Episode 282 6 Small Firm Legal Trends to Watch in 2025
Welcome to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. What if you could hang out with successful women lawyers? Ask them about growing their firms, managing resources like time, team, and systems, mastering money issues, and more. Then take an insight or 2 to help you build a wealth generating law firm. Each week, your host, Devina Frederick, takes an in-depth look at how to think like a CEO, attract clients who you love to serve and will pay you on time, and create a profitable, sustainable firm you love.
Intro:Devina is founder and CEO of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, and her goal is to give you the information you need to scale your law firm business from 6 to 7 figures in gross annual revenue so you can fully fund and still have time to enjoy the lifestyle of your dreams. Now here's Devina.
Davina:Hello, and welcome back to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. I'm so glad you're joining me today, and I trust you had a wonderful New Year celebration and break from work. Here in Colorado, my husband and I spent much of the day curled up on our couch with our English bulldog. And we did manage to squeeze in a short hike on a trail nearby and enjoy a delicious dinner that he made, with filet mignon and mushrooms and cream sauce. Followed by dark chocolate flourless torte.
Davina:It was delicious. It was a great way to start the new year. And if you're like me, you probably have been thinking a lot about 2025 and your vision for your law firm for this year and beyond. Perhaps you've even taken time to do some planning as I have. If you haven't yet, I invite you to schedule a call with me and I'll share with you some options for how we can work together to help you develop a custom 2025 law firm growth plan for your law firm.
Davina:I'll drop the link down in the show notes so you can just click on that and schedule time with me. Today's topic is a hot one right now, but a lot of what I'm seeing about legal trends in 2025 has been focused on larger national and international firms, not solo and small firms. Topics like setting up an AI department and hiring a lot of employees or investing in diversity, equity, and inclusion departments and programs. Those are just a couple of examples. So for people who own small firms, we likely will not be hiring the whole department of people to manage trending developments.
Davina:But we still need to be aware of these trends and make decisions that could affect our law firms for years to come. Really thinking about how we're gonna follow these trends in our own law firm. So to that end, I thought I'd share my point of view about which legal trends we should be paying attention to in 2025. And how as small law firm owners we can incorporate these into our businesses appropriate. So legal trend number 1 on my trend list is AI because quite frankly, it seems like it's all anyone wants to talk about these days.
Davina:So whether you wanna use artificial intelligence or not, you likely are being forced to. Consider for example example that Google and Meta have already built all AI into their products as have legal search engines like Lexus and Westlaw. And if your case management software doesn't yet have some AI features like Mycase and Clio do for example, then know that they soon will. You may not yet be able to write a high quality legal brief, let's say, with AI, but I suspect the day is coming soon. In the meantime, it can help with research, marketing, training, document review, contract analysis, billing, planning, and many other tasks that you may or may not have considered.
Davina:If you have not yet spent a little time digging into AI tools and learning how to use them, I encourage you to do so. Not only because it can improve your law firm's efficiency and make life easier for you and your team, but also you can have informed discussions around AI and about AI and really create good policies for your law firm because you're gonna need them. Ones that keep you out of trouble with the clients and the bar and the courts. So really focus on that. Legal tree number 2 is more and better automation to make it easier and more efficient for us to do our work.
Davina:In the last few years a plethora of new legal automation software has hit the market and significantly changed how law firms do business. Much of this was spawned from the 2020 COVID 19 pandemic, which created the need for law firms to continue business as usual without appearing in person in the court, in office or during consultations or client meetings. So when I started my virtual practice back in 2011, I did so with an email, a laptop, and a cell phone. And today there are thousands of tools to help support virtual work from anywhere law firms. So tools like Calendly or Qd scheduling for online scheduling, decisionbot for seamless intake, Zoom and Teams for video conferences and virtual meetings, Slack and Teams for internal communication with remote team members, Dropbox, OneDrive for cloud storage, and of course automated case management systems.
Davina:These are just a few examples of what we have now, but we're gonna start to see more of that. Even if we begin to creep back to the office, I think tools like these and the new ones that we haven't even considered yet will continue to play a significant role in in thought technology. As long as lawyers desire to serve more and better clients without grinding themselves into the ground in the process, Software companies and developers will cater to these needs. And I don't see this slowing down anytime soon. Legal trend number 3 is the rise in outsourcing.
