TLOMA Today

Hello and Welcome! To begin, I will introduce my inaugural, albeit technically unofficial, TLOMA 2021 President's Message.

The calendar year may have changed, however 2021 has carried over many of the technical, personal and societal challenges wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic that dominated 2020. We find ourselves in another provincial lockdown, as parents extend their tenure as substitute teachers for their children, partners are becoming Michelin starred chefs in their own kitchens, while laptops and apps have become our personal trainers. That being said, we have become more comfortable on Zoom and Teams, though hopefully not so comfortable as to slip into the funny and disturbing Zoom faux pas of 2020. We have established our work from home routines, choosing the right background on Zoom or finding your favourite wall in the house; we also adjusted our in-office schedules, ensured masks were on hand with the cell phone and wallet and resisted the ever growing watch list on Netflix during work hours.

Despite the challenges ahead, I believe a return to an altered normalcy is in our near future, and with practiced patience, support of our essential workers and the anticipated vaccine, 2021 will be the year we pool our collective humanity in a bid to overcome the most challenging circumstance of our lifetimes. 

With eternal optimism and renewed vigor, I look forward to stepping into the position of President with the continued goal of building out TLOMA's membership, both in terms of size and diversity, to advance our networking capabilities and skill sharing, mentorship and support for all our members.

At this time I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Dawn Millar for her leadership this past year as TLOMA President.  I look forward to continue working with Dawn in her new role as Past President.  And a special thank you to Pamela Harris as our departing Past President for her dedication and hard work over the past three years. 

I would like to introduce to you the Incoming 2021 Board of Directors, SIG Leaders and Conference Chair; the new Board Members will officially begin their roles at the corporate handover meeting on February 25, 2021.

Upcoming events:

TLOMA Facilities SIG - Future of the Legal Workplace, February 18^th
TLOMA General SIG - Part II - Diversity & Inclusion, February 26^th
TLOMA Finance SIG Event - March 4^th
TLOMA Technology SIG Event - Reflecting on the Law Firm of the Future - March 9^th
Virtual Networking Event - Build Your TLOMA Connections - March 11^th
TLOMA Human Resources Event - March 23^rd 
TLOMA Compensation – Survey Launch, April 7^th
Professional Development, April 15^{th
TLOMA Marketing SIG Event - Starting a Legal Podcast - April 29th} 

Please ensure you save the dates and register to these events.  Remember to check the TLOMA website for future events as well.

This is a New Year; renewed hope; new opportunities; new adventures; new way to give and love.  May this be your best year ever!

The Law Office Management Association (TLOMA) and Normandin Beaudry are pleased to officially invite you to participate in the 2021 edition of our compensation surveys.

This year, we are conducting the following surveys:

• Total Rewards Survey
  • Provides information on HR policies and practices, group benefits and pension plans.
• Business Services Compensation Survey
• Associate Compensation Survey

A quick and simple experience

Two additions to the 2021 edition which will allow you to complete the surveys quickly and simply:

• Compensation section
  • For the participants who completed the 2020 edition, your new questionnaire will include all the matches completed in the last survey which will save significant efforts during the matching process.
• Group Benefits and Pension sections:
  • Participants will only have to send Normandin Beaudry their group benefits and pension plan brochures along with their questionnaire. With the information received, those sections will be mainly completed by Normandin Beaudry’s experts.

Your experience, our priority

As usual, our main objective remains to offer a seamless participant experience, while providing high quality and reliable market data. This year again, the following features will be available:

• User-friendly questionnaires, including all the relevant information required for the participation
• Improved job level descriptions to simplify the job matching process
• Optimized report layouts
• Online secure platform from which you will be able to retrieve all the necessary documents to complete the survey and download the survey results

For more information about the surveys or to confirm your participation, please contact Normandin Beaudry at tloma@nbac.ca. You may also refer to the 2021 TLOMA Compensation Surveys Pricing Structure for more information.

Finally, we would like to invite you to subscribe to the online survey launch session on April 7, 2021, at noon via the following link:

Normandin Beaudry will present the content covered by each survey and provide tips on how to complete the surveys efficiently.

We look forward to your participation! 

Compliance Regulations have been with us for what seems like an eternity, changing a little and impacting a lot.

Who would have thought one of the most impactful changes would be COVID-19, and the way we have to work, not within the regulations, but around archaic processes.

Regulations such as ISO, GDPR and SOC 2 have not changed in the COVID-19 era - what they have done is make us all more acutely aware of our processes, processing arrangements, what is necessary and what is not.

One area in particular the current climate has seen an increase in, is the use of Electronic Signatures, or ‘e-signatures’.

