Managing Partner – ANZ Partners, Pakistan
1. How has the Covid-19 crisis affected the way you work as a lawyer? What are the key positives and negatives that have emerged out of lockdown?
Initially, there was no litigation work during lockdown whereas in-house advisory work was operational and everyone was working from home to meet the deadlines. The positive thing that emerged from the lockdown is that people are now accepting that work can be done from home or meetings can be conducted online – not everything has to be done after meeting in person. A lot of organizations have developed their software to work online. A lot of people are not familiar with the technology or the ways to use computers to work most efficiently or to mark their presence online, I believe that is the only negativity I observed after lockdown was lifted.
2. Will you and your firm/company continue to use flexible and agile working in the future? Will you reduce the size of your physical office space?
Yes. It would be ideal to work from home and minimize the size of physical office space. We are looking forward to it.
3. How have you employed legal tech during the crisis? What has been successful and what has been lacking?
We already had an online setup for meetings with international clients so, as per tech, it was not an issue for us. What we lacked is firm software to further streamline our work online.
4. How do you see the advancement of legal tech affecting the legal industry in the next 10 years?
It is more acceptable amongst the lawyers community and I have observed the introduction of E-Courts during the pandemic. In the next 10 years, I see a lot of advancement in legal tech which shall support and help a lot of lawyers and the public at large.
5. Has your firm/company changed its remuneration structure during the crisis? Will the firm/company consider using a “Keystone” fee-sharing or hybrid remuneration model in future?
During the lockdown, we changed our fee structure to keystone – although we aim and propose to adopt the best option through which our staff can get maximum benefit.
6. Name one key thing that will be different in the legal profession in 10 years time.
E-Courts and working online will be a key feature that I believe will be in Pakistan, especially wherein a majority population is uneducated and not very familiar with the technology.