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As you search for new law practice management software, you shouldn’t settle for a painful implementation process — which is the largest obstacle preventing law firms from embracing new and better software.
With the right components in place, a legal software platform can provide an accurate and efficient implementation with minimal business disruption — so you can start making strategic and profitable business decisions immediately.
Here’s what you should look for in a well-mapped legal software implementation process when searching for the right vendor.
As you’re narrowing down your law practice management software options, ask each vendor if they have a dedicated team that will focus on delivering an exceptional implementation.
A comprehensive implementation team should include project managers and data specialists that organize your implementation and deliver accurate data imports, and support, training, and customer success teams that champion your firm’s success throughout your firm’s experience — including post-implementation.
What is the actual implementation process for each vendor? You’ll want to understand how thoughtfully they’ve mapped each phase of implementation, and what tools will be used to migrate your firm’s data to the new software.
Any software implementation must deliver correct data in the way you intend to use it and do so with minimal business disruption. Ask the vendors specific questions about each phase of the implementation process to understand if they can deliver on this expectation.
The early stages of an implementation process should:
Accurate data migration is critical to successful implementation of law practice management software that your team wants to use. Look for the following in vendors’ data migration phases:
Having accurate, ready-to-use data in the system allows your team to start learning how to use the new software. Ask vendors how they handle:
When the official switch to the new software begins, you’ll want it to be as seamless as possible. Vendors should have plans to minimize business disruption by walking your team through:
Of course, you also need to feel confident a vendor will continue to help your team reap the benefits of the new software as your firm grows and changes.
Your new legal technology investment should help your firm become more efficient and profitable. If it offers the features to help you accomplish your firm’s goals, ensuring it also has an efficient and accurate implementation process will allow you to extract that value from day one of using the software.
Be selective, and hopefully you’ll experience a software implementation that minimizes business disruption like Susie Saldivar, Office Manager at Gaido & Fintzen.
“The onboarding process [with our legal software vendor] could have been terrible and glitchy, but, instead, it was super dreamy," she says. "I couldn’t have asked for a better onboarding experience. Everything went great."
Get all the details for what makes an accurate and timely implementation here.
Modernizing your law practice management software is an enticing — and strategic — end goal. Whether that means moving your firm’s data from a server to the cloud or upgrading to an all-in-one law firm management and growth platform, you can significantly enhance efficiency and client service with modern software.
But all the features within law firm management platforms mean nothing if you find yourself questioning the accuracy of your firm’s data. Christopher Holmes, Chief Operating Officer at Hackett Feinberg P.C., knows this reality all too well.
In 2020, Chris led the charge to modernize his firm’s operations. A long-time user of Timeslips, Hackett Feinberg was eager to upgrade from an on-premise server to a cloud-based solution.
The firm decided on practice management software that seemed to fit the bill, as it offered the integrated practice management documents, email, and accounting capabilities Chris and his team wanted.
“The goal in moving to that system was to have a modern platform that would better serve our clients, be user friendly, and improve our firm’s efficiency,” he says.
After three years with the software, Hackett Feinberg learned its limitations. Primarily, the firm encountered data integrity issues in its accounting, where a deposit would have a date different from other deposits made the same day, throwing off the firm’s bank records.
In other instances, the system showed that clients’ payments were due, even though they had been paid.
“These issues were alarming, and they made us wonder what we might be missing,” Chris says.
The firm recognized other limitations, too, namely a lack of robust, customizable, user-friendly reporting.
“The reporting dashboards were not useful,” Chris says. “They were templates that couldn’t be customized, weren’t based on user roles, and they didn’t have proper user-based restrictions.”
Eventually, it was time to explore other options.
“I got a demo of Centerbase and saw the difference immediately,” Chris says.
Centerbase’s advanced reporting and customizability now give Chris the information he needs.
“I love that I can customize our dashboards by user roles, so we can have a managing partner dashboard, a new associate dashboard, etc., with information that’s relevant to them, and they can do what they need to,” he explains.
He especially appreciates not having to enter data and calculate compensation manually, thanks to Centerbase’s Production and Origination report. “I can let attorneys know their compensation on a daily basis if I need to,” Chris says.
Chris particularly appreciated Centerbase’s focus on data integrity during the onboarding and implementation process.
Centerbase has been in communication with us during the entire data conversion process, working with us to overcome the limitations of the data available from our prior software.
Christopher Holmes, COO, Hackett Feinberg
Centerbase’s proprietary implementation methods deliver accurate data imports by mapping and validating the firm’s data, ensuring it is accurate, organized, configured to fit the firm’s needs, and ready to use on day one.
Chris also likes that his team has an organized implementation process to follow with clear expectations, accountability, and target dates for completing tasks. Additionally, thorough live and online training give them the support they need.
“I’ve been part of software conversions before with larger law firms, and Centerbase’s implementation process brings back those previous positive experiences. The Centerbase team has been great and very helpful. They are magicians,” Chris says.