E-Signatures & COVID-19

In this current climate, now that everyone is trying to conduct business in the cloud and with physical signatures being (almost near) impossible to enforce, the use of the e-signature has come into its own.

With travel restrictions unlikely to be lifted any time soon, businesses and individuals need to adapt and find alternative means of signing documents and contracts, with companies also needing to ensure their employees can access e-signed documents remotely.

Although large companies have embraced the use of e-signature technology, SMBs are not far behind, and more and more have joined the 'e-signature revolution' to help streamline workflows, increase productivity, and reduce costs.

According to Finances Online, the e-signature software market is one of the fastest-growing markets in the world; there is an 80% reduction in turnaround time using an e-signature document, and the time difference between using an e-signed document versus a traditional signed document is 37 minutes, versus 5 days! 

Compared to the traditional pen-and-paper approach, e-signatures are easier to use and offer considerable cost and resource savings and a much faster turnaround.

The Legal Sector

The legal sector is one industry that has seen a significant increase in the use of e-signatures, with remote contract signings becoming a “must-have” rather than a “nice-to-have”. Many law firms have updated their policies around e-signatures, however, using an electronic signature does depend on any relevant legislation, regulatory requirements within the specific practice area, and the type of document being signed or executed.

Pre COVID-19, most businesses had a credible plan, however, plans are only as good as their test, and COVID-19 has tested us all in many different ways-

• How we were conditioned to work at a set location
• Handling paperwork
• Requiring clients to be in person evidencing who they are
• Witnessing their signature
• Filing the paperwork and
• Sending receipts by carrier pigeon?!

Additional practical considerations such as, not all documents can be signed electronically, and witnessing the signing of a document - given that a witness may not be able to be in the room physically, is it enough to witness it over a video link? are things that still need to be taken into consideration.

We are all creatures of habit and have been forced to make some radical life and business altering decisions during this current climate.

An Introduction to E-Signatures E-Book

Document Automation consultants DocGovern, in conjunction with PandaDoc, have put together this e-book, ‘An Introduction to Electronic Signatures’ outlining all you need to know about e-signatures. From what they are used for and how you create one, to how legal they are. It also outlines the regulations in the US and the EU around them.

There's no doubt the legal sector relies heavily on vast amounts of documentation and the time and cost savings for implementing e-signatures are evident - could they become the norm across the legal industry? The jury's out...

While COVID-19 has changed the nature of the opportunities to empower your practice, it has not changed the basic premise that has and will always be the driver of growing your practice – exceptional client relationships.

To reach this conclusion we need to shift perspective and look at the provision of legal services through the “eyes” of your clients.

The following are the four key perspectives of their value proposition that they see the services you provide through:


1. Price – perceived cost – benefit
2. Time – speed of your response
3. Service – how I am made to feel
4. Quality – how I see your product

It is important to remember that the weighting of the individual perspectives is dynamic and not static, often changing from matter to matter. The change in the weighting is often a result of the strategic and / or emotional importance that the client places on the matter.

In all the various value proposition combinations the one constant is SERVICE because in many ways it is the easiest that can be discerned by clients.

In a real sense the only complexity to exceptional client service is failure to execute. The failure stems in most cases from not having connected the following:

Irrespective of pandemic or non-pandemic times the four pillars upon which exceptional client relationships is founded on are:

1. Know your client

• Understand your client’s business
• Collaboratively identify their needs and solutions for them
• Use social media to learn personal details of your clients

2. Connect with your client

• Timely return of their phone calls, emails, and texts
• Keep your client informed of breaking news that may impact them
• Attend client internal meetings at no charge

3. Appreciate your client

• Make sure bills are accurate, reflect value of services rendered and are in a format agreed to by the client
• Let clients know what tasks can be done better or cheaper by others
• Never waste your client’s time

4. Listen to your client

• Ask them what success is from their perspective on a matter
• Engage active listening skills – can only be done when you are not talking
• Ask clients how often they want to receive communication on the matter AND in what preferred format

Just because you are not currently able to do some of these things in person does not mean you can not nurture these professional relationships.

So, what are some of the things you can do in the current pandemic (and, afterwards) to strengthen your client relationships?

