2023 Administrative Support Flash Survey

Market Overview: Administrative Support

Administrative support has been a challenged operational area for firms since before COVID. Firms have been steadily reducing staff focused on library & research, administrative, secretarial & word processing, and operations since 2017. The lawyer-secretary function as a relationship has been eroding for years; the lawyer-to-secretary ratio is expected to double to 13-1, and remote work is challenging firms' abilities to monitor, manage, and train staff. Legal secretaries are an aging (and well-compensated) pool of existing support staff, 20-40% of whom are expected to retire in the next five years and their replacements are becoming hard to find.

Because they either do not have capable support or do not have available support, almost half (47%) of lawyers have reported burnout from a heavier workload during the pandemic and have noted longer working hours caused, in part, by increased administrative duties.

Junior- and mid-level associates are the most affected (67%), citing heavier workloads and work-related responsibilities causing a decline in their well-being. Many of these administrative duties can and should be taken on by a more cost-effective resource, but instead, the current administrative model has unintentionally shifted these duties to associates, and firms are beginning to see the impact.

It should come as no surprise, then, that in 2023 and beyond, redesigning the support model for attorneys is one of the top 3 objectives for firms, industry-wide, according to the most recent data from Thomson Reuters. In 2022, our colleagues at BigHand surveyed over 800 law firm operations professionals to find that most firms (89%) have restructured administrative support.

We asked in this flash Survey, how successful are firms that have restructured and, conversely, how are firms doing that have not? Here is what they answered.

Read The Full Survey Report Here