There is an extraordinary opportunity right now for real estate law practices to redefine how they interact with clients, partners, and within their own office. This is critically important as technology continues to disrupt the real estate transaction. Behemoth technology and technology-inspired companies, such as Zillow, OpenDoor, and Redfin get most of the media attention, but their business models are so farremoved from small, boutique law practices that they are hard to draw inspiration from. Rather, it is up to agile, inventive, and tinkering attorneys to adopt and implement solutions-based tools to ensure that real estate law does not seem like an anachronism juxtaposed with the rest of the real estate transaction.
In the last couple of decades, there has been a steady evolution of real estate practices. There are still smatterings of the remnants of “the way things are done”. These attorneys expect title documents to be physically shipped to the office; they use facsimile as the primary method of official correspondence; and are ill-equipped to work remotely, particularly because their case files are physically located in the offices rather than on the cloud. The opposite spectrum of law practices have leveraged technology to enjoy additional freedom to work from anywhere, add efficiency to increase profit margins, and streamlined their client relationships to deliver a different level of service. Of course, most law practices fall somewhere between the two profiles. Although there were clear advantages to adopting technology, the gap between the two archetypes did not necessarily ‘make or break’ the practice.
But That' S The Way It' S Always Been Done.
In light of recent global health and social-economic disruption to businesses, the separation between technology-avoiding and technology-embracing law practices comes to prominence. Clients are much less flexible about meeting in person to sign a retainer agreement, when the same can be digitally signed. Meetings with potential realtor referrers are going to take place on videoconference much more frequently. While a subset of the population will desire to continue social distancing, the ability for a law practice to work remotely is going to impact which job opportunities talented paralegals and associates will take. If the real estate market does not regain the momentum of the pre-Covid decade, attorneys with online and social media marketing presences will have a leg up capturing market share.
The good news is - real estate attorneys are generally smart, and real estate practices are typically the right size to be nimble. Technology does not necessarily need to be an entire overhaul of the entire operation, but rather can be implemented incrementally. Perhaps embracing Docusign would be a low-cost (but high-impact to the client) first step. Moving a meeting or two onto Zoom or Google Meet can quickly establish comfort with these platforms. Creating a business Facebook account, and posting once a week about a real estate horror story (every lawyer has these) can be an easy task for a paralegal or office admin.
Your success is important to us. Our new office space in Millburn was selected with you in mind. Multiple, spacious conference room are available for your use. Our team has also developed an Attorney Partnership Program full of business resources to enhance and grow your business. Contact Victor Ng at ngvictor@clearskiestitle.com.
We’d love to hear how your office uses technology, and what impact its made on your practice. Better yet, we’d love to schedule a conversation with you (on Zoom, of course) to brainstorm different ways we can help introduce each other to new technology solutions.