bit of a learning curve, a bit of a disaster. But now once people are realising, okay, a lot of the benefits are actually quite tangible now. We can feel and we can touch it. We understand. We trust these people. They've been a part of our team. They're a part of our culture now. A lot of those doubts being moved out now is showing companies that, okay, this can be done correctly. And if it's done right, it's a huge advantage. Secondly to that, like I said earlier, yeah, there's a shortage of talent locally. There's no way around that. I know governments are constantly pushing different ways to get more talented individuals from our country, whether it be through pushing more uni courses or TAFE courses, but I don't think it's going to solve anything in the short term. It will help, but I think there's definitely the need now. I think companies are seeing that if they don't look at a global workforce, and it may even be that they're looking globally to bring them into Australia, but it's a no-brainer. Get the talent out there. It shouldn't hold too much of an issue just because they're not physically in the office. Yeah, absolutely. And it sounds as though that if a firm does go down this road, that there are other business opportunities that might open up as a result. A hundred percent. I've had a few clients with York Hamilton who have now opened to different areas of law, starting in a specialized area of law and have opened up to different areas of law just because they could get that talent globally and it opened their business up to a whole different section of law. They could have potentially done it locally, but it would have cost them a lot more. It would have changed the whole operation where by adding a few specialists overseas and someone running that part of the business locally, it was a pretty good formula for them. Yeah. With all of that in mind, Evan, do you think that if a law firm is to effectively and successfully utilize offshoring and remote talent that perhaps they can have a complete rethink of what their business structure and ultimately their business objectives will look like? Yeah, definitely. And I think firms are doing it anyway, whether offshoring existed or not. Firms are always looking at optimizing and obviously technology has jumped into the legal industry in the last few years and the different tools, CRMs, to try and make things more efficient. So every day, the old school law firm is dying, let's call it. It's getting easier for companies like us because the industry is coming this way and I guess they have to. Yeah. And so for the law firms who want to be looking into offshoring and utilizing this remote talent, what do you see as being the most important questions to ask of the business so that you can achieve the right kinds of outcomes? The most evident reason they come to us, obviously, take away referrals and getting feedback from other firms, more so is that they just can't find the talent locally is usually a starting point. Secondly, obviously, they're looking to have a healthier bottom line. Let's use legal admin or paralegal as an example. In our five offshore, there's a huge cost saving. So that's another reason if they're looking at their bottom line and can it be healthier, that's a way. Obviously, retention, which is the first part I mentioned with not only finding local staff that are qualified, but keeping them is the issue. And the conversations I'm having every day is the same frustration between every law firm that we deal with. And then thirdly, which we discussed earlier, was opening your business to, I guess, a new demographic, to a new direction, holistically. Yeah. And just further to what you said about some of the conversations you're having on the ground, I'm curious to know if any of the chats you've had have shown some reasons why law firms might not be looking to engage remote talent. Are we seeing any of that still? Yeah, of course. You've got firms who we get on calls with as well who are intriguing, vital, but they're not in love with the concept yet because they still have the traditional way of thinking Is it secure? Are they qualified? How's it going to work? There's a few of the unknown, I guess, until they jump in and feel it, which is normal. I guess that's every service is there's an unknown to start with. So security, communication, and the level of talent is probably the three things that once we iron out how it all works, gives them a bit of comfort. Yeah. So in response to some of those concerns, how would you go about a conversation with those firms and certainly those firm leaders who might still be a little bit reluctant? Yeah. And to be honest, they should be. Right. I mean, I was one of those people who was weary about this because I didn't know enough. You know, let's start with the security at the forefront of this. For COVID, we learned a lot working remotely, obviously out of the office, work from home, business had to change, infrastructure had to change, security had to change, communication had to change. So I guess for us, the good timing was that when COVID was right in the amongst of it, so were we. So I guess it's the exact same infrastructure just means obviously the house is a little bit further than someone working down in the local suburb. Everything else remains the same, the infrastructure. We've got obviously our internal security systems. We can see everything that happens. We have our own security measures and we're also happy to take them to a level further. We understand the risks of cyber security these days and I think our system's pretty robust in that perspective. Secondly, and probably most importantly is the query with the talent is, I guess if we look at the conversation I had today with a client who was looking for someone who understands Victorian jurisdiction, they have worked with a firm before in Victoria, they have done conveyancing, they understand property law and all the specifics, there was a few different tools that they used. We're going to find that person who has a lot of experience, they've worked in Victoria already. We're not finding an admin person from the Philippines and saying, hey, do you want to work for a law firm in Australia? We're finding specialised talent so they could slide into a firm and become a part of that team. So the talent side is I guess where I think we're strong, our APS system which is basically a recruitment system is designed around filtering the perfect talent for that company. Yeah. And so it sounds like from what you're saying that given how much working life has changed since the age of coronavirus, law firms have already started heading down this path of not everyone being under the one physical roof and so perhaps it's about adjusting your mindset and realising that your firm has to just lean into the way that the world is headed. And we also have a brick and mortar business but