Davina:As more and more solos and small firms choose not to work for others, so they can maintain more control over their schedules, I predict will become increasingly difficult for law firms to grow by hiring traditional employees. The work still needs to be done and this is gonna lead to number 1, use of more automation tools. Number 2, outsourcing work to contractors, whether that's staff or lawyers, for the work that AI can't do. The lawyers who want to work full time will likely be drawn to serve larger law firms with higher salaries, more benefits. And lawyers who wanna work for small firms will likely eventually gravitate to work starting their own law firm, and many will build a lifestyle business around contracting for other lawyers and small firms.
Davina:And I think this trend is driven in large part by, of course, the aftermath of the pandemic when people discover they love not being chained to a desk at the office, but also by social media which perpetuates this belief that we can have our international travel and our big paychecks too without the 9 to 5 grind. So for these employees there will be a continued trend toward remote or at least hybrid work with the flexibility to set your own schedules as much as possible. I also think this will give a basis to legal trend number 4, which is that we will continue to see a more diverse population of law firm owners, which I think is a wonderful thing. Social media like the Internet and the websites before it have leveled the playing field because we no longer need to have a vast marketing budget to compete with more prominent firms in our region. We can use free tools like organic social to reach a larger audience with a direct connection to our law firms.
Davina:We can easily find and attract our ideal clients if you know how to build community and social on social media and then convert that community into clients. Starting a law firm on a shoestring budget is also easier than ever. Once you have your law degree in hand all it takes is a smartphone, a laptop, and a social channel and you are started. So we're gonna see a lot more of that and I'm really excited about it. Legal tree number 5 is the division of clients into haves and have nots.
Davina:We already have this. There's a wellspring of legal automation products that cater to clients who need a lawyer but cannot afford 1 and do not want to pay high legal fees, particularly for transactional matters like estate planning, contract review, formation, trademarks, copyright, and for family law matters like prenups and divorce. So think of companies like LegalZoom, Hello Divorce, DivorceRider, Hello Prenup, Rocket Lawyer, LegalShield, these types of companies, and I think we'll see more. Law firm owners who wanna compete in this market will likely find themselves failing because quite frankly, solos and small firms do not have the marketing and advertising budget to compete in this high volume game. So instead, we'll start to see more solos and small firms positioning themselves either as boutique law firms serving a particular niche market of high net worth individuals or businesses that desire more personalized time and attention, or as litigators who aren't afraid to go to court and fight for your rights, whether that's criminal, personal injury, divorce, business litigation, real estate litigation, or something else.
Davina:Solos and small firms that want to stand out will find a way to use automation to attract a a generation that's grown up while still providing the upscale experience that they've come to expect. Legal trend number 6 is leveraging social media, search engines, and online communities to attract ideal clients so that solos and law firm owners, number 1, do not have to show up in person when they already feel crunched for time. Number 2, cast an even wider net and become more visible. And number 3, outsource work to agencies while still maintaining a person to person brand. Previously, solo and small firms had to devote much of their time to in person networking, chamber, and bar association lunches, and weekly business networking meetings, and in person speaking engagement.
Davina:And while we're still seeing some of this, I think we will continue to trend more toward online content marketing and paid online advertising. How that content will look in the coming years, may change as online platforms and social media, they constantly evolve. Still, even as we crave more one on one time with people we love, we wanna spend less time engaging in activities that do not make us feel fulfilled and joyful. So what trends are you noticing in the legal field? I'd love to hear more about them.
Davina:Follow Wealthy Woman Lawyer on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or YouTube, and share your thoughts in the comments of this episode. I hope you've enjoyed this week's episode of the wealthy woman lawyer podcast. If you have, please visit our Apple podcast app and leave us a review. The Apple algorithm, as I'm sure you know, loves that and it helps other women lawyers to hear the content we've created specifically for women law firm owners. Also, if you'd like to book a call with me to discuss how Wealthy Woman Lawyer may be able to help you scale your law firm business in 2025 and roll in some of these legal trends, then I've provided a link in the show notes for you to do just that.
Davina:Thanks for listening.
Intro:If you're ready to create more of what you truly desire in your business and your life, then you'll want to visit us at wealthywomanlawyer.com to learn more about how we help our clients create wealth generating law firms with ease.