While I am not advocating that you must do all of them to have exceptional relationships (you still must practice law and earn a living) some combination of the activities listed can serve you well:

• Attend professional and industry virtual events and reach out to clients afterwards to discuss their take on the event
• Schedule periodic video social meetings with clients and always lead with personal sharing
• Engage in virtual speaking opportunities and advise clients of the event and invite them to participate and if they cannot share the materials afterwards
• Place periodic phone calls to clients (especially those not inclined to the use of video conferencing)
• Utilize social media to both follow clients and share trends and developments in their areas of interest
• Renew / touch base with acquaintances / colleagues / classmates who are potential referral sources
• Repurpose thought leaders’ content to clients that may be useful to them (it maybe someone else’s content but clients remember who shared it with them)
• Sponsor or co-sponsor virtual events (even with clients) – bigger “bang for the buck” as significantly less expensive than sponsoring in-person events
• Invite clients to virtual “cocktail” events – consider delivering refreshments to them so they feel compelled to participate
• Create your own YouTube platform for informational videos on various areas of expertise or services offered by you and your firm
• Confirm the contact information for all your clients with them and make sure the firm’s mailing list reflects this information

One of the unintentional side benefits of working on creating exceptional client relationships in the era of COVID-19 is that it may be good for your own mindset and wellbeing.

The simple truth of business development during a pandemic is captured by the following phrase “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” - Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated in terms of intensity and expanded its global reach. Full or partial lockdown measures are now affecting almost 2.7 billion workers, representing around 81 per cent of the world’s workforce.”

ILO Monitor, 7 April 2020[1]

It seems to me that when the global COVID-19 pandemic hit – hard and suddenly – the first response stage in most law firms can reasonably be described as “survival mode”. Firms needed to ensure that they enabled work to continue by any means to ensure service deliverability and maintain a revenue stream. This simply meant that firms extended their internal network to facilitate home working. This is a remote working model, wherein the firm is still hosting applications on its own servers, resources are displaced, and lawyers and staff are still logging on, likely using a VPN link that provides access to applications and data just as if they were in the office. It’s “remote working” because people are working remotely from a hub. So the firm’s IT network is extended, but essentially unaltered.

The empty office

Then the pandemic subsided somewhat, only to surge back again, and again. In that over-used phrase, living with the pandemic had become “the new normal”. We’re at that stage now, which means that it’s now timely for every law practice to have a long think about where their firm has arrived at. Specifically, I encourage you to go to the firm’s offices and conduct some reflections there. Walk the corridors, sit in the boardroom, and – if you still can – take a seat at your desk.

Admire the artwork, the richness of the wood, the view, the ambience. Then take a deep breath, listen to the silence, and know that the firm is still delivering services to its clients; that business is still taking place right now; that revenue is being earned – even though the office is empty. Given this reality, your next thought has to be: “What, therefore, is the value of this physical office space to the firm?” Then ask yourself: “How can we evolve from here?”

A traditional profession

Here’s the thing. Law is a deeply traditional profession. Many law firms – old and not so old – habitually construct offices to reflect a traditional view of the profession. Offices underscore the firm’s credibility and stability by being solid, ample, and located at a prestigious address. They also matter to individual lawyers because they’re still a status symbol. And let’s not forget the practical value of offices. Lawyers don’t just turn up, work, and then go home. Offices are where people talk to each other and exchange information that progresses their work. As well, they’re where team cohesion is built; where friendships, loyalty and belonging develop; and where the firm’s wider culture is nurtured. These things aren’t nothing, but what we have to reflect upon now is: What are they actually worth? Do they justify the often exorbitant cost of maintaining office space and can the benefits be replicated by other means?

Moreover, there’s no evidence that there’s a decline in productivity when people work from home. In fact, the opposite is the case. For instance economists Nicholas Bloom (Stanford University), Jose Maria Barrero (Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico) and Steven J Davis (University of Chicago) surveyed 15,000 Americans over several waves of the pandemic, and concluded in a December 2020 paper[2] that post-pandemic working from home could raise productivity by as much as 2.4%. This is the game changer.

Actively rethinking the future

So how we should evolve from here? To me it suggests that firms need to be actively reimagining how the future will look and how they can reconfigure and reengineer the workplace. It suggests to me that firms should now think about evolving to operate a hybrid, technology-enabled model. The goal should be to achieve flexibility, maintain productivity and at the same time, maintain social cohesion. This model is one where people will work from home (or anywhere for that matter) much of the time, but some office space, at least, is kept.

Where does technology fit in? To my mind, step one was extending the wires, as discussed above. Step two will be eliminating the wires altogether to create virtual workplaces supported by a whole different level of cloud-based technology. This involves eliminating the hub and putting new virtual technology stacks in its place.

We now have the cloud-based technology that fully enables the virtual office and eliminates the dependence on the physical hub at the same time as we have gained proof that it can work. Law firms should therefore now think long and hard about how they can evolve to take advantage of this moment. Always remembering that those who don’t evolve will likely sacrifice a great deal of competitive advantage to those who do.

If you would like more information on the subject, please join us for a TLOMA Tech SIG March 9^th at 12pm EST. Register here.

