Breakthroughs in legal technology have helped paralegals modernize how they complete their duties and responsibilities. Platforms like entity management software have helped paralegals at leading law firms or as members of in-house corporate counsel complete their duties with speed, efficiency, and proficiency.
Automated solutions like legal entity management technology are enabling some of the growing paralegal trends. Today’s paralegals can use these solutions to reduce the abundance of clerical and administrative tasks on their respective work plates.
In turn, they can use the time that they save on these important entity management tasks to contribute to growth in ways that directly impact the bottom line of the business. Let’s look into how legal technology is impacting growing paralegal trends and the relationships that legal support teams have with their respective businesses.
What is the outlook for the paralegal jobs market?
Here’s some promising news for aspiring paralegal talent. The government of Canada forecasts that 18,900 paralegal job openings will be made available between the years 2022 and 2031. Additionally, data suggests that 20,500 trained paralegals will be in the market to fill those vacant positions.
The data also breaks down the expanding job market using provincial considerations. For Canadian paralegals, the provinces of Manitoba and Quebec have very good job prospects for paralegal talent. Alberta, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador also show promising opportunities for paralegal professionals.
Paralegal trends that benefit from intuitive legal technology
Now, let’s look at the legal trends that impact paralegal workforces. As you build talent acquisition strategies to attract the most skilled paralegal workers, make sure that you have systems in place to help simplify their workloads. Today’s paralegals embrace innovation, so demonstrating your embrace of innovative technology will help your firm stand out.
Here are the biggest emerging trends that matter most to paralegal professionals. Legal technology, such as intuitive solutions like entity management software, will improve paralegal productivity across each of these emerging legal trends.
Faster electronic filings
Many law firms and corporate counsel have insisted upon electronic filing, or e-filing, of important legal records and documents for many years. Health protocols over the past three years enforced lockdowns and remote work mandates on a global scale, accelerating this shift to e-filing of legal records.
Using e-filing solutions like entity management software, paralegals can e-file incorporation documents without ever leaving the platform. Gone are the days when legal talent must visit government offices to manually complete the filing process. Simply create the filing record within the platform, and the registration process is automatically completed on your team’s behalf.
Automated document management
Paralegal professionals spend the bulk of their time on clerical and administrative work. Creating, filing, sorting, documenting, and updating minute book records is a necessary process to protect the legal interests of clients and your firm. But it’s a tedious workflow that cannibalizes the time of your legal talent, and that time could be used in more productive ways.
Using platforms like entity management software, the documentation process is entirely streamlined and automated. The platform uses logic-based systems to create and modify legal documents with additional bodies of text or sensitive client data. The automated nature of the platform transforms document management into a more efficient workflow that saves valuable working hours for your legal team.
Improved client communications
Clients have an abundance of questions about their legal matters. Addressing client concerns and providing satisfying answers to probing questions is an important aspect of any paralegal’s job. Faster and more concise answers alleviate client concerns and increase satisfaction rates.
Legal technology like cloud-based entity management software enables your legal team to provide faster, efficient, and straightforward service to your clients. Since the platform is cloud-based, anyone with administrative credentials can access the records from any location.
No longer must your paralegals coordinate time in multiple calendars to schedule meetings about minute book records. If clients have questions, simply open the platform and virtually guide them to the record in question. Your team can provide direct answers and satisfy client concerns, which will go a long way towards helping you earn repeat business from those clients.
Efficient administrative workflows
The average law firm across Canada and the United States operates with fewer than three full-time employees. This limited headcount means paralegals are often responsible for managing office administration tasks to help the firm function from day to day.
Using entity management software, your firm will drastically reduce the number of physical minute book records stored in the office. With fewer paper files on-hand to manage, paralegals can streamline their office administrative workflows and dedicate more time towards client-facing duties that support the financial and reputational growth of the firm.
Use legal technology to hire the best paralegals at your firm
When growing your firm, you want to hire only the best and brightest legal talent to represent your interests to clients. Obviously, this expectation applies to the lawyers and partners who will oversee various cases. But high expectations for talent extends to the paralegals and legal support staff who will assist lawyers with those cases.
Give your firm a leg up by using legal entity management technology like MinuteBox to show paralegals that your firm:
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Embraces innovation
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Encourages efficiencies
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Supports career-mapping
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Makes legal workloads fun
Join the MinuteBox revolution today and give your paralegals an efficient and innovative approach to modern entity management.