understanding that we also face the challenges on that side. We understand that it is important to have that hybrid approach with everything you do is what I find successful. I never say to firms to take your whole team offshore, that would be silly but the hybrid approach of having people in-house, having people working from home, understanding that yeah, there's places for tech, there's not places for tech, there's places for the traditional legal infrastructure and there's also a place for the future of law and tech in law. So having that hybrid mindset around everything for me is a formula for success. What you've just said offers a really nice segue into us talking about the future of law firms with regard to tech and especially with AI. So Evan, I'm curious to know first of all why you see this as being such an important part of this broader conversation? Yeah. I mean we work every single day to try and make ourselves redundant. Not purposely but we see that happening one day. As much as right now the future of law firms is in remote talent, I also think in 10, 15 years it may not be about remote talent either. It may jump the loop straight to well, we've got this piece of software or this tech that can transcribe a whole conversation in one minute perfectly or we've got this tool that prepare the file in three minutes. So these types of tools may make not only the remote staff redundant but also the local staff to some respect. Again, as much as we don't want that. So we're spending a lot of the time now in that space. We've already got one legal tool that's coming out in the next couple of months that we've been working on quite a bit which is sort of a holistic approach to optimising law firms and it's something that we just think is going to happen. We love being disruptors. We think it's going to disrupt somewhat just as we already have with what we do now with York Hamilton. The law industry, it needs your professionals to do their work and everything under that needs to be done whether remotely or through a system or piece of software. Further to the question I asked you a little bit earlier, how receptive do you think law firms and their leaders are right now to some of these automation questions and certainly with the adoption of AI? Like with remote talent, there is the hesitancy around change and adopting new methods of working but I think it's, again, being disruptors, we don't have an issue with that. We know that the path to changing and making impact is disrupting something. So there is going to be a bit of back and forth but I believe it's already happening now with certain pieces of software within the legal industry. Ten years ago, no one was using certain tools. Now 95% of firms are using those tools. Accounting firms, 20 years ago, no accounting firm had offshore staff. Now 93% of them use offshore staff. So it's one of those things that you're going to need to do this. It's just financially in terms of scaling, optimizing, being more efficient, taking on more work. If we look at advertising, for example, before Facebook ads or advertising was a method, more people were doing it obviously a very different way. There was billboards, there was radio, things change and it's fortunately or unfortunately going to go that way too. Yeah. And so Evan, based on what you're seeing out there in the markets and also based on the conversations you're having on the ground, do you have any predictions for what the future of law firms in Australia will look like? Obviously, there's been so much change in the last five years. Do you think that in another five years' time, things are going to look radically different to what they do today? Yeah, I do think so. Looking now, it's more the younger adopting firms really taking on board tech and offshoring and going in that direction. I said it before, the hybrid approach. The hybrid approach I think will be really successful where you've got your in-house lawyers, let's call them, really taking on the high-level work that a robot, a person, a paralegal overseas may never be able to have the skills to do that, nor would you want to because obviously having a remote person or having a piece of tech, they can't appear in court, they can't sign off documentation. So there's limitations. So I think the hybrid approach of having that high-level in-house person, having that talent offshore, having the tech and software involved in your firm, that hybrid approach for me needs to happen. I don't think in five years, there's going to be one lawyer with an AI tool running 20 files a day. I don't think that's ever going to happen, or maybe in 20 years, but definitely not in five. But I think that hybrid approach, the quicker companies can adopt that, the quicker they will see growth or optimisation. Evan, just two more questions for you, and this kind of requires you to, I guess, bring everything together that we've been discussing, but why do you think that law firms and their leaders should be excited about these changes with offshoring and automation rather than being afraid of it? Well, ultimately, it's going to make their life easier. I highly believe that. I've seen it in a lot of other industries because starting with York Hamilton, we worked across a few industries. So we've seen it already really making huge impacts, same should apply for law firms. It's going to make their lives easier if they adopt it and take it with both hands. Sometimes I say to clients, I say, well, you're the issue. It's not the tool. It's not the offshore stuff. You need to adopt it. You need to accept it. You need to encourage that this is the way that it's going to succeed. And again, the benefits financially, the benefits in terms of scaling and optimising, you know, you can't even, we're not talking about five, 10% bottom line, cutting the bottom line. We're not talking about optimising a little bit. We're talking about big changes that can overnight change the way a firm operates. So the benefits are too far to not want something like this. Evan, for those listening who want to learn more about some of the options they can explore with remote talent, with automation and some of these other questions we've been discussing, how can they get in touch with yourself and with York Hamilton? Yeah, cool. We've got a website which is yorkhamilton.com, not au.com. You can find me on LinkedIn, Evan Kostopoulos, as well as the company page, with the other social medias. We're not that active on that. So yeah, if you can reach us at our website, happy to discuss how we can help you or give you some advice. Evan Kostopoulos, thank you so much for your time. And thank you to York Hamilton for its support of Lawyers Weekly. Thanks so much for having me, mate. We appreciate that. And thank you to the listener for tuning in. We hope you enjoyed this episode. We'll see you again next time. 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