Webinar Recap hosted by BigHand & Epiq

Recently, BigHand and Epiq co-hosted a timely and forward-thinking webinar exploring one of the most pressing questions facing law firms today: How do we rethink legal support in an era of rapid change, shrinking talent pipelines, and rising client expectations?

Moderated by BigHand Chief Marketing Officer, Briana McCrory and featuring insights from Eric Wangler (President, Global Legal Market at BigHand) and Michelle Connolly (Senior Vice President of Strategy, Technology & Business Enablement at Epiq), the session was a candid conversation grounded in fresh data from the 2025 BigHand Workflow Leadership Report, and rich with hard truths, industry trends, and practical takeaways.

It’s Not a Pipeline Problem. It’s a Process Problem.

The data is clear: 90% of firms have restructured their support teams, and yet over half are planning more changes. Why? Because even as firms respond to retirements and resignations, many are simply replacing roles like-for-like, rather than evolving their models.

Michelle Connolly offered a view from the front lines, where Epiq supports hundreds of firms through their support transitions: “What we see, again and again, is firms reacting to short-term fires instead of planning for what’s next. The firms that are getting ahead are the ones who ask: What should this role look like now, not just what it used to be?”

And there’s urgency behind that question. According to the report, 41% of firms expect 20–40% of their support staff to retire within five years. That’s not a staffing challenge. That’s a structural cliff.

The Real Retention Risk: Career Stagnation

One of the most striking moments came during the conversation on retention. Polling showed that career development, burnout, and lack of upskilling top the list of reasons support staff leave.

Eric Wangler put it bluntly: “Support staff are telling us exactly what they need to stay, yet most firms aren’t listening. You can’t keep people with ping pong tables and coffee cards. They want meaningful work, clear growth paths, and modern tools that make their job matter.”

The data backs it up: Only 27% of firms conduct regular career planning conversations with support staff, and fewer have formal advancement pathways. As Michelle added, “When there’s no path forward, people find the door instead.”

The Hidden Cost of Retirement: Institutional Knowledge Loss

Beyond workload gaps and backfilling roles, Michelle and Eric emphasized a deeper challenge tied to the retirement wave: the loss of institutional knowledge.

“When seasoned legal secretaries leave,” Michelle noted, “they don’t just take task execution with them, they take decades of workflow know-how, client preferences, and practice-specific nuance. That’s incredibly difficult to replicate.”

Eric added that younger associates are feeling this shift acutely. “Associates used to learn the ropes from experienced support staff. Now, those informal mentorship channels are disappearing, and firms don’t always have a structured way to replace that guidance.”

The solution? Systematizing what used to be informal. Michelle addressed the need for process documentation, shared knowledge hubs, role-specific training, and workflow visibility tools. “You can’t preserve what you never captured. The firms who are getting ahead are the ones putting systems in place to codify best practices and make that knowledge accessible across teams and offices.”

Without intentional processes, the panel warned, firms risk not just operational disruption, but a generational skills gap that impacts both performance and retention.

Restructuring: Everyone’s Doing It. Few Are Doing It Well.

Despite widespread restructuring, few firms have cracked the code. Why? Because change without data is guesswork. And when workflow visibility is low, even the best restructuring intentions fall flat.

The report reveals that only half of firms have implemented Workflow Management solutions, and just 36% are tracking productivity with tech. Without that foundation, it’s impossible to scale centralization or improve delegation models.

“Firms want to centralize, but they don’t always have the visibility into who’s doing what or how efficiently,” Michelle said. “The ones seeing real progress are those using workflow data to build a smarter model.”

And it’s paying off. Centralized firms using workflow tools reported up to 25% gains in efficiency and service quality, and higher lawyer productivity due to reduced administrative overload.

Delegation Is Still Broken and It’s Costing Firms Millions

The webinar concluded with a deep dive into one of the legal industry's quietest profit leaks: manual delegation. Despite massive workflow complexity, 87% of firms still rely on email or verbal delegation, leaving high-value tasks to get lost in the shuffle, or worse, fall on attorneys themselves.

The consequences? Lower billable hours. Delayed work. Burned-out staff. And steep opportunity costs. The ROI of solving this is tangible: firms using workflow tools see a potential $1.58 million in return over three years, thanks to saved time, improved billing, and greater operational efficiency.

Michelle summed it up best: “Manual delegation doesn’t scale. It doesn’t deliver visibility. And it doesn’t reflect where this industry is going. Firms need structure, data, and tools to support the people behind the process.”

Final Takeaways

If there was one clear theme, it was this: reimagining legal support is no longer optional.

To compete in today’s legal landscape, firms must embrace data-driven decision-making, modern technology, and human-centered support models. That means upskilling, career mapping, and centralized workflows, all built on real visibility into how work gets done.

As the webinar wrapped, attendees were invited to explore the findings in more depth through the 2025 BigHand Workflow Leadership Report.

If you wish to watch the webinar on demand, click here.