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Who doesn’t love a little history refresher? You like it too?! Perfect.
So, fifty-one years ago, the first ARPAnet (later to be known as the internet) was created. Fast forward to 1989 and you have a proposal from a man named Tim Berners-Lee for a program called “Mesh” (also later to be known as the World Wide Web). The advent of both the network infrastructure (the Internet) and the software infrastructure layered on top of it (the Web) paved the way for a growing dichotomy between the centralization and decentralization of resources and knowledge, and one-way versus two-way consumer consumption patterns. Now, fast forward again to 2020 and we see the proliferation of content that simply did not exist even a mere few years ago.
An astounding 59% of the global population is connected to the internet. Do you know what that means? It means that consumers now have access to so much information that the power that brands and corporations once held has completely shifted. The asymmetric balance that sellers held only a few years ago is now virtually non-existent.
We are now living in a digital world. Leading companies know that in order to keep their competitive advantage, they must align with their customers. They don’t view this alignment as a chore on their laundry list of duties that they'll get to eventually, they're actively pursuing it. They are reimaging every aspect of their business and how the consumer experience and journey are affected every step of the way. In 2020, this alignment is the bedrock upon which successful businesses are built on.
How does any of this news relate to you and your firm? To start, it should be noted that the legal space drags behind other industries. The primary cause of this polarity is a result of a divergence between the profession and the industry as a whole. Put simply, it is the divide between lawyers and the myriad of technology and business management expertise that make up the entire industry. There is a notable difference between the two, where we have the profession, or lawyers, who are shackled to paradigm and resistant to change, matched against the industry that is compelled by the new principles of customer demand.
For a very long time, the profession has clung to structural and economic models, and self-regulation has been a critical part of the formula to remove any and all competition. In the past, firms have been able to minimize the impact of cultural, economic, and sociological trends that have disrupted many industries, but in this new digital age, things have changed. Since the turn of the millennium, we’ve seen a shift between legal practice and the fundamental business behind delivering those services. This shift is due to the fact that law is no longer just about the lawyer. Over the years, we have seen a significant volume of work has drifted from law firms to corporate legal departments. The 2017 Georgetown Report cites, ‘erosion of the traditional law firm franchise,’ a euphemism for ‘clients no longer need large law firms to handle many legal tasks. ’
When you look at how a lawyer becomes a lawyer you will see a few things: risk avoidance, trained perfection, proactiveness, and the delivery of creative solutions. Throughout a lawyer’s education and professional training, critical thinking is reinforced, but the business side of their professional services is not. Because of this, we have seen a rise in legal service providers who aim to provide law firms with more data, process management, technological advancements, training, cybersecurity, the list goes on and on. Their mission is to provide solutions to business problems that will hopefully create efficiencies and stimulate customer engagement and alignment. However, digitally advanced companies have taken to solving these problems on their own. They're redefining their target markets, tracking competition, committing to a capital shift from buyer to seller, and they're monitoring customer satisfaction. Highly informed decision making is now defining the gap between competitive and non-competitive firms.
With today's access to the internet, consumers can now decide for themselves when, where, and at what price point a licensed attorney is required. The law industry is being disrupted and systemic changes and customer-centric models are forcing the balance of power to shift from the firm to the consumer.
The marketplace of all industries, including legal, is now composed of consumers who expect a customized delivery, one that entails the involvement of project managers, design engineers, data analysts, and the like. When you look at the practice of law, specifically, trained experience, specialized skill, expertise, and judgment, you’ll come to find that it has been intricately woven into the broader picture of the legal service industry. The practice of law, as traditionally defined, is being eclipsed by the business of law and everything else required to deliver legal services. In order to remain dominant in the legal space, firms must differentiate, scale, and align with customers.
The question remains, how do law firms do this? How do law firms differentiate themselves, scale, and align with customers? As we ponder this, it is important to note that operating in a consumer-centric world does not mean the law profession will be eviscerated. The unique characteristics and intricacies of attorney-client relationships are pillars of legal practice that will remain standing for the foreseeable future.
Consumers-not lawyers- determine what is ‘legal,’ whose skill is required, when it is required, how it is delivered, and at what price point they’re willing to pay. With the internet only a click away, building trust with your customer is paramount. Change won’t happen overnight, but building a strategy around your goals, investing in technology, and viewing your client's journey with your firm as a customized experience, all encompass the steps you should be taking in order to build a successful consumer-centered business. Optimize your firm, be receptive to change, and invest in technology that will not only maximize your client experience but drive your revenue too.
In 2020, law is not only about selling legal knowledge. Practice area expertise must be leveraged by technology in order to provide consumers ‘faster, better, cheaper’ and quantifiable results on a transparent, real-time, and customer-centric basis.
Still intrigued? Check out part 2 to this blog, The Business of Law Part 2: Running a Client-Centered Law Firm.
Like many industries, the legal profession isn’t immune to the rapid changes in technology. Constant developments in legal automation have made scanning documents, finding case matters, and handling client communication a whole lot more efficient – but at what cost, really? How is the legal industry rising to these new challenges in automation, and what ways can you stay ahead of the curve?
We’re glad you asked. In this blog, we’re going to discuss the ways legal automation tools help bolster operational efficiency in a way that benefits your firm, and doesn’t add unnecessary steps or complications.
For context, legal automation is the process of using software to help organize and manage all tasks in a firm.
What does that mean, exactly? Things that attorneys and other firm employees used to do via a physical paper trail are now all (or mostly) accomplished digitally. Many common tasks attorneys performed twenty years ago are now automated – a whopping 23%, according to McKinsey – which has undoubtedly raised new disruption challenges throughout firms. Ensuring these legal tech systems are secure, adopted by everyone, and made for efficiency are essential. For many firms, adopting new technology while maintaining a profitable level of operations feels incredibly daunting, which is why resistance may occur.
From employees touting the age-old “I’ve always done it this way,” to partners feeling reluctant to invest in a technology they may not feel comfortable in, there’s plenty of worries about stepping into the nascent world of automation. But when you dive in, there are double the amount of benefits to doubts if implemented correctly. Not only does it help mitigate human error, but it also saves considerable time, which is the biggest benefit where automation is concerned. The very definition of efficiency denotes organization and orderliness – two things legal automation is primed to accomplish for you.
The above are just a few reasons as to why it’s essential to choose software that ticks all the boxes on efficiency, and gets everyone onboarded in a way that rewards adoption, not rejection.
No matter what department you work for in a law firm, there are iterative tasks always needing to be done every month. Billing statements. Client reminder emails. New client paperwork. The list goes on and on. In order to reduce the time spent, workflows use Artificial Intelligence to create and recreate these scenarios through a set of actions you enter into a software system.
The nice – not to mention extra efficient – thing about practice management software is you can customize these actions to your firm’s needs. That admin work of endless data entry is greatly reduced with the proper set of rules established while onboarding your software.
Whether it’s generating a monthly report on case matter stats and what stage they’re all in, these workflows are a huge time saver that we’ll expand on more later. Or if you're very intrigued, you can check out the blog, Everything You Need to Know About Legal Workflow Automation and Why You Should Have It.
The biggest takeaway here: workflows are both customizable and easy to use, which yield themselves to increasing efficiency in any firm.
We’ve all been there – moving too quickly between tasks, trying to check off as many things on our to-dos as possible. It’s unfortunately the prime opportunity for mistakes to occur, and we all know mistakes are costly in time and money, not to mention inefficient.
Auto triggers are a form of workflow, and fire off whenever you create or modify a record or when a given set of criteria is true (usually taking the form of a query). This lets you automatically transfer information from Centerbase into your matters, which is extra convenient if you’re trying to send correspondence or follow an exact timeline for litigation. Legal automation makes everyday data entry and updates simpler than ever before.
Want to see how Centerbase does it?
Here’s a use case where we assign a client email address to their matter that generates if the query is blank.
Templated documents for clients is a tale as old as time, but legal automation takes it one step further with merging queries and data en masse. The ability to create document templates by merging information stored in your legal software cuts down on data entry and the chance to make mistakes.
Even better – you can easily open and save client documents from Microsoft Word in Centerbase, making it easy to work within the programs you and your employees are comfortable in. The idea of bolstering efficiency is not reinventing the wheel and having software that doesn’t overcomplicate, but empowers people to work efficiently. Integration with Microsoft and NetDocuments is one of the many ways Centerbase strives to take the curve off learning something entirely new.
Client reminder emails become effortless with legal automation. You can kiss goodbye the days of sticky notes and harsh dings on your calendar reminding you to send update emails. With the proper legal tech, an automatic email notification can be sent every time a case matter moves to a different stage, meaning everyone stays informed and up-to-date on the case in real-time.
Less manual project management means more time back in everyone’s day to focus on staying profitable and delivering above and beyond customer service that creates rapport, referrals, and client retention.
Technology is changing the legal landscape for everyone involved, and now’s the time to put plans in motion for boosting efficiency. In order to adapt, great software and great people are going to be your best resources for saving time. The automation features discussed are among the few benefits that encompass legal software – there are many more. These powerful additions will help improve day-to-day processes and ensure your staff get things done faster and more effectively.
Due to this technology, everyone’s jobs are going to change in ways that require more people interaction. Technology will become a bridge toward helping us interact without a computer screen being a barrier. If nothing else, it will be an invitation to ensure communication and relationships get built, and that everyone at your firm can be ready to adapt – attorneys, accountants, legal assistants, and all working together toward a common goal. It’s this ideal we strive for with legal technology and software.
Still wondering how to save time and increase efficiency in the form of billable hours and extra time back in your days, weeks, and months? (That’s another benefit of legal automation – you’ll continue to see the time saved compared to when you didn’t have it.)
Our mission is to help you serve your clients better – whatever that looks like. Every area of law and its requirements are different, after all, but the right software system adapts seamlessly to what you need. At Centerbase, our technology adapts to fit your needs, not the other way around. Feel free to schedule a free, no-obligation demo with Centerbase to see how we can boost efficiency in your everyday processes with legal automation.
Throughout the course of history, technology has been a disruptive force that has completely changed the landscape of many industries. Technology continues to reshape the way the world works and that is no exception for the legal space. The emergence of the technologies we’re seeing today, such as A.I., virtual law, and integration tools are a few of the disruptors that will most likely change the trajectory of the next generation.
The bad news is, if your firm can’t keep up with technology, you will quickly lose your competitive edge. But don’t worry, there is good news. Adopting this technology is not as dreadful as it sounds, in fact, once you get over the mental hurdle, the actual implementation and utilization will have you regretting that you didn’t make the jump sooner.
We are in an era where the shift to mobile and cloud computing for small to medium firms is as far-reaching as the shift to adopting computers was over 30 years ago. At the end of the day, the technology that is available now will allow you to provide better client services and attain higher revenue-driven results. Additionally, you will begin to notice that technology becomes an integral part of attracting new clients. Technology has the power to improve an organization’s efficiency if used appropriately. Most traditional law firms are gradually losing ground due to increased competition put on by the digitally advanced firms.
If that made you start to sweat, don't worry! The simple answer to this is to be open to new technology and avoid resistance to change. The return on your investment will be far more impressive from an operational and financial standpoint than the risks associated with pursuing the technology needed to remain competitive. As the adage goes, work smarter, not harder. Implementing legal technology at your firm will allow you to focus on your clients and generate more revenue without increasing your workload. If you think that sounds too good to be true, you better believe that in 2020 it’s an attainable reality.
Let’s take a look at some of the ways firms can successfully operate in this new world and meet the pace of demand that the younger, tech-savvy consumer base is expecting.
With the introduction of AI and automation systems, law processes are being simplified. Today, legal documents are being recorded, physical paperwork is being organized and converted into digital files, search and discover features are increasing efficiency, automated workflow engines are assigning tasks for team members, and much more.
AI has not made a huge splash in the marketplace just yet, as rigorous testing and experimentation is still being conducted. However, let’s take a look at some of the features this type of advanced technology could offer your firm in the future. Currently, what many researchers are talking about is AI’s ability to assist in the discovery phase of a lawsuit. AI’s ability to rapidly confirm facts expedites the process of finding background information, which can accelerate arbitration and litigation proceedings. According to an article from Forbes, AI “can review documents and flag them as particular to a case. Once a certain type of document is denoted as relevant, machine learning algorithms can get to work to find other documents that are similarly relevant.” This type of AI and automation can often help sort out problems faster with fewer mistakes that are often overlooked by the human eye. In general, automation enhances consistency in contract and document creation and streamlines your client intake process.
As research and development continue, AI and automation will become increasingly more prevalent with many more functions than the ones just listed. Artificial Intelligence can’t take the place of a lawyer, but law firms today can choose more tech-savvy professionals over others. Doing so will significantly decrease the learning curve and informed pessimism of technology adoption in the future. For now, this type of technology may not be widely used, but one day it will be.
In The Disadvantages of Working Remotely: How Legal Professionals Can Overcome Them, we discuss the challenges of working outside of the office and the solutions to mitigate some of those pain points. Our new normal includes this transition between working at the office and at home, and there are a variety of drivers, such as work-life integration, travel requirements, and cost-of-living management that all come into play. Working remotely, however, means that technology needs to be used to facilitate business activity in an effective and professional manner.
Some firms are starting to support their teams bringing their own electronics and devices, like personal tablets and laptops. This requires implementing controls to configure and protect noncorporate devices and reimbursement protocols. This also implicates document sharing technology to discourage local storage and encourage central document management.
The younger generations are contributing to this trend as they strongly identify with specific tools and technology, and prefer to continue using tools familiar to them when joining a new company.
Corporate cultural norms are also changing. For example, remote employees are encouraged to turn on their cameras in video meetings so that others on the call may personally interact with them. Because of this, anyone who works in an office must still adapt to virtual practices when working with outside counsel or business partners. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, there will be a mix of remote versus in-office staff, and technology is the only link between them.
Norms also include the prevalence of instant messaging or chat capability, which fosters less stringent communication protocols — which as a result may lead to increase council involvement in potential risk situations stemming from hostile work environments, generally inappropriate discussions, or communication surrounding IP.
With all this being said, the virtual work environment is a tremendous advantage to business continuity and emergency activities. With technology, firms can easily manage workload while remote, stay abreast of litigation matters, and sign documents — without these capabilities, moving forward through the future would be much tougher.
Given the prevalence of virtual workstyles, globalization, and scope of work, lawyers seem to never be away from work. Newer generations of lawyers — digital natives — grew up managing communication channels. Their integration of tech into their workflow is more natural than for those who are just learning to maximize technology.
Many mobile devices and apps now include virtual assistants that can add tasks and calendar slots based on email or oral statements. At times, this may seem intrusive, but the convenience is real. Smart homes that integrate with your car, phone, and emails can truly simplify everyday items, such as displaying the security wait line time for your flight or order groceries to be delivered right as you arrive home. These same luxuries can be put into context for your firm. With a click of a button, you can deliver anything you want to your front door. With that same click, you can seamlessly send your clients their bills, and everything related to their matters are now in one easy to access place. View deadlines, parties, documents, emails, and outstanding bills from one screen with your deadlines automatically generating and populating your calendar.
It is also common for people to have two or more email accounts on their phones that allow easy navigation between work and personal messages. Unfortunately, apps also make it easy to save documents to an online service for anywhere-access. This makes it too easy to commingle work and personal documents, so firms should remember that convenience comes with a cost.
Managing your work-life balance is crucial. Cloud-based practice management technology is the best way to keep you organized and connected. And best of all, it will always be available when you need it, where you need it. As we look to the future and how the world is developing, having a cloud-based practice management software is a simple advantage you can’t afford to look past.
Technology is so advanced these days, almost everyone has a smartphone, most corporate offices are tech-savvy, and even children are given more technical educations.
In a world that breeds competition, clients only continue to lean towards the tech-savvy law firms who meet their needs in the most modern and advanced ways possible. Because of this, there is an undeniable threat to the existence of the law firms who choose not to take advantage of what technology offers them.
At the end of the day, all the legal processes become very time consuming when technology is not used. Introducing automation can help in various small to large scale problems and cloud-based technology provides users secure access to their data whenever and wherever they are.
Change is the only constant in the world, and technology, in large part, is what drives that. Emerging digital technologies like AI are uniquely positioned to disrupt how law firms conduct their businesses today. This, coupled with the fact that client’s needs are changing and the younger generation is inherently more immersed in tech means that Law firms need to be constantly innovating and should invest in technologically driven infrastructure to keep up with the pace of the economy and these customers.
The nonstop progress in technology is changing how many lawyers work and how firms operate as a whole. Between changes in their working style and enhancements that improve efficiency, the field is evolving. The legal industry and all its parts must advance along with the rest of the world because the innovation and change we are seeing right now is only the beginning, and it won’t stop for anyone.
If you’ve ever braved the cold winter in Chicago to attend the ABA TECHSHOW or if you plan to attend in the future, you’ll quickly notice that over half the vendors tout themselves as ‘Practice Management Software.’ But, as hot as the practice management space is in legal tech, less than 60% of small-to-midsize law firms actually have practice management software. The vast majority of firms primarily still rely on their billing software to store client information, Outlook to archive emails/calendar/store contact information, and a folder on their firm’s 'x drive' to manage all case documents.
Change can be hard, that’s not a new fact. But what could be even harder is getting partner buy-in to pursue and adopt that change. Over the years, we have compiled some tips and tricks on how our clients have successfully pitched purchasing practice management software to their law firms. We found that the firms who have adopted new technology look for the best ways, venues, and times to voice their ideas and concerns—using rhetorical skill, driven data, and interpersonal connections to move the right leaders to action. These internal change-drivers are seen to employ specific tactics significantly more often than individuals who don’t succeed in gaining firm buy-in.
Before you even begin thinking about shopping for software, you need to clearly understand the pain points your firm is experiencing. Are you having a hard time managing your matters? Do you have a slower intake process? Poor internal and external communication channels? Identifying your weaknesses and eliminating waste should be your first step. Take time to do your research. Speak with multiple people from different departments, different positions, and different tenures at the firm. Try to be open-minded and listen to all the issues your staff is having, even if they don't directly affect the decision to purchase new software. The more pain points you can find, the more open ears you’ll have in the room eager to hear a new solution.
Building a task force generates organizational buy-in more quickly and on a larger scale as more people contribute energy and resources. Negotiation experts would tell you to mobilize your allies, persuade your blockers to support the software or at least back-off, and show the fence-sitters why they should care about what you’re presenting.
If you are a small firm, it might only be one or two people, but having a few people on your side is always helpful. Creating a task force also offers you multiple perspectives when you are meeting with software vendors.
A problem’s place on your firm’s list of priorities depends heavily on how you package the idea. A new software might seem like techie trivia until you explain how it supports a strategic goal. For example, if your team is losing notable time manually sending out bills, legal software can completely eliminate that wasted time by allowing you to email bills out to your clients in one click. Now, that problem is a priority to solve. Once people in your firm see how your initiative fits into the big picture, they’ll be more willing to devote resources to it.
Similarly, if you’re a firm administrator presenting a use case to your partners on the benefits of financial reporting software, you can describe how transitioning to the new software will enable you to quickly generate the reports they need. It will allow you to understand what receivables are due to be collected, pinpoint who the high revenue clients are, quickly build general ledger budgets to identify trends, timekeeper budgets to hit more targets, and matter budgets to keep clients satisfied. By highlighting specifically what would be gained from the software, you create a sense of urgency for partners.
Although focusing on business benefits is often safer, also consider presenting the software as an opportunity that shouldn’t be missed. Present what your firm stands to gain from your ideas and emphasize the positives. This will work to inspire optimism and buy-in. Additionally, highlighting a threat—a consequence of not adopting your idea—can also create pressure to act. But take note that it can also backfire: The person who created or currently implements the method of operation may be sensitive to your critiques and proposal for change. It may be hard to predict whether it will spur action—the classic “fight” response—or result in “flight.”
Because selling your firm on a new software is an interpersonal activity, often involving financial and cultural change, it will inevitably stir up some emotions. Passion, if appropriately expressed, will improve your chances of gaining attention and triggering action. There’s a fine line, however, between passion and anger. You may be proposing a new cloud software because your hard drives are simply not cutting it, or you’re just fed up with existing inefficiencies. And as you encounter roadblocks to your selling efforts, your frustrations may intensify.
Though strong emotions can be channeled into a rousing appeal for action, when unregulated, they’re more likely to diminish your influence. Unfortunately, managing partners who detect negative emotions from associates offering input may tend to perceive those employees as complainers, not as change agents.
It’s critical to find the right moment to pitch the new software. That moment might be when organizational priorities shift, when certain players leave or join the firm, or when a partner’s preoccupations change. Take notice of when more and more people are beginning to care about a larger topic or trend that’s related to the issue they face. For example, if you notice that your attorneys are becoming increasingly annoyed with having to repeatedly print pre-bills to make corrections, that could be a good time to bring up features like electronic pre-bill approval that will help streamline your billing process and improve cash flow.
In addition to keeping a close eye on larger trends and events, it’s important to be mindful of deadlines and initiatives too. If your firm is looking to improve its client intake process and focus on client conversion rates by a certain time, then that would be an optimal moment to highlight the benefits of a software that includes custom contact forms, automated intake processes, and comprehensive conflict checks. Conversely, when a deadline is far away and partners are still in exploration mode, open-ended inquiry can be more effective than proposing a specific solution.
Tailor your findings to the people who you’re pitching to. At the end of the day, everyone’s end goal at the firm should be the same, but every team has their own day-to-day objectives and priorities. For example, a partner is most likely concerned with growing top-line revenue, while a paralegal may be more wrapped up in client and matter onboarding. If you’re pitching a new software to your firms managing partners, frame the obstacles in a context that would most pique their interest. If you know they are worried about ensuring costs get billed back to clients, bring up features where integrated credit card feeds and account payable modules are available to make it easier to bill expenses back to clients as they’re being entered. Or if you know management's top priority is automating non-billable activities, show them workflow engines that make it easy to automate non-billable, administrative work such as sending follow-up emails, updating client information, or calendaring tasks. You will have greater success if you familiarize yourself with your audience’s unique blend of goals, values, and knowledge and to allow that insight to shape your pitch.
There are many types of legal software to choose from. Evaluating where your firm is will be critical in not only selecting one, but then proving to your management team why the firm needs it. Your pitch will fall flat if you can't articulate what is needed and what is not. Locate your pain points, assemble a task force, and identify the right time and emotional setting to present your findings and solutions to your partners.
There are no set prescriptions that can capture the nuances of every environment or remove the risks and potential difficulties of pitching a software. If you can give actual ROI numbers, you have a better chance of selling partners that aren't totally sold. Bring literature from the practice management software providers you've chosen, include pricing quotes, and have some success stories in your back pocket. Arming yourself with as much information as possible will greatly assist you in selling the adoption of the software you want.
In this world of “new normal,” remote work is here to stay – so the question is, how do we effectively manage this new way of working moving forward? While there are considerable advantages to working from home, there are also disadvantages of remote working for legal professionals that need to be addressed. In this pandemic, and moving forward, some degree of remote work will become commonplace, so it’s time to get ahead on managing performance and balancing the pros and cons that will inevitably crop up.
In this blog, we’ll be providing insights on some of these disadvantages and how you can better integrate fixes that are both actionable and effective toward maintaining your level of day-to-day efficiency.
The Disadvantage: For a firm depending on billable hours to maintain profitability with client work, getting accurate hours from your workers can be a big challenge when working remotely. Time may feel different for people at home, and keeping track of billable tasks can easily get lost in the shuffle of other distractions.
The Fix: Time Tracking Software
Without the constant flux of in-person client visits and immediate office distractions, many law firm workers of all departments have an opportunity to divide up their day accordingly. By using project management software that effectively gathers time spent on matters takes the headache out of manually inputting it every day. This also keeps communication clear on the status without the need for constant status updates or pesky emails that clog the inbox and stunt productivity flow.
Centerbase offers automatic time tracking, so you can capture every billable hour spent on client-based calls and interactions. Your billing department and your bottom line will thank you.
The Disadvantage: Without a clear separation between work and home, blurred lines can create rapid burnout in remote employees. This can result in lowered performance, inaccurately recorded working hours, and poor time management that affects day-to-day duties. Since you aren’t able to monitor their habits and what goes on, how do you appropriately measure time worked in comparison to hours off?
The Fix: Communicate processes and benefits
With everything around people working remotely still feeling new and unfamiliar, it’s important to take that extra mile to communicate and clarify processes and resources available to everyone. Reiterate what hours everyone needs to be available, and reassure that they don’t have to be connected to their computers all hours of the evening. Many are juggling between being a full-time worker, parent, and teacher right now, so a little understanding also goes a long way.
Due to the pandemic, many healthcare providers have lifted some of their restrictions on telehealth appointments. Check what your benefits packages are offering, and consider adding a telehealth option for employees to get appointments easier and help maintain mental health during this turbulent change. This may not reflect immediately, but employees will have an extra layer of resources to help in case things become too blurred. Not to mention the benefit of additional help from experts to better manage their day-to-day routine. That trust and investment in their well-being will definitely pay off in their productivity in the long run.
The Disadvantage: Less face-to-face interaction means more chances for miscommunication or no communication entirely from staff. This can create confusion and perpetuate uncertainty that mounts with every email that goes un-replied or client followup that’s ignored. Or worse, the possibility of technology failure. If a VPN doesn’t allow access to all areas of a matter, and staff are stuck having to circumvent the system or store sensitive information where it’s not safe
With remote work, your staff needs to communicate like a well-oiled machine – even more so than they did while in the office. You’ll need a system and a communication model that works for everyone and runs efficiently without detracting from everyday duties.
The Fix: Document management from anywhere
By easing the ability for workers to document matter updates – whether they’re at home, or even on their phone in line at the grocery store on their lunch break – you’ll help continue the open communication culture you had in an office environment. Ensuring you provide updated permissions for remote workers to add notes to files and safely access key information in real-time will make a huge difference in keeping everyone aligned. Also, plan daily huddles and a longer weekly meeting to check the pulse of everyone’s workload and pace. Are things harder for them now? Is something stopping them from doing their jobs from a software or operations standpoint? Open up the floor and listen.
Centerbase’s document management lets everyone retrieve and share documents easily through programs you use all the time, such as Microsoft Word and your own web browser.
The Disadvantage: Lack of client contact can be problematic for some – especially those who may need to be in-person for legal proceedings or prefer face-to-face updates regarding their case. Some of that client-facing work can bolster the attorney-client relationship and keep confidence high regarding their case. This can be especially taxing for attorneys accustomed to more traditional office meetings and client interactions.
The Fix: Use a client portal
Old software depends on cumbersome intake forms and notes that have to be manually uploaded to a digital format. Even worse, much of the client conversation could be in a paralegal's mind, but the interaction could be recorded or notated incorrectly in the file.
With a speedy, 24/7 client contact with the Centerbase mobile or web app, our versatile client portal gives clients everything they need, when they need it. This can be a gamechanger for remote work, especially since you can keep conversations and notes directly tied to a client’s account so you’ll always remember where you last left off on their case.
The Disadvantage: An unfortunate pitfall around the disadvantages of remote working can be a decrease in referrals or new sources to find clients. And without in-person events and community networking, you may find collaboration between colleagues screech to a halt, which can hit incoming business hard.
The Fix: Online events and weekly team meetings
One of the nice things with remote work is, on some level, everyone can stay connected and informed through social media channels. If your firm has a Facebook or Instagram page, consider holding live sessions where you answer commonly asked questions and provide legal advice with a few attorneys in quick, bite-size sessions.
Appoint a legal assistant on your team to help manage the page and arrange times where attorneys and their colleagues from other firms can also participate. For example, if you’ve got a personal injury firm, you can collaborate with someone from another area of law like family or criminal to have a wider scope of knowledge to answer questions. By tagging each other, you can repurpose this content into blogs and other resources and create backlinks to help flesh out a content library for people searching and asking online for legal help.
The Disadvantage: Between children crying, laundry going off, video games, and phone notifications, the distractions are endless while working from home. While some can thrive in this environment, others struggle immensely and procrastinate on tasks by doing chores or finding their favorite comfy spot on the sofa. All of which leads to feeling unfocused and unmotivated.
The Fix: Flexible work times
For any children in e-learning, some workers may thrive when the kids are done with the day and can focus on tasks undisturbed while little ones watch their favorite show. Be prepared to ask workers if some added flexibility to their hours would help keep tasks on schedule to prepare for necessary matters deadlines and client updates. You’d be surprised how this model can help boost productivity during remote work, because everyone’s home lives are different.
The key to continuing business with working from home is to be aware of the disadvantages of remote working and find a harmonious balance. There’s no single clear-cut solution to remote working. Being aware that every firm is going to have a unique set of clients and matters means you’ll need to experiment and communicate with your staff to see how they’re managing and balancing home and work life.
Do they feel isolated from each other knowing their priorities? If so, how can you help bridge that gap in a way that drives culture and keeps drawbacks of remote working to a minimum? Remove those barriers, and you’ll find remote employees will feel better about communication and this new transition.
Another big part of counteracting the disadvantages of remote working can be ensuring their technological access is sound, and doesn’t inhibit them from completing tasks and updating matters.
There are clearly pros and cons to working from home, and it’s important to know how to best prepare your workforce as they transition between remote and in-office work. Although clear disadvantages to remote exist, we hope this was helpful on how you can ease the burden and create an environment that keeps your workers reassured and prepared to continue adapting.
Do you have any other questions about how to transition your workload to remote capabilities for legal professionals? Centerbase has adaptability and permission-based access, so everyone only sees what’s needed to do their jobs most effectively. Feel free to schedule a no-obligation demo and discern how our software can best help your needs going into this new world of remote work in law firms.
If you’ve heard of Lean management then you know its origins come from Toyota’s revolution of the manufacturing world. In the late ’80s and ’90s, Western manufacturing companies were getting crushed by their Japanese rivals, especially Toyota. At the time, it was no secret that the United States and Europe had lost their competitive edge. The pressure to regain their spots at the top was certainly on.
It was throughout this time that several improvement methodologies rose to existence. Those methodologies included: Total Quality Management, Theory of Constraints, Just-in-Time, and Six Sigma.
Now, fast forward to the emergence of two men by the names of Jim Womack and Dan Jones. They took the principles behind those methodologies and used their differences to create something new. What resulted was a monumental shift from copying specific practices to understanding the principles that made the whole system work.
That all sounds great right? But how do their Lean management principles translate into today’s market and how do you apply them to your firm?
Before we jump into that, let’s recap the seven types of waste that we discussed in Running a Lean Law Firm: How Eliminating Waste Can Drive Revenue. Remember, eliminating these waste types are fundamental to the ideology of Lean management.
Defects- This could range from filing errors, calculation errors, or even sending a client the wrong set of forms.
Over-Processing- Are you spending an excessive amount of time on a particular work item? If yes, you’re over-processing.
Motion- One word: ergonomics. If your work environment is not set up to allow you to move around efficiently and access what you need, you’re producing motion waste.
Waiting- It is what it sounds. Waiting breeds lost time and whether you’re waiting for an action item to be returned to you or you’re experiencing delays within other verticals of the firm, you’re waiting.
Inventory- Your matters or inactive files that have not been closed out or paid on.
Transportation- How much time do you estimate you waste driving to and from client meetings? Probably a lot. How much time do you end up wasting on excessive manual file movement? Also probably a lot.
Over-production- If one part of the firm produces more than others can handle, or if you’re doing too much of one thing, then you're over-producing.
Now that you’re refreshed, let’s jump in.
The claim could be made that one of the hardest challenges that businesses face today is the speed at which they must constantly be innovating to meet the pace of disruptive competition. Luckily, the Lean system that Womack and Jones ironed out can be applied to any business or any team because the applications of its principles were designed for exactly that.
The most common metaphor that is being used to describe Lean is fitness. It's the notion of building sustainable muscle and athletic stamina over merely cutting fat.
To start, it is true that if you’re overweight, the first thing you have to do is lose that weight. But once those pounds have been shed, you can’t stop there. Sure you can try to starve yourself to fitness, but inevitably the number on the scale will start to increase again. That, or you’ll just lose your mind in hunger. To become truly fit and sustain a healthy lifestyle, you have to create a system of healthy eating, a balanced workout program, a good night's sleep… you see where this is going. At the end of the day, you have to understand how your body works, what it needs, and how you can optimize your journey to becoming and staying fit. If you just look at each part of the process individually, you’ll be in for a rough ride.
Depending on the size of your firm, you may be working with different partners and stakeholders across a variety of channels. Your goal, whether you’re a small or large firm, should be to create an ecosystem where all those parts could work both dependently as a collective whole and independently as standalone pieces. No one part should be more efficient than the rest.
The best and easiest way to create firm-wide optimization is by automating your processes with technology. From capabilities like centralizing your matter related information, Automatic Time Capture, and firm-wide calendar syncs, you’re going to be able to improve your efficiency and maximize profitability.
Lean law firms know that they must constantly review their services to ensure they’re bringing the most value to their clients. With automation, you will decrease human error and you will gain greater visibility into the operations of your business.
We discussed the different waste types in Running a Lean Law Firm, but it is important to reiterate that although Lean isn’t only about cutting, it is important to be constantly improving.
Think of your waste as anything your clients wouldn’t willingly pay for if they saw it on their bill. Would they be okay with paying for the extra time it took for you to find documents in your file cabinet? Or an error made in the pre-bill approval process? Probably not. Your business fundamentally exists to serve your clients. If you do that poorly your business will fail.
A finished matter is valuable for both you and your client. Until then, it isn’t.
In a world that expects results in an instant, it’s important to deliver those results as fast and seamlessly as possible.
Not only is extra work in progress (WIP) not valuable, it’s slowing you down. Your firm is a value stream that takes in raw materials of some sort, processes them through a series of steps, and delivers an end result. You may not own a physical factory, but you at least have a virtual one.
Somewhere along the line of that value stream is at least one bottleneck. That’s not a criticism; it’s just a fact. Some step in your process has a maximum capacity that’s lower than other stages before or after it. That constraint is the limiting factor for the delivery capability of your entire system. For example, if you’re a lobbyist in DC and have been hired by three large corporations who want to split your fee. What’re you going to do? Spend hours manually splitting each line item? No. Invest in a service that offers the capability of split billing and eBilling. Ultimately, the goal of a Lean firm is to balance the work in the system to the capacity of that constraint.
The goal of a Lean law firm is to create a system that is incapable of routine errors. In Japanese, this is described through two overlapping concepts: Poke Yoke and Autonomation. Poke Yoke is error proofing as you do new things and Autonomation is the automatic identification of errors in your operations. Both of these allow you to quickly intervene to solve specific problems instead of wasting your time monitoring for problems to happen. Make sense?
If you invest in legal software, your matters will be expedited, you will have more billable hours, and a reduction in human error throughout your pipeline. The bottom line is: your revenue will increase. End of story. Oh, and not to mention the continuous integration of code, automated unit and UI testing, and rigorous monitoring that are all hard at work so you can sleep peacefully at night.
A Lean law firm works to absorb knowledge about their field from the outside world. But knowledge, as it applies to innovation in your specific context, can’t be learned. It has to be created. You and your firm gain knowledge best by doing. And when you do something and fail, what happens? You learn. If you don't learn from your mistakes and figure out how to improve what went wrong, you’re wasting your time and your client's time too.
Much of what you learn will be tacit. You can and should invest in tools for documenting knowledge. But ultimately, your tools will function as a backstop for the experience of the rest of your team. If you can create policies and cadences that allow you to build upon what you’ve learned, you will retain high-quality employees and offer stability even through times of change.
This isn’t the greatest name for a principle, but don’t stop reading.
What this means is to keep your options open for as long as possible. By the time the decision needs to be made, there is a greater chance that you will know more about every possible option and every potential outcome. Essentially, you are providing yourself with the greatest opportunity to take the most optimal route. It also gives you time to explore different options in more depth and experiment with solutions that may help bring you to the best conclusion.
In areas of complexity or uncertainty, things are very likely to change. Give yourself the opportunity to make the best choice by deferring your commitment.
One of the misconceptions of Lean is that it is mechanistic and impersonal. The painful realities that came with having to reduce waste through massive cost-cutting at the dawn of Lean in manufacturing didn't help with this misunderstanding.
But at its root, the waste that Lean truly aims at removing are the layers of overhead between the client and the people who are directly working on that product for the client. Lean firms recognize that the vast majority of the value generated in their organizations is by the people with their hands on the matter.
The best ideas for improving how you work and deliver value to customers come from the place where the work happens. This should go without saying but, treat people kindly, listen attentively, respond promptly, and most importantly, have empathy.
Lean requires a culture change within the partners and the workforce. Because of this, leadership must be proactive in practicing and implementing the system. Support for the method must come from the top-down. If you’re investing in new legal software to begin this change, partner buy-in through training must be evident or adoption won’t happen. If you’re wondering how your firm can get the most out of your tech investment, check out this webinar.
The benefits of adopting the Lean system are endless. Your firm may see dramatic reductions in cost through waste elimination, improvements in quality and consistency, and faster legal processes through the improvement of client services. And most importantly, your firm will see revenue-driving results, and a sustained culture of ongoing improvement and higher staff retention.
Training is one of the leading factors that creates the largest gap between buying and utilizing technology.
For many people, even the word “training” triggers a whole host of negative feelings from angst, stress, and even dread.
But training doesn’t have to be such a pain point. At its core, the key is to look at technology training as an investment rather than a cost. To foster a mindset that training is a piece of a holistic project versus an unavoidable burden.
Let’s take a look at 5 key questions that can help you get the most out of your tech investment.
First and foremost, the leaders in a firm need to be the advocates for the training. Partners and firm administrators know exactly what they want to achieve with the software, and that information should always travel from the top down. Overall success can largely be controlled by the expectations that upper management sets early on. Clearly defined goals and objectives will naturally promote a sense of direction and purpose for the training.
The hope of any training is that your staff retains what they learn. Studies today show that our retention rate for audio/visual material is about 20% in any given session. And if that training surpasses one hour, we retain less than half of the total information presented. Crazy, right? So, how do we combat this? You guessed it, with micro-learning. The key is to break your training into sessions. Never do everything all at once or you can guarantee that your staff's retention will be less than noteworthy. A common complaint is that training takes time away from completing day-to-day work. With micro-learning, you can not only prevent mind drifting, but also reduce the stress associated with not finishing work or meeting specific deadlines.
Break your training out by content and who it specifically pertains to. The best way to maximize engagement is to provide training material that is relevant to the work each person has to produce. Matching training content with staff roles will also encourage specific questions that will allow for deeper discussions on pointed topics within the training. Everyone’s work and expectations of producing that work are all different. Keeping that in mind throughout your training sessions will lead to a happier, more attentive team. Another key to utilizing relevant information in your training is to import your firm's own data into the system prior to the training. You can combat the foreign nature of a new software with the familiarity of known data. When people see information they know, they will not only grasp the concepts you’re teaching faster, but they will naturally be more inclined to learn.
Now that you have gotten through your initial steps of training, you may think the most important part is over, but don’t be fooled! Reinforcing that information is just as crucial to ensuring you are implementing it correctly, avoiding bad habits, and maximizing the potential of your investment! Simple steps like hosting a Q&A session once a week or providing a resource library with videos and guides will go a long way in making sure your team is less reactive if issues appear down the road. Most importantly, make it fun! Training and review sessions don’t have to be as awful as they sound. Bring food, have giveaways, create an atmosphere that makes it easier to learn the new material. If you are constantly reviewing best practices and streamlining your sessions to focus on specific questions, you will see an overall faster adoption time and run into less user error in the future.
The Positive Change chart above shows the emotional cycle of new users and the effect the technology adoption has on their mood as they go through the training process. Reinforcing relevant material will help reduce that drop between Uniformed Optimism and Informed Pessimism.
The Staff Emotional Cycle of Change chart gives a high-level view of the unavoidable stages a team will typically go through in the period of a new technology adoption. The pit between stages one and two can be minimized with effective training.
There are a variety of ways a firm could structure how they train their team. From hand’s on individual coaching, group lecturing, and instructor-led training, the style you choose is entirely up to your discretion. However, for law firms looking to adopt the best practice of a new cloud management system, instructor-led training and group discussion are the two most ideal types of training. Instructor-led is the most beneficial if you’re in a remote environment. If everyone is on Zoom together, it is important to have one leader who can direct the group, answer questions, and have a specific roadmap for that session. This style of training is also great for efficient micro-trainings on specialized material. Group discussion is also a preferred method of training because you will be able to break your team out into a variety of segments based on attendance size, relevant content, and personality of the group. Group discussions tend to boost participant engagement and foster an environment that is better suited for questions and suggestions.
Superusers are composed of individuals from different departments within a firm who have the strongest grasp of the new software. The goal of these users is to be prepared and make sure that the objectives of each training session are being met and discussed. These superusers, whether they’re partner’s, firm admin’s, or tech-savvy paralegal’s, need to prioritize discussions around various decisions, procedures, and facilitate the overall configuration of each training. All training decisions will be made by this group of superusers prior to attorneys and other staff members getting involved. Superusers provide a unified voice to the rest of the team and offer immediate support for the staff on go live. Superusers are critical to helping keep the internal environment calm and minimize that emotional dip of informed pessimism.
Superusers should be involved in the training process from day one all the way up to go live. Typically, attorneys can be up and running with the software after an hour and a half of initial training, however, paralegals, secretaries and firm admins may need more time. Training time largely depends on whether utilization is streamlined or more manual, and how active leadership is in encouraging their staff to view training as more of a benefit than a hindrance.
Successful adoption of a new technology will largely be determined by training. A great trainer is someone who is empathetic, patient, and can adjust their teaching methods to best suit the learning styles in the room. It is important that your trainer is someone who will go through all the ups and downs with you throughout the process. You can ask your technology vendor who will be training you and ask them to come to the office as soon as possible for initial discussions. Don’t be afraid to interview the trainer, make sure their skill set is at a level you need it to be, and make sure they understand the preferences and personalities of the people they are going to train. Some software vendors offer free training, but don’t let the word free deceive you. With free training, you will simply get what you get. You won’t have much control over when the trainer comes in, nor will you have much flexibility to select a different trainer if the one given to you doesn’t meet your needs. Getting the right trainer is half the battle in ensuring you’re getting the most out of your technology investment. If the person isn’t the right fit, it could lead to poor adoption of the material.
This question largely depends on how deeply you want to analyze the training. You have to decide whether you’re going to do a general cost-benefit analysis or a long-detailed cost-benefit analysis to determine if the training is meeting your ROIs. Prior to the start of your training, ask yourself what you’re trying to measure. Are you looking for more billable hours? Trying to create an environment more appealing to younger attorneys? Attract new talent? These goals will help measure what you’re looking for. The easiest way to evaluate the training is by getting your staff involved. Create surveys, have pre and post-training assessments, and self-evaluations. Giving your staff a voice will not only decrease inefficiencies but will allow you to change strategies and pivot approaches when need be.
There are so many metrics to gauge performance, from marketing reports, KPI’s, and applications with metric dashboards at a glance, a firm can measure their performance on many levels, but what we aren’t measuring is how teams are really doing with their software. Could they be doing better? Are they using the most effective strategies? Are they streamlining the process? Additionally, users are now working remotely, so how can we measure performance in a way we’ve never had to measure it before? All of those answers will point to the areas where you need more training. If you can measure your learning objectives, you will be able to measure your efficiency metrics a little better. Everything is being broken down and analyzed these days and training shouldn’t be an exception. At the end of the day, if you can locate your efficiencies, you can increase your competitive advantage. For example, let's set a goal of increasing your billable hours. What do you do next? Well, you can invest in technology that gives you features like Automated Time Capture (ATC). ATC functions solely to help you bill more hours. But what if you don't know how to use the tool? Looks like you won't be reaching your goal.
If you have the tools but they are never used, you’re not going to gain the efficiency and you might as well not pay to have the tool in the first place.
Training is essential. Proper training that fits your firm's needs is crucial. You will get the most out of your technology investment by embracing training, tailoring it to your firm’s needs, and evaluating its overall effectiveness.
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We want to thank Laura Kennedy, Co-Founder of Circle Management Group, for providing the Positive Change and the Staff Emotional Cycle of Change charts. Laura was also pivotal in conducting the webinar, How To Get the Most Out of Your Tech Investment, hosted alongside Centerbase's own, Rob Joyner, VP of Sales and Marketing. This blog was written based off their discussion on how proper training can make or break the successful adoption of any technology investment.
Laura has over thirty years of specialized technology training and change management experience. Her approach to training has helped thousands of professionals adopt new systems and processes.
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The most common misconception of Lean or Lean management, is that you have to expeditiously cut costs, maintain a small staff size, or use as little resources as possible. Fortunately, none of that is the case.
Before Lean became the methodology that it is today, the initial concept was created by Taiichi Ohno, an industrial engineer and manager at Toyota Motor Corporation. Following WWII, a group of American professors went to the Toyota factory in Japan to study what they were doing to rebuild their economy and industry. What resulted was a summarized theory of the Toyota production system that Taiichi invented. They then took these findings back to America and labeled it Lean.
So what is Lean? How can being a Lean law firm drive up your revenue or improve your overall efficiency? Simply stated, a Lean business is a business that maximizes value while minimizing waste. A Lean business model focuses on improving processes across the value stream in order to eliminate waste and deliver optimized value to the customer. This can help teams and organizations achieve their goals in smarter, more sustainable ways.
Lean is being used in the software industry, government organizations and healthcare, but it is not being used in the legal space. The most fundamental concept of operating under a Lean principle is being able to pinpoint and eliminate waste. For law firms, the key is to understand the difference between this waste and the value you bring to your clients. If your firm can understand what brings value to your clients versus what is waste, then you can eliminate that waste and focus on bringing more value.
Throughout the creation of Taiichi’s production system, he took into account seven kinds of waste and identified them as: overproduction, inventory, motion, defects, over-processing, waiting, and transport. Now, within these waste types you have what are called bottlenecks. Bottlenecks are composed of constraints that cause points of congestion in a process that slow down your firm’s flow of income, case load, daily operations, etc. Typically, bottlenecks are caused by the activity that requires the longest time in operation. So for your firm, that could be billing, timekeeping or any essential task whose process is slowing down the rest of your legal supply chain in a given case flow.
So the question remains, how can you optimize your law firm? Let’s take a deeper look at these seven waste types and learn how your firm can minimize or eliminate them entirely to improve your practice and increase revenue.
This type of waste results from producing more than what your client or the specific matter is requiring at any point in time. Overproduction leads to work pile ups that prevent efficient law firm operations and time management. To determine if you’re falling victim to overproduction, ask yourself these four questions:
By answering these simple questions, you can pinpoint the areas in your firm that are overproducing and eliminate the bottleneck effects that are caused by unsynchronized work production.
It is a common thought that more clients equal more money. Which in a sense is not wrong. However, the money spent on marketing campaigns and inbound leads to get those clients add up very quickly. More often than not, there are matters in progress that aren’t closed and collected on. In the process of waiting for these matters to close, you are losing time and income. In order to optimize your workflow, think about these three questions:
Automation is the easiest and most reliable way to ensure these two waste types are being minimized. Allowing your clients to pay online and setting up recurring payments will ensure your billing process is optimized and the income you’re waiting on is collected as efficiently as possible. Before you spend money to increase your workflow, look at ways to improve your current process. This will not only save you money in the long run, but it will make you more too.
One of the biggest waste of resources for attorneys is the amount of time lost searching for documents or information. Using technology to quickly navigate through documents and instantly pull information is crucial. Eliminating the time and effort that’s wasted from manually sifting through file cabinets will speed up your operation and lead to an increase in revenue.
Adopting technology that will also allow you to go paperless will reduce these two waste factors. Simple steps like capitalizing on electronic signature programs like Docusign, emailing your bills, and meeting your clients virtually to reduce commute and travel time, will all aid in your production and efficiency. Even things as simple as setting up your workstation in a way that will allow you to quickly move around and find the information you need faster will contribute to eliminating transportation and motion waste.
Overprocessing is the act of doing something in a more complex way or adding complexity to a process that could be much simpler. For example, it is no secret that billing is a burdensome process, but there are ways to make it easier. Let’s look at these four questions:
Utilizing technology to automate your billing and document creation will not only reduce human error, but save your time! Manually printing a bill, folding it into an envelope, addressing, and then mailing it is inefficient. Becoming a Lean law firm means losing those inefficiencies and adopting strategies that will maximize your time. That is Lean management!
Quality errors that cause defects invariably cost you far more than you’d expect. Every defective item requires rework or replacement, it wastes resources and materials, it creates paperwork, it can lead to lost clients. How often do you have to redo work? Have you ever gotten into trouble with a judge, client or your bar? Utilizing a system of automation will reduce these errors and produce more uniform results.
Now that we have covered the seven types of waste, how do you quantify your success? The Lean method won’t work its magic on your firm overnight. Do not expect to eliminate your waste all at once, instead follow a practice of continual improvement and watch the results follow.
The best way to eliminate waste is through automation. Most, if not all of the waste types can be solved with technology, but how else can you determine if the Lean method is right for your firm? Let’s look at a few terms to help quantify your efforts.
Think of cycle time as being the total duration, from start to finish, of a process that’s defined by you and your clients. For law firms, cycle time is the amount of time it takes you to start and complete a matter. Kanban cards or platforms like Trello, allow you to track your matter progress and measure how long it takes you to move through the entire process. Invariably, shorter cycle times will lead to more revenue.
Throughput is used to measure your business process flow rate. This metric is important to gauge the effectiveness and efficiency of your operation. For law firms, this could be the number of finished matters in a designated amount of time. So, how do you increase your throughput rate? By decreasing your cycle time. How do you decrease cycle time? By eliminating waste and adopting the Lean principles. Is it all making sense now?
ACUV is the average value in dollars brought to your firm from each matter “unit.” If you know on average, how much each case brings in, and how many cases you take and finish within a given amount of time, you will be able to predict what your yearly revenue will be. Just remember this formula: Income = Throughput Rate x ACUV. With all models, it is important to remember that there will be an element of simulation.
A lot has been covered here. But don’t worry! Your first step should be replacing your manual processes with automated ones. Although that may seem like a pain at first, the amount of time you will save and efficiencies you will create will help significantly increase your revenue. Eliminating the seven wastes is something that can be done through the implementation of Lean and the various Lean tools.
Remember, use the principles of Lean to identify the value you bring to your client first. Only then can you identify and remove the waste hindering your firm’s ability to drive revenue.
Want to learn more about how your firm can become Lean? Check out Principles of a Lean Law Firm: Creating a Framework to Optimize Your Business
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For one-third of law firms, a 2019 survey revealed recruitment is among management’s top challenges. There’s no doubt about it: the dip in specialized talents, as well as the pitfalls of education in recent years, are simply not meeting the needs of the modern firm. Certainly, attracting the next generation of legal talent has its fair share of demands, especially when it comes to new needs in technology.
Of course, you’re well aware of that. It’s a matter of what those changes are – and how to implement them smoothly and effectively – that becomes the bigger obstacle. Because not only do you need to hire that talent, you want to retain them to be your future leaders, too.
Here are some tips on how you can incentivize new talent to join your firm:
Most firms function similarly, so it won’t be day-to-day operations young talent look at when job hunting. Instead, these stars are searching for a place that aligns with their morals and values. These values, indicative of your company’s culture, are going to be your “secret sauce” to distinguish yourself from other firms.
Pinpointing your values originates in two key places: flexible work policies and sustainability efforts.
Millennials and younger generations prefer versatility in their workday. Gone are the days of eight hour workdays sitting in front of a computer pushing paper. The more effective technology available that takes manual, iterative work out of young lawyers’ days, the better. These workers want fulfilling careers that move the needle for clients – so balancing that desire with a flexible work schedule rewarding dedication with remote hours is sure to make your firm more appealing than others out there.
Many law firms are now offering flexible work policies, so if you haven’t yet, consider implementing work from home days as a perk to the job. It goes a long way with this new workforce, and you could get passed up for a firm that does have it.
Championing social and environmental causes outside of your firm is an important aspect the younger workforce holds in high esteem. Keep any notes of causes you support in your job descriptions and recruitment notes, and prospective employees are sure to take interest.
If you aren’t currently making monetary donations, consider a volunteer day at a local soup kitchen or a toy drive during the holidays to help your local communities. Current employees may have ideas on who to reach out to through Facebook groups or other Instagram pages. This is all part of the desire for emerging talent to make a difference bigger than themselves – and what better way to do that than through helping the environment and future generations?
Gone are the days of legacy, on-premise dinosaur computers that aren’t mobile or user friendly. Like many industries, firms are going digital, and new lawyers are going to covet systems that work with their flexibility, not against it. The easier your systems are to learn and use, the more people will use technology to make their jobs better (your accounting department will also thank you when they regularly enter their billable hours and client matter notes).
Of course, nothing happens overnight, so if you are in the market for revamping your system, notify new lawyers about the process during recruitment and add their input is valued in order to bring in the best possible new upgrades to the firm. This new generation loves knowing their feedback is taken into account, and it makes them feel like they’re being part of a positive change.
Offering non-monetary incentives during recruitment is crucial for young workers. In this Robert Half Legal survey, one in four (25 percent) of lawyers interviewed said that leadership or advancement opportunities are the most attractive incentive. Like most careers, lawyers will need to learn on the job, and learn how things work at your firm specifically. The best way to navigate the twists, turns, and mistakes and turn them into victories for your firm is to have top associates and talent guiding them.
Show your aspiring talent you will prioritize their ongoing growth, and you’ll have loyalty and commitment from them to work hard.
Not everyone you’ll hire will be lawyers, but they’ll still need to know the requirements of law they’re working within. There’s been an uptick in one-year master’s programs offering Legal Studies, which helps prepare students for the business aspects of dealing with courts and law. This could be a useful incentive for employees.
Of course, take time to assess the needs of your current workforce first, but when you look to other positions, you could offer tuition reimbursement for a certain amount of tenure at your firm. Not only will this help with retention, it will demonstrate your commitment to their ongoing improvement and career excellence.
While money is not the end all be all when it comes to hiring new talent, it certainly can get their attention. As stated in the aforementioned report, a competitive base salary can make a huge difference when looking to recruit top talent. Be sure when recruiting to offer salaries that meet and exceed the job market trends – this will help attract star players who have the potential to enrich your firm’s services.
This isn’t a one time thing, either – as salary trends are constantly changing, it directly affects employees’ feelings of worth about their jobs. When it comes to promotions and market level compensation, if you’re not adjusting based on their performance and worth, there’s a chance they’ll end up going somewhere else that will.
In order to survive through the digital age, you’re going to want talent that will drive your business and its clients forward. Since this educational gap doesn’t look to be filled in the near future, it’s up to you to create incentives and help bolster your incoming talent to be the very best.
We hope these tips helped you keep on top of recruiting top talent for your firm, and that you’re ready for the continued digitization of day-to-day processes.
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Much like supermarket fruits, there are many law management software options of all shapes and sizes out there – but to make the most of your staff’s efficiency, there are some basic functionalities needed to claim that highly coveted time back in everyone’s day. These integral features include: word processing, email, practice management tools, billing, accounting, and document management. For some of you, the first two on the list often live in the form of Microsoft Office or G-Suite. While these certainly have the potential for efficiency on their own, it’s important whatever software you choose has the capability to share information in real-time between programs.
Although integrating with existing apps is one option, you’ll reap the biggest rewards by consolidating your practice management, billing, and accounting software all in one place. Why? No incredible, life-altering reason – simply that it’s easier and more convenient this way. It’s a decision that requires careful consideration, since a software investment can be quite costly upfront, and individual “best of breed” solutions may seem more appealing when comparing them.
To help your decision, we’re going to explore the advantages to consolidating your legal technology:
One software platform to train employees on all their day-to-day duties simplifies onboarding for everyone. Depending on the work a staff member may do, having to train them with multiple interfaces and programs means more time until they’re up and running on their own without asking for help. With three separate programs, for example, that means three systems users will need to learn and navigate. Learning only one system saves time and empowers people to be more productive quicker.
There’s no dancing around it: multiple programs are more difficult to manage. Along with training, providing access and logins to new employees can be a big pain when you have to do it three to five times across all your programs. This means not only giving them a user ID and password, but also setting up permissions on what they can and cannot see. For small to midsize firms, this can be laborious when people come and go – constantly removing access and ensuring your data is secure and only seen by those currently still in your firm. This difficulty increases when you have to adjust permission types for sensitive data.
Read our tips on how to begin using legal practice management software for a deeper dive on getting everyone working efficiently together with new software.
Data accuracy is the biggest benefit to using one program for billing, accounting, and practice management. One-time entry for a client versus multiple minimizes the chances of human error. It’s happened before – entering information in your practice management system for client communication separately from your billing system. These differences, even if one number of an email address is mistyped, can cause problems later when you need to mail important correspondence or contact the client.
Those errors cost valuable time figuring out where the discrepancy lies. Even if these different systems claim to “communicate” with each other, temporary disconnects and ascertaining which software is prioritized or “wins” in information adds more complicated variables to the confusion.
Regardless whether you have on-premise or cloud software, it’s important to note that your firm is always responsible for scheduled diagnostics to ensure separate systems communicate properly. An update in one program may not be compatible with another program, leaving you with the difficult choices of having to disconnect and operate separately, not upgrade, or invest time with the vendors to find and address issues.
When working with multiple programs and an issue emerges, the onus is unfortunately on the firm to troubleshoot and determine the root cause. If it’s something between two programs, the firm will need to invest time and resources to work with the vendors, resulting in them pointing at each other if neither vendor accepts responsibility. While this is not ideal, it happens more often than we might like to think.
With a single program for billing, accounting, and practice management, you don’t have to worry about who’s responsible. There’s one place to contact for support and maintenance issues. This can save the firm time in troubleshooting and help bolster efficiency.
Those errors cost valuable time figuring out where the discrepancy lies. Even if these different systems claim to “communicate” with each other, temporary disconnects and ascertaining which software is prioritized or “wins” in information adds more complicated variables to the confusion.
A single system also makes it easier to track time. Whether you bill time or not, there are valuable insights in knowing where your staff spends most of their time on areas of improvement. That way, you can eliminate roadblocks and create an open dialogue that helps empower your staff to feel they have all the tools needed to help clients.
Plus, having one system to remind you in your calendar and automatically generate invoices for tasks creates less friction for accounting and record-keeping.
Have you ever generated a client bill and received a call saying “we paid that balance already last month?” That embarrassment can be caused by separate billing and accounting systems. When you have to record the payment in two places, it’s easy – almost inevitable, even – for something to be missed. Someone must siphon time from other money-making tasks to ensure everything is correct in both places.
When it comes to billing and accounting, these reconciliations include not only payments, but trust deposits, withdrawals from trust to outsiders, as well as the firm and expense disbursements. Given the critical nature of trust accounting makes this even more important.
Failure to bill clients for expense disbursements in a timely manner can have a significant impact on firm profitability, especially if the firm is paying the vendor before receipt of payment from the client. This impacts cash flow considerably over time. When disbursements must be entered in one system for billing and a separate system for general ledger accounting, the risks of missing something increase.
When information is in one place reporting becomes simpler. If data is in multiple places you may have to export data from the programs and combine into a single report using something like Excel. This is additional time as well as adding the possibility of errors. And, if something is discovered as missing, you have to redo the reports.
A single source is always more efficient and accurate here.
While you probably can’t find one program that does everything, there are benefits to consolidating where possible without losing functionality. Focus on your firm’s needs and consider your choices while keeping in mind the benefits of consolidating your legal tech stack. Software can be expensive – but the amount of time and peace of mind you’ll save can be well worth the investment if it fulfills all your needs, and updates with the needs of your business over time.
If you're curious about what kind of practice management software your firm should pursue, check out our blog, 3 Types of Legal Practice Management Software to Consider for Your Law Firm.
