Progressive Legal® - Australia

Attention all Australian Lawyers - Clio has just released their 2024 Legal Trends Report. It is perhaps their best one yet! The stats relating to AI and adoption are astounding. I'll post them shortly. In the meantime, the biggest shock to me was the results from their survey. They did this 5 years ago by engaging a 3rd party research firm to pretend to be legitimate enquiries of 1,000 law firms across the USA and the results were astounding. You would have thought that after 5 years, those statistics would have improved with greater technology and speed of communication. I was one of few optimistic people in the room to put my hand up that surely the statistics would have improved. I was wrong... Astonishingly, the statistics were not just worse, they were much worse! It's a travesty to think that this is actually happening out there on the ground when people are trying to engage with legal services. We're really trying to aim for access to justice but the stats are saying that's getting worse every year. Here are some mind-blowing stats: Percentage of law firms that didn't respond AT ALL to an initial email enquiry 2019 - 60%, 2024 - 67%! Percentage of law firms that answered their phone calls or called them back: 2019 - 73% 2024 - 52% Law firm provided clear next steps when contacted: 2019 - 28% 2024 - 18% Law firm referenced similar legal situations: 2019 - 27% 2024 - 2% The law firm provided rate information or overall cost when asked: 2019 - 27% 2024 - 18% 30% of return phone calls didn't even leave a voicemail! Most shoppers wouldn't recommend the law firms they contacted. So almost half of the law firms contacted didn't even answer or respond. And the research firm was pretending to be a legitimate enquiry for the services that the law firm offered. I was really shocked when the stats came out 5 years ago. I really would have thought that the stats would have changed for the better, especially with COVID pushing lots of firms to adopt technology. Unfortunately, these are really disappointing statistics. I know this is in the USA, but in Australia, we need to follow these trends to see what's probably coming. I'll put the link to the full report in the first comment. I really highly recommend that you download and read it. There's loads of interesting information. I'll do the interesting stats on AI shortly. I thought these were more important for the legal industry. Thanks Clio for conducting this survey again and for the fantastic report. #clio #cliocon #cliocon24 thanks Jack Newton and his team of Clions for another amazing conference!

I don't often post personal things on LinkedIn but I felt compelled to say a heartfelt thank you to Ian Aldridge and the team at Progressive Legal® - Australia who were kind enough to host my daughter for work experience last week. Throughout the week they encouraged her to ask questions, challenged her with research tasks and even included part of an article she wrote (with her permission!) in one of their own. The team made every effort to provide opportunities for her that they had wished for during their own work experience and also ensured that she felt welcomed and valued. What stood out to me most though was the surprise phone call I received at the end of the week - just to let me know how much they appreciated my daughter and give feedback on how well she conducted herself during the week. It was a pretty special opportunity to get a glimpse of my daughter's character through someone else's eyes and I can't tell you just how much I appreciated that call. There weren't too many law firms willing to take on a work experience student and I'm guessing there are even fewer lawyers willing to give up their time to provide feedback to the student's parents. So, from a proud and grateful mum, THANK YOU! If you treat your clients half as well as you treat your work experience students (and their parents), I know they are in good hands.