With the end of the pandemic slowly coming into view, what will it mean for the future of the workplace?

As organizations gradually emerge from crisis mode and look to the future, many are realizing that events this year have rapidly accelerated trends that had been slowly developing over the preceding decades. Perhaps the most significant of these has been the mass transition to home working. This forced experiment has largely been seen as a success, with recent studies indicating that most people now want to come in the office 2-3 days a week and work from home the rest of the time.

It’s likely that organizations wanting to keep their employees engaged will now need to provide more choice over where people work and when, to suit their work activities and other commitments. This will impact the size of workspaces and how they are arranged.

Many businesses are considering a ‘hybrid’ model involving different spaces and more remote working. As well as enabling more flexibility, this could free up funds for new technology or supporting staff development and wellbeing. But would this approach work for you? And if so, how do you get there?

At a recent TLOMA Facilities SIG webinar, MovePlan’s Suki Reilly and Michelle Brown shared their thoughts on how businesses can plan and implement new ways of working. The process can be broken down into three key stages.

1. Assessment And Planning

The first stage should be based on a thorough workplace assessment, to help you understand where you’ve been, where you are and where you’re going.

As well as the central pillars of space and technology, the third crucial element that businesses need to consider is their people. Tools such as staff surveys, visioning sessions and focus groups can help organizations get an idea of how their employees are thinking. These will help you understand the appetite for change and bring people on board with your emerging plans.

For a more complete picture, firms should also gather hard data. Information from badge swipes and HR reports can provide insights into who is in the office and when, for example. In addition, you could consider industry benchmarking standards, departmental key performance indicators (KPIs), or carry out a SWOC (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges) analysis.

Another useful tool is a utilization study to drill down into exactly how workspaces are used. This examines not only whether someone is using a space, but how it is being used. If someone is sitting at a desk, are they doing heads-down work or speaking on the phone? If they are in a 20-person meeting room, is it full or are there just two people in a big space?

Drawing together information from these and other sources will help businesses develop a clear idea of what they need to do to enable their people to perform at their best.

2. Bringing About Change

Once you’re clear about your goals, the next step is taking the concrete actions needed to reach them. A live poll of our webinar attendees revealed a wide breadth of opinions on the biggest hurdles to realizing their workplace strategies, including collaboration, culture and leadership. How can businesses overcome challenges like these to implement successful change?

An effective approach will involve thinking about what needs to change at an organizational, departmental and individual level, and what the impact will be. So, if your aim is to create a more flexible and agile workforce, you may need to invest in technology to support that, such as online collaboration tools and cloud-based file-sharing software.

You should also actively engage with employees, offering them training in the new ways of working and explaining the reasons behind these. Change needs to make sense for your staff as well as the business – otherwise it won’t stick.

Techniques for ensuring good communication include newsletters, huddles, and discussions. And businesses could engage staff more deeply with their plans through activities such as virtual scavenger hunts based on a new workspace, or challenges centered around organizational goals. For one client, MovePlan recently utilized a Minecraft game experience to bring the new building to life.

Your planned changes may be large or small. But given the upheavals Covid-19 has caused, people are bound to feel uncertain. So, it’s important to involve everybody in the process, and be clear about what is and is not changing.

3. Sustaining And Reinforcing The New Way Of Working

Without clear guidance, people have a natural tendency to revert back to what they’re comfortable with. So, once you’ve created the working environment you want, you should continue to support it.

Keep your communications with staff consistent, make sure people have the tools they need, and provide ongoing training. With new technology, it can often help to identify ‘super-users’ who can help their peers make the most of new applications. Find out if there are any under-performing groups and focus on engaging with them. Equally, be sure to recognize and reward those who adapt well to new norms.

One way of looking at how the pandemic has brought about change is through the ‘unfreeze, change, refreeze’ model described by the psychologist Kurt Lewin. Amid the disruption, Covid-19 has helped free us from old ways of doing things and brought exciting opportunities. But once we’ve seized these, at some point we need to return to stability. This third stage is a time to establish new ways of working, while allowing room for growth.

As you navigate this process, it’s important to define success and how you’ll measure it. You could look at how many people attend your events, how satisfied your customers are, or how many people recommend your business to others, for example. However well you’re doing, you should review and adapt your approach on an ongoing basis. To ensure you’re taking your employees’ feedback into account, you could use more surveys, as well as guided discussions, virtual breakout rooms in Zoom meetings, or an internal or company microsite.

As our workplace culture evolves, finding the right balance between different approaches is a delicate process, and there’s no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution. But whatever strategy you adopt, it will require initiative and deliberate thought. So don’t wait around – it’s time to get started.