How Legal Research Tech can Improve Client Service in the Middle East

Boosting legal expertise is key for lawyers to improve client service, and is essential if you want to grow your business. However if you are a small firm or solo practice, conducting extensive case-by-case evaluations and research in order to advise your clients will strain your limited resources, and add costs that you cannot pass on to your clients.

In the Middle East, there is also the unique challenge of gathering the right legal research materials that are relevant and reliable. This requires additional analysis to ensure that all the latest information is captured, including how a law is implemented in practice. 

“It’s not the same as practicing law in the US or the UK where all legislation and governmental decisions are fully published in English and accessible to everyone very promptly (and) easily discoverable," says Senior Associate Christina Sochacki from middle east law firm Al Tamimi & Company.

How can you serve your clients better while still meeting your overall business objectives?  

One of the quickest ways to boost your legal expertise and optimize client service delivery is by accessing resources that enable lawyers to seamlessly retrieve the right legislative materials for their clients. 

Clients have become more savvy, demanding more lawyer accessibility and fixed fee or capped pricing structures. Equally, law firms are looking for better, more efficient processes in order to remain competitive, profitable and to enable continued growth, without over-burdening lawyers. 

The digital landscape has evolved so dramatically over the past few years and will continue to play an increasingly important role for law firms and corporations, as they turn to legal technology solutions to address specific challenges, such as research and legislation. Technology can have a radical impact on how well a law firm can support and service their clients. 

Expertise really matters. Having region-specific information at your fingertips is essential to effectively service corporate clients in the Middle East.  

Keeping abreast of authorities’ intentions and expectations about how to implement evolving regulatory requirements is particularly important when dealing with Arabic-to-English translations of the latest Middle Eastern legislation. Sometimes additional information is needed for governmental guidance documents in order to understand the context of certain rules.   

Technology Solutions such as Thomson Reuters Westlaw Middle East enable lawyers to retrieve middle east-specific legislative facts faster and improve client responsiveness.   

The Westlaw Middle East library of legal research tools continues to grow, with over 180 translated legal documents uploaded in just the last six months, covering nine middle eastern countries. English translations of legislation gazettes are automatically uploaded, so lawyers do not have to spend their time searching for or commissioning translations.  

Westlaw Middle East is supported by a team of bilingual, legally-qualified content managers based in Dubai. The editorial team are led by Nadim Al Jisr, and collectively have over 20 years experience with MENA case law and legislation as well as translating official legal materials from Arabic to English. 

 You can access a free trial of Westlaw Middle East to help you serve your clients better

Read more about ways you can boost your legal expertise in Thomson Reuters' special report, 10 Ways to Boost Your Legal Expertise for Optimal Client Service .