In 2020, we launched our first-annual Savvy Survey on Training in the Legal Industry. It had been in the works since 2019 and we were very excited to launch it. However, we also had to recognize that we were launching it in a very strange year, when just about every business function was being impacted in big and small ways by a global pandemic.

Therefore, we launched the survey in November 2020 and, simultaneously, launched a tandem survey about the impact of COVID on training in law firms. Participants were prompted to take the COVID survey after completing the main survey and a good percentage of people did so.

We are getting ready to launch results from the main survey (stay tuned!), but we wanted to share some of the key findings from the COVID Impact survey.

We’re grateful to everyone who submitted their responses and we hope these findings provide interesting insights – and make you feel less alone in the challenges you have faced in the last year!

1. How would you describe the barriers your firm faced when transitioning to working remotely?

Some additional comments we received on this question:

• Having enough laptops to provide to employees.
• People expecting their office experience to be identical. We actually had an attorney request to have a big MFP moved to his house. That and the excessive requests for home equipment that were expensive chairs, gaming keyboards etc. Sorry, as the home user you can foot that bill.
• We were in the midst of getting ready for a major software implementation which meant no hands-on, live classroom training.
• Training new employees that have never been in the office or met various individuals.
• Just the quick turn-around needed to get fully office people ready to work remote, which took 1 to 5 hours per person x 100+ people.

2. Has the focus on training in your law firm decreased, increased or stayed the same through these changes?

3. Are you more comfortable with remote training today than you were a year ago?

4. Was the firm compelled to upgrade any of its technologies due to COVID?

5. Which systems did you upgrade or migrate to during COVID?

Do you have any great stories about how remote training saved your firm from COVID fiascos? Did you provide trainings to help people get set up at home, or to work more efficiently with your document management system? Any other great ideas that you’d like to share (even anonymously)? Email us with your story! info@SavvyTraining.com.