Today’s age of hybrid and borderless work has reshaped the way we work — from traditional office and meeting environments to a more flexible approach that allows employees to work, collaborate and communicate from anywhere. According to a 2022 worker survey, flexible work is the leading strategic change for many businesses, with 82% adopting either fully remote, partially distributed, or hybrid work arrangements.
With the high adoption of work-from-anywhere models, organizations, including law firms must provide workplace technology that enables their employees to stay productive — and seamlessly collaborate and connect not only with each other but also with their clients from anywhere. According to a recent legal trends report, 79% of legal consumers want the option to work remotely with their lawyer and view it as an important factor when choosing a firm. When it comes to initial consultations, video conferencing ranked high. For law professionals, 45% prefer meeting with clients virtually.
This means meeting technology needs to evolve from conventional conference rooms and devices to multi-functional, integrated, and secure solutions that enhance virtual collaboration wherever the work happens. This is where smart meeting rooms can help.

What are smart meeting rooms?

Smart meeting rooms are a future-forward, end-to-end meeting solution that employs powerful integrated technology. It includes video conferencing, Interactive Flat Panel Displays (IFPDs), and other enhancements for seamless collaboration and user experience for both in-person and virtual meetings.
Smart rooms also offer the flexibility to configure meeting spaces based on operational, employee, and client needs for firms that are looking for more efficient use of workspaces or reducing their real estate footprint as more employees work remotely.
But how can smart meeting spaces benefit firms and help redefine the client and employee experience? Let’s look at three examples.
1. Take virtual meetings to the next level
Employees and clients need efficient ways to virtually collaborate on strategies or work together on documents. Video meetings can work well for presentations and discussions. But when your team needs deeper collaboration, like simultaneously working on a document or revising the same presentation deck, you may need alternatives such as interactive whiteboards or IFPDs.
IFPDs are the main component of smart meeting rooms. They empower firms with a hybrid workforce to benefit from sophisticated, yet easy-to-use collaborative tools that enable attorneys and clients to come together as if they were face-to-face. These smart devices help to maximize meetings and engage users by enabling them to conveniently review documents, brainstorm strategies, securely share documents on cases, conduct visually captivating presentations, and more.
2. Make your meetings more secure
Many consumer-grade video conferencing applications may offer immediate, hassle-free signup or convenience; however, these services may lack a crucial feature — enterprise-grade security. Regardless of the size of your firm, virtual collaboration often involves sharing confidential data and files, so you need to have secure workplace technology that mitigates the risk of data leakage, loss, or breach.
Smart rooms offer audiovisual technology that provides a secure infrastructure for your valuable data. The secure system can also help prevent unauthorized users from accessing your platform, further protecting your sensitive information.
3. Optimize on-site meeting spaces your way
According to a legal trends report, whether a lawyer works from home or operates from a commercial office hardly influences the hiring decisions of prospective clients. This, therefore, presents opportunities for firms to reduce their office real estate, or reconfigure current spaces for different purposes.
Smart rooms include access to analytics tools that provide insights into room usage, helping decision-makers to make more informed decisions about space utilization and future planning for more cost-efficient use of resources.

Redefine the future of work for your law firm

With the ongoing adoption of work-from-anywhere models and the need for smart workplace solutions, law firms need to redefine their approach to technology and create a modern infrastructure to facilitate better ways of working, collaboration, and communication that enhance client and employee experience.
That includes smarter ways of working as well as flexible and innovative meeting spaces that can adapt to change and transform as your business needs evolve over time.
Whether your firm is big or small, Ricoh can help with scalable meeting solutions tailored to your needs. Find out more about RICOH Smart Rooms.