A recent ABA survey documenting the rise of telecommuting polled more than 850 attorneys and reports:
- 71% of ABA members surveyed telecommute
- Of those, 88% perform remote work from home
- 32% in hotels
- 21% in others’ offices
- 14% in public places such as libraries or courthouses
- 12 % in coffee shops and cafes
- A significant portion of that work being performed remotely is legal research (35%)
This last statistic is consistent with the type of work that is most successfully and efficiently performed remotely.
Attorneys are comfortable undertaking more rudimentary tasks like legal research and legal writing outside the "office" because it is background work that will later be integrated into a larger whole.
For the same reason, these are the types of work that are also most successfully outsourced to project-based, contract attorneys.
The foundation of legal outsourcing is apparent in the types of work attorneys are already comfortable having performed outside the office.
