Case Diligence in the Digital Era

For the legal industry, the pandemic has led to major challenges regarding how business is performed and how collaboration is managed when all meetings have to happen over a computer screen. Unfortunately, it has also caused some firms to fall behind with their due diligence.

It’s easy to let things like fact checking, client confirmations, research, and court details fall by the wayside, since most lawyers and legal professionals aren’t in the office anymore. However, doing your due diligence for all your cases is more important than ever before in this new, digitally-focused era.

The Challenges of Completing Cases from Afar

In truth, there are lots of challenges facing law firms these days:

• It’s tougher to get people to meet one another
• It’s harder to get new clients without meeting them in person
• Collaborating with partners and associates is more challenging without face-to-face meetings
• Transferring information using digital tools only invites user errors and issues

While these challenges are difficult, they’re not insurmountable. They’re also not an excuse for skipping over your case due diligence in industries like IT, mining, and more.

If your firm’s partners don’t do their due diligence with case facts, your next trials could shape up to be disappointments all due to simple errors that ought to have been caught beforehand.

Doing Your Due Diligence

Many law firms are discovering that it’s tough to do their regular investigative due diligence from afar. Some information simply isn’t available over the Internet, and others might find that meeting people for information is tougher when the appointment can be brushed off as a Zoom call than an in-person meeting.

You still need to discover investigative solutions that work for your upcoming cases. Hiring due diligence companies or other alternatives are all great ways to battle the difficulties surrounding remote-only work.

Communicate Frequently

It’s also important that you maintain excellent communication standards across your firm. Emails and chat systems like Slack are valuable resources that should be leveraged as often as possible to simulate the in-office environment. When ideas and communication are flowing freely, your cases will be more likely to be accurate and due diligence will be easier to confirm across your departments or partners.

Spend a Little More Time On Review

Some firms may choose to burn a little midnight oil and spend extra time on case review, dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s. This is time-consuming, but it often pays off in the long run when your cases are still solid, and when your firm doesn’t suffer because of preventable errors.

In some cases, this may mean spending extra time in video meetings going over case details and investigative findings with partners. In others, it might mean spending extra time with clients to get stories accurate and make sure court plans are solid. Regardless, spending as much time as possible on case review will go a long way toward ensuring that each case you take is a success.

COVID-19 is tough, but the challenges it presents are achievable for any law firm that refocuses on quality and remembers the importance of due diligence.