Why 91% of Lawyers Can't Find Skilled Staff - and What Tax Practices Are Doing

Research conducted by Robert Half found that 91% of lawyers and managers in law firms and legal departments face challenges finding appropriate staff. While there may be an abundance of candidates applying for positions at law firms, few possess the exact combination of skills, experience and knowledge to hit the ground running.

For law firms, that creates a difficult equation.

While client demand for legal services continues to accelerate, cases move forward, and key deadlines approach, attorneys cannot compensate for an understaffed team by simply working more hours.

Meanwhile, the related challenges facing tax and accounting practices are having to adapt to develop capacity in order to continue to grow.

They are investing in staff development for example by offering training and developing career paths for their staff members. Work can be reassigned and also automatized or even outsourced in order to make better use of the existing workforce.

This question, however, could be interesting for law firms as well.

The 91% Problem: Why Skilled Hiring Has Become So Difficult

The challenge in finding the right staff is not to find someone who does administrative work.

The challenge of finding someone who already understands the work.

A legal assistant with knowledge of case management software is often needed. A paralegal who can prepare discovery materials is needed by many firms. A billing specialist with knowledge of the firm’s legal billing software is required by some practices. An operations professional who can manage workflows across practice groups is also frequently needed.

These are not interchangeable roles.

When the right candidate is not available, there are a number of steps a law firm can take:

• Leave the position open

• Hire someone who requires significant training

• Increase the workload of existing employees

• Delay work or redistribute it across teams

• Automate portions of the workflow

• Outsource or delegate selected work

• Build an internal talent pipeline over time

Each option has its own implications regarding cost, quality, supervision and capacity.

Why Traditional Hiring Alone Isn't Solving the Problem

Traditional hiring assumes that necessary capacity can only be added by hiring another full-time employee, whether or not he or she will be working full-time.

For the time being, this could be an option if there is a long-term need for staff in this department.

It is further complicated when there is variability in the workforce’s usage over time.

Need 3 people for a period of several years to handle the litigation but that will be a period of several years and then 12 months later need none.

Similarly, a partner could be spending numerous hours each week on tasks and services which do not necessarily require the services of a lawyer.

The issue becomes one of capacity allocation.

The question isn't always:

"How do we hire another lawyer?"

Sometimes the better question is:

"Which parts of our current workload actually require a lawyer?"

What Tax Practices Are Doing Differently

Tax and accounting firms are facing their own talent shortage.

According to the 2026 State of Tax Professionals research from Thomson Reuters, even though talent shortage is an ongoing issue for tax practices, they are dealing with it by providing targeted training and career development for their professionals and in some cases outsourcing, reassigning tasks to others, automating tasks, etc.

It is interesting to note that the major shift to coping with the shortage of professionals in tax and accounting is not so much to try and find new staff, but to organize what capacity you do have in better ways.

They're treating it as a capacity problem.

That distinction is important.

Instead of asking only how many people they need to hire, firms are increasingly asking:

• What work actually requires a senior professional?

• What work can be delegated?

• What work can be automated?

• What skills can be developed internally?

• What work can be supported externally?

• Where are current employees currently focused that could be better spent?

This is relevant to Law Firms too.

Strategy 1: Separate Legal Judgment From Support Work

Not all work surrounding a legal matter has to be done by a senior legal professional.

Even though the lawyer makes the legal decisions, there are dozens of supporting operational tasks involved.

The following tasks may be separated from the senior lawyer’s role depending on the specific practice of the firm and the relevant professional rules:

• Document organization

• Case file management

• Legal research support

• Document preparation

• Discovery support

• Client intake

• Data entry

• Calendar and deadline management

• Billing administration

• Records management

• Case status tracking

• Administrative follow-up

The objective is not to have attorneys take away from themselves key components of practicing law.

It is to make sure attorneys are utilizing their time for work that actually requires their expertise.

Checklist: Identify Work That Can Be Delegated

• List the recurring tasks performed by attorneys each week.

• Identify tasks that require legal judgment.

• Identify tasks that require attorney approval but not attorney preparation.

• Identify administrative and operational tasks.

• Identify repetitive document and data workflows.

• Identify tasks that can be standardized.

• Identify tasks that can be supported by trained non-attorney staff.

• Determine who will review the work completed by staff before it is distributed to the client.

Strategy 2: Build Capacity Instead of Waiting for the Perfect Hire

One of the biggest mistakes a law firm makes during a talent shortage is to bring operations to a halt while they search for the ideal candidate.

If a position has been open for three months, then the savings in three months of salary for that person equals zero - the work has to be done and someone is doing it.

The work still has to be completed.

Someone else is doing it.

At its worst it means that all of the firm’s work is going to be done by the partners and/or associates, working late to finish the work of others who have left the practice; or it may be delegated to the existing support staff who are already working at full capacity.

A capacity-based model asks a different question:

How can we create the additional capacity we need while continuing to search for the right long-term hire?

This additional capacity can be created by temporary support, dedicated remote staff, by outsourcing tasks and automating processes, or by redistributing tasks within the current team.

Strategy 3: Use Specialized Remote Staff for Repeatable Work

Tax practices are increasingly looking at outsourcing as part of their solution to dealing with a talent shortage.

The same principle applies to law firms that are considering outsourcing during a talent shortage.

Specialized remote support staff are better to integrate into an existing workflow than just another virtual assistant.

The key is specialization.

For example, depending on the firm's practice area and applicable rules, a dedicated support professional may assist with:

• Legal document preparation

• Case management

• Discovery support

• Document review

• Client intake

• Legal research support

• Records management

• Billing support

• Administrative case support

The attorney is ultimately responsible for the legal work that is done by others, including the judgments and advice given to clients.

The support team’s efforts help to create the necessary capacity to assist the attorney in their professional work.

Checklist: Before Adding Remote Legal Support

• Identify exactly which tasks will be delegated.

• Define which tasks must remain with licensed attorneys.

• Establish a named attorney or manager responsible for supervision of support team members performing delegated functions.

• Document the workflow before assigning work.

• Define quality-control checkpoints.

• Confirm confidentiality requirements.

• Review data access and security controls.

• Confirm how client information will be handled.

• Establish communication and working-hour expectations.

• Start with a clearly defined scope before expanding responsibilities.

Strategy 4: Stop Using Senior Professionals for Junior-Level Work

The cost of a talent shortage increases in direct proportion to the amount of time that highly experienced individuals spend performing work of a nature that does not capitalize on their expertise.

Consider a simple example.

The partner spent two hours here in document preparation, following up on information required, organizing case files and completing administrative records.

Those two hours are not just two hours.

They are two hours that could have been spent on:

• Client strategy

• Business development

• Complex legal analysis

• Negotiation

• Case preparation

• Reviewing higher-value work

• Managing the firm's team

The same approach applies to associations and senior legal support staff.

Start with identifying where your most expensive professional time is being used in work of a lower nature.

Checklist: Find Your Capacity Leaks

• Track how attorneys spend their time for one representative week.

• Identify repetitive administrative tasks.

• Identify work that requires review by a senior but does not require preparation by them.

• Identify manual data-entry processes.

• Identify recurring follow-ups.

• Identify document preparation that can be standardized.

• Identify tasks that could be automated.

• Identify tasks that can be delegated to support staff after appropriate training.

Strategy 5: Build Training Into the Staffing Strategy

Hiring someone with the right title isn't enough.

They need to understand how your firm works.

As Thomson Reuters noted in their report to the FTA (a report designed to address the talent management challenges within the tax firms) fewer than half of all tax firms are taking a strategic and intentional approach to personnel development and training. Most of the larger firms have formalized training programs.

For law firms, the same principle applies.

A good support professional becomes more valuable as they understand:

• Your firm's templates

• Your preferred workflows

• Your case-management system

• Your documentation standards

• Your review process

• Your communication preferences

• Your practice area

• Your deadlines

Instituted knowledge is built up longer the more consistent a team is within a given system.

Strategy 6: Use Technology to Extend Your Team

Technology is another part of the capacity equation.

A lot of Tax practices are investing in automation and AI these days but that doesn’t mean you need less people.

Instead of keeping professionals tied up in tedious work, technology should allow them to focus on other things.

The same principle applies to law firms.

Technology can help with:

• Document organization

• Workflow management

• Scheduling

• Data extraction

• Document comparison

• Intake processes

• Search and retrieval

• Repetitive communications

• Task tracking

But technology should be implemented to augment the work of staff, processes and attorney judgement.

A fast broken workflow is still a broken workflow.

Strategy 7: Create a Hybrid Staffing Model

No one has to make this choice.

A hybrid model can combine:

• Attorneys and senior professionals handling legal judgment

• Local legal support handling client-facing and firm-specific responsibilities

• Dedicated remote professionals handling repeatable operational work

• Technology handling suitable repetitive processes

• Temporary support during workload spikes

Another advantage of this strategy is that it allows law firms to grow certain parts of their organization while others remain unchanged.

A Practical Staffing Framework for Law Firms

Start by dividing work into three categories.

Tier 1: Attorney-Only Work

Work requiring legal judgment, legal advice, professional responsibility, client strategy, etc. (e.g., developing legal strategy, drafting contracts, negotiating on behalf of client, conducting research and advising client, approving documents prepared by others).

Tier 2: Professional Review Work

Work that can be prepared by trained staff but requires review, approval, or supervision from an attorney or senior professional.

Tier 3: Operational Support Work

Tier 3: Operational Support Work. This is the type of repeatable, administrative and operational work that can be standardized and delivered by support professionals, after appropriate training, on an ongoing basis.

The boundaries for each of these tiers will vary based on practice area, location, client, and rule of professional conduct.

Checklist: Build Your Staffing Map

• List every recurring workflow.

• Categorize each task as attorney-only, review-required, or operational.

• Estimate hours spent on each task.

• Identify the highest-cost tasks currently being performed by attorneys.

• Identify repetitive work that can be standardized.

• Identify work that can be supported remotely.

• Identify opportunities for automation.

• Define review and supervision requirements.

• Calculate the additional capacity created by each change.

What Law Firms Can Learn From Tax Practices

There is much that law firms could learn from these practices, but do not have to replicate them in full.

You have to realize that a talent shortage demands more than just hiring more people.

Tax and accounting firms are responding with a combination of:

• Targeted training

• Career development

• Outsourcing

• Task reallocation

• Automation

• Capacity management

That approach changes the staffing question from:

"Where can we find more people?"

to:

"How can we build more capacity from the people, technology and resources currently being utilized?"

A much more relevant staffing question in such a market.

A 30-Day Capacity Reset for Law Firms

Week 1: Audit the workload

Identify the work that currently is done by attorneys, associates, paralegals and administrative staff.

Week 2: Identify delegation opportunities

Separate legal judgment from document preparation, office administration, legal research, document completion and other routine tasks and processes that can be completed by others.

Week 3: Test a new staffing model

Choose one process and try to handle it by internal staff, by automation or by dedicated remote staff.

Week 4: Measure the result

Track:

• Hours saved

• Work completed

• Turnaround time

• Review time

• Rework

• Client impact

• Attorney capacity

Then determine whether the model should be expanded.

Pre-Staffing Checklist

Before you add more support staff, make sure you have covered the following basis points.

• A clearly defined workload

• Documented workflows

• Defined responsibilities

• Clear attorney supervision

• Quality-control checkpoints

• Data-security requirements

• Confidentiality procedures

• Technology access requirements

• Communication protocols

• Performance metrics

• A defined trial or onboarding period

• A plan for scaling capacity if the model works.

The Bottom Line

The 91% figure above gives one a sense of the difficulty involved in finding qualified staff to hire; however, it need not define the beginning and end of a firm’s search for support.

Look to other professional services for answers.

Tax practices are investing in staff training, shifting work around between staff, using technology to manage information, outsourcing specific work tasks and developing a range of more sophisticated strategies to manage capacity.

For law firms, the opportunity therefore is to apply this same principle – keep the legal work with the people best to advise on it – and to build a supportive framework around them.

The goal isn't simply to hire more people.

It is to build a firm where the right people are working on the right work.

Intellgus helps law firms build the dedicated support teams they need around their particular workflows in order to scale.