You clean out your paper files, desk, and office refrigerator. So why wouldn’t you do the same with your law firm’s online data?

A robust data classification system is a must for your law firm. You’ve been entrusted by clients to not only zealously represent them but also to do no harm. To accomplish these goals, you must protect their sensitive data through a comprehensive and secure data classification system — one where you review and purge data regularly.

By having a carefully constructed data classification system, your law firm can protect itself against a possible data breach, make sure that it is properly compliant with the ethical rules regarding client record management, and better evaluate your firm’s performance and bottom line.

In this article, we’ll cover all of this and more while sharing a roadmap to help you start cleansing your law firm’s data.

What is clean data?

Data cleansing is the process of detecting and then correcting or removing defective, duplicate, or incomplete data.

To determine what data might need purging or correcting, think both big and small: your firm’s client records, filing records, document databases, scheduling books, emails, contact information, and employee information, to name a few data sources. Think about any potential data repository, both in your firm’s servers and computers and other electronic equipment as well as on your staff’s mobile devices.

Basically, this process means recognizing what is missing, incorrect, or unnecessary in your law firm’s data and then rectifying it. It’s a process that requires forethought and one that is best handled with a bit of help.

How can clean data benefit my law firm?

Cleaning your firm’s data is important to protect your firm. Sound data classification and cleansing practices can transform your law firm by reducing risks and improving profitability. With cleaner, error-free data, your law firm can protect itself against possible data breaches, make sure that it complies with the ethical rules regarding client record management, and better evaluate its own bottom line.

Clients entrust their sensitive, confidential data with your law firm. To fulfill your ethical responsibility to your clients, you must go the extra mile to keep only the data you need. Organizing and cleaning your data regularly helps to protect your clients. Data retention schedules and auto-deletion features can ensure you purge client files, emails, and other data once they are no longer useful to your firm.

This is important because protecting your clients and their information is a fundamental ethical responsibility — and it’s also just a good business practice. Lawyers are required to protect all client information from disclosure, including in a data breach. The American Bar Association has issued ethics opinions on securing communication of protected client information, and numerous states have their own data protection laws (e.g., New York’s SHIELD law). Because your license and practice are at stake, it’s critical to establish data security measures.

Clean data is also good for your bottom line. With cleaner data on your law firm’s performance, you’ll have better analytics, thus allowing your law firm to make more informed business decisions. Clean data (along with the right legal practice management software) makes for more accurate tracking. So, you’ll be able to keep a clear eye on practice area performance, monthly revenue, cash flow, and work-in-progress reports.

With cleaner (read: better) data, your firm can compile more useful reports and respond and adjust intelligently. You’ll also just keep better internal systems and records with clean data. It’ll be easier to run payroll, order supplies, and run your law office.

What is a data classification system?

To maintain clean data, it’s crucial that your firm establish a data classification system. Without one, your law firm will be poorly positioned to both avoid data breaches and respond effectively if one happens. Classifying data is the first step to protecting it, and a well-planned data classification system is essential.

The basics of data classification

Classifying your law firm’s data is not always an intuitive process. As your law firm grows, this process only becomes harder and more time-consuming. Our advice is to start organizing now and put repeatable processes in place so it’s easy for you to maintain clean data.

Begin by identifying your firm’s data and taking inventory of all the data held by your firm. Be methodical and ruthless in your analysis.

Then consider your collection processes. Do you actually need to collect all of the data that your firm is housing? Consider whether you can cut certain things and, if so, update your client information forms as needed. Minimizing unneeded data collection will benefit your firm in the long run.

We also recommend putting a data retention policy into place and setting automatic deletion features after a set period, particularly for certain sensitive information.

Once you’ve completed the identification stage, you can move on to actual classification. Most law firms (and businesses more generally) use tiered levels of confidentiality: public, sensitive, and classified. By having clear classifications, your law firm can set strong policies based on the different categories. When classifying data, remember to also keep in mind who owns the data, where it might be stored, and what the substance of the data is. With the right software, you’ll be able to organize and create controls to best organize and protect your client’s data (and your law firm’s data too).

This process may sound overwhelming. But it’s worth the trouble and will help your law firm to optimize your systems. When your data is categorized and controlled, your staff can find the information they need faster. As you know, optimization means higher productivity, which means more revenue.

Out with the old

We recommend starting with something easy like subscriber information. It’s okay to cleanse the contact information for folks who haven’t interacted with your law firm in years. Especially if your law firm has an active online presence, these clients will be able to find you anytime in the future. Set your own policy for contact retention, and be sure to follow it.

Also, keep an eye out for bounced emails and update or delete your contact records as needed. The same goes for document recordkeeping. Don’t hesitate to delete non-priority records that have been inactive for years. Chances are that the information you have is outdated. Plus, if your law firm has an active online presence, these clients will be able to find you with ease.

This holds true for the information your law firm has been collecting on itself. The cleaner your performance and financial data, the more accurate your analytical financial reports will be.

In with the new

Next, figure out which data is worth retaining. For example, if you’re looking to update your current client contact records, you’ll want to put resources into identifying which clients have incomplete records and start reaching out to gather the missing information.

The same goes for ongoing client matters. It’s worth ensuring that you have fully executed documents for recent transactions and complete records for matters that might turn litigious and be subject to a litigation hold.

By recognizing which data is necessary to complete and hold on to, you’ll be able to better use your firm’s resources.

Do it again

Once your firm has figured out its priorities and established a system of data cleansing, it’ll benefit from putting policies in place and establishing good data entry habits. If your law firm relies on manual data entry, it’s important to have firmwide guidelines. For example, you should specify whether your firm spells out or abbreviates certain terms and what spacing and punctuation should be used. And you should make sure to enter names and addresses following a consistent protocol.

And, unfortunately, you’ll need to cleanse your data again, and again, and again (and again). Your firm should regularly review newly added records for consistency and completeness, which can also help to catch spam or incomplete data. To keep your law firm’s data clean, you’ll need to assess and purge as a matter of course.

Start your journey to cleaner data now

Clean data is the foundation for a sound data classification process. The cleaner your data and the more consistently your firm follows your data classification system, the less your firm’s risk of data compromise, the stronger your law firm’s performance will be, and the better you’ll be able to forecast your finances, manage your client matters, and build your client pipeline.

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Implementation can be split into three separate buckets: data migration, setup and configuration, and training.

When it comes to implementation, vendors may make a wide range of promises. But what they are actually prepared to do for you may be more limited. You need to understand the different levels of detail offered with each facet of implementation when it comes time to determine what is best for your firm.

Data Migration

Data migration is the process of taking all of your client and firm data from your previous software and moving it to your new software. This can include everything from client data, calendars, and documents to billing and accounting data.

To help convince you to sign with them, some software vendors will try to entice you by offering a free basic data migration. This type of migration is performed using a preconfigured wizard and does not include custom fields or billing data. You won’t end up with all of your information in the new system and you will likely have to go back and clean up some data. But if you’re trying to save money and these drawbacks don’t bother you, this is a great option.

However, if you have over 10 employees and you’ll be billing out of your new software, there is a good chance you’ll need an advanced conversion that requires a conversion specialist.

The software company may offer advanced conversion in-house or may require a certified partner. An advanced conversion will include all of your client information along with some level of billing data, including billed time entries, billed expense entries, bills, payments, credits, and trust transactions.

The bottom line: You’ll want to get a feel from the vendor regarding the level of data conversion they’ll provide, and at what cost.

Setup and Configuration

Setup and configuration costs depend on how much you’re trying to customize the software. Some legal practice management software programs offer in-depth customization while others limit you to more static offerings. Some customizable areas include form layouts, custom fields, reports, workflows, and bill layouts.

Unlike data migration, this is an area you can get away with spending less at first if you need to save money. You can always configure the software gradually as time goes on and needs arise. Take the time to map out your goals for your new software in order to figure out what needs to be done right away and what can wait.

Training

Training is essential to successful adoption, end of the story. And you guessed it, good training usually comes with a price tag. When software vendors promise free training, it is extremely limited in nature. You won’t be able to choose when the trainer comes in and you may be stuck with the trainer even if they’re not a good fit for your team. The training may also be as basic as previously recorded training videos.

Approaching training the right way can help ensure you get the most out of your technology investment.

Change can be hard; that’s not a new fact. When it comes to new technology at your firm, change can trigger a whole host of negative feelings among staff, but it doesn’t have to be such a pain point.

One aspect of new technology that seems to be met with overwhelming resistance is training. If you can foster a mindset that training is one piece of a holistic project vs. an unavoidable burden, you can set your firm up for success on your new system. Proper training bridges the gap between the promise of a good purchase and the reality of successful integration.

Let’s look at five key elements of a training program that can help you get the most out of your technology investment.

Leadership Buy-In

First and foremost, the leaders in a firm need to be 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.

The Right Training Style

Firms can choose to structure training sessions in a variety of ways. For firms looking to adopt best practices for a new cloud-based management system, instructor-led training and group discussion are both ideal types of training.

Micro-Learning

The hope for any training program is that your staff retains what they learn. Studies show that if a training session surpasses one hour, we retain less than half of the total information presented. The best way to combat this is to break your training into bite-sized sessions. Avoid trying to teach everything all at once or you can guarantee that your staff’s retention will be less than noteworthy.

Relevance of Information

Organize training sessions by content and associated roles. The best way to maximize engagement is to provide training material that is relevant to the work each person is expected to produce. Don’t force your administrative assistants to sit through training about accounting unless their roles involve that aspect of the software in some way.

A great strategy for keeping the information in your training relevant is to include your firm’s own data in the sessions. You can combat the foreign nature of the new software with the familiarity of known data. When new users see the information they already know in place, it supports their ability to grasp the concepts you’re teaching faster.

Reinforcement

Once you get past the initial training sessions, you may be fooled into thinking the most important part is over. Alas, reinforcing that information is just as crucial to ensuring everyone is using the software 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 preparing your team for issues down the road. Review best practices regularly and streamline supplemