TripleOKLaw Cushions Legal Service Provision Amidst COVID-19 Outbreak

While strategic leaders within law firms may not need to take a stance on the ultimate shape of an impending recession exacerbated by COVID-19 outbreak, which the World Health Organization recently declared as a global pandemic, they can in this age of automation embark on a deliberate mission that would help institutions and professionals to navigate exigencies resulting from the crisis. The journey starts with internal re-alignment.

In an interview with Kenyan based TripleOKLaw’s John Ohaga, Managing Partner & Co-Head of Dispute Resolution and Michael Michie, CIO at the firm providing legal services, in and out of court, during and after transactions, it emerged that there is need to be ready with targeted initiatives to keep the office seamless and stoke demand of the organization’s services.

Here’s an excerpt of the interview.

Considering your unique service that squarely hinges on providing legal services, in and out of court, during and after transactions, how has COVID -19 outbreak affected operations at TripleOKLaw?

OHAGA: There has been very little disruption to our routine operations as our infrastructure was already in place to allow us to work remotely. Every relevant member of staff at the Firm has been issued with a laptop and has access to our document management platforms as well as ERP which can be accessed from anywhere, anytime provided there is internet access.

TripleOKLaw was already on a digital transformation journey and the disruption by COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that the organization was on the right track by leveraging technology. However, the pandemic has meant that some of its project timelines be accelerated for the firm to remain on course with its digital transformation strategy.

What adjustments have you made as a company to navigate through the COVID-19 crisis?

MICHIE: One of the first adjustments we made was to move everyone to remote work, following this it was also essential to ensure that even while staff work from home their devices are still secured. We also had to take steps to reduce certain resources at the office that are not being utilized to the maximum such as the internet.

What are some of the obvious challenges that you are experiencing as you adjust in a bid to render your core services to the optimum?

OHAGA: The only real challenge as far as I am concerned is the ability of other parties to continue to work effectively and to collaborate with us in ensuring that there is continuity. This includes services provided by the Courts, Land and Companies registries and other law firms with whom we must collaborate in the course of our work.

To what extent has disruption by COVID-19 reconfigured the traditional working systems and hence demands your organization to accelerate deployment of digital transformation going forward?

MICHIE: The firm had already been on a digital transformation journey for some time and the disruption by the COVID-19 pandemic served to show that we were on the right track by leveraging technology. The pandemic has however meant that some project timelines had to be accelerated, we still remain on course with our digital transformation strategy.

Going forward, how should organizations prepare to quickly return to their businesses to operational health after the severe curfew and slow-downs compounded by COVID-19?

OHAGA: For businesses that invested in the necessary infrastructure and were quickly able to switch to remote working, the only difference between working pre-covid and during covid19 is the occupation of physical space to perform routine tasks otherwise it should be business as usual. For other businesses, it will obviously be a question of dusting off stalled projects and trying to jump-start the business from where we left off in the middle of March.

MICHIE: Businesses should realise that for most of them there is no going back to normal (pre-covid). The post-covid business will not be the same as pre-covid, currently there are a lot of significant changes been done across industries to cope with the pandemic some of these changes will become the new norm, old practices will have to die off. The best preparation is one that tries to leverage technology and the practices seen during this period. 

The COVID-health crisis has equally turned into a financial crisis owing to uncertainty about its magnitude and duration, how are you handling this situation to uphold business confidence in the organization?

OHAGA: Certainly, the inability to perform some tasks and the shut-down of many businesses has led to a potential financial crisis due to the inter-dependence of our business ecosystem. We are handling the situation by making sure that we meet our financial obligations to our employees, suppliers and other business partners as we consider trust to be an essential ingredient of any business relationship. Where we are unable to meet an obligation for any reason, we will make every effort to relay such information to the other party with an accurate as possible projection as to when we expect to be in a position to honour our obligation as this enables the other party to plan its affairs. We in turn expect to be treated in the same way by our clients and other business associates.

With the hindsight that businesses are exposed and therefore will need to act on broader resilience plans, what dramatic shifts will competitively change the corporate space going forward?

MICHIE: The lessons businesses will learn during this pandemic will not only reshape industries, workforce and economies but will also create new workforces and industries. Drastic changes to business resilience are an understatement, businesses will take resilience as seriously as they do profits. Businesses will now have to contend with a workforce that wants to work remotely, employees may desire to work where they have this option. Depending on the length of the pandemic there will be continued growth in businesses to seek skill over academic qualifications (something already being practiced by tech giants). The simplest competitive advantage any business could have is not to revert to business as usual after the pandemic is over.