Join UniCourt’s Conversation on Growing Your Law Firm Amid Uncertainty

2023 is proving to be a year of economic uncertainty industrywide, and the legal field is no exception. With firms experiencing slowing demand, rising expenses, and falling productivity, industry leaders are turning to new technology to give themselves a competitive edge. 

Following our previous Twitter Chats on Open PACER Data, Data Driven Business Development, Litigation Intelligence, Knowledge Management, and Improving Access to the Law, UniCourt’s next Twitter Chat will focus on how law firms can pursue growth amidst turbulent market conditions. 

Choppy Waters in the Legal Industry

Economic uncertainty abounds in 2023. According to the US Congressional Budget Office, we can expect stagnation, rising unemployment, and high interest rates. Real GDP is expected to grow by just 0.1%.

These challenging market conditions are impacting every industry across the country, and the legal field is no exception. New layoffs are being announced every day. 

Kirkland & Ellis, the world’s highest-grossing law firm, cut an unknown number of associates in various offices across the United States at the beginning of April. Cooley laid off 150 U.S. based lawyers and business personnel. Gunderson Dettmer just announced a 10% reduction in workforce. 

These are not isolated incidents, Goodwin Procter, Strooke & Strooke & Lavan, Davis Wright Tremaine, and Shearman & Sterling have all cut jobs this year. 

Cutting costs via a reduction in headcount appears to be the new trend. 

Choppy Waters: A Good Environment for Technology & APIs

Reducing headcount is not the only way to cut costs and increase profitability. 

Leading firms are outpacing macro challenges by reshaping their processes and leveraging technologies, such as APIs, to automate tasks, eliminate unnecessary steps, increase productivity, and decrease resource drain.  

APIs, or Application Programming Interfaces, enable law firms to weave together external litigation data with internal data on clients and matters, while also helping them avoid manual data entry and improve accuracy.

There are a large variety of use cases for APIs in the legal space — increasing client acquisition, expanding share of wallet opportunities, informing litigation strategy, and automating docket management, to name a few. 

All That Glitters Isn’t Gold

Not all APIs are made equal. Some APIs are more difficult to integrate, others require a lengthy time-to-production window, and some API vendors don’t offer adequate IT support.  

They don’t all provide high quality data either. Data offered by some API vendors may be outdated, badly organized, or incomplete. Any strategic decisioning that’s based on such data will likely lead to unintended, even negative, results. 

Law firms must determine which API vendors offer an easy-to-integrate, comprehensive solution that delivers high quality data in real-time. 

The good news is that we’ve made it easy for firms to distinguish the gold from the pyrite.

The UniCourt Enterprise API is the gold standard — it is LegalTech’s only API-first suite that is easy to integrate, delivers real-time updates, and automates the discovery and delivery of structured state and federal court data.  

Join UniCourt’s Twitter Chat

To learn more about pursuing growth with legal data and APIs, join UniCourt’s Twitter Chat on April 12th from 12-1 pm EST and engage in the conversation with the hashtag #UniCourtChats.

Here’s a preview of some of the questions and subjects we’ll touch on:

• What are some of the key trends impacting the legal industry as we navigate economic uncertainty?
• What are the biggest challenges law firms face when pursuing growth amidst economic uncertainty?
• How can law firms leverage APIs and legal data to pursue more effective growth strategies? 
• How can law firms differentiate between high quality API solutions and inferior offerings?
• How important is it for law firms to leverage both internal and external data sources to maintain a competitive advantage in the legal marketplace?

We want to hear from you! If there are any questions you want us to ask or topics you think we need to cover in our Twitter Chat on Growing Your Law Firm Amid Uncertainty, please send them to our Contact Us page or DM us at @UniCourtInc.

Make sure to follow UniCourt on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for more updates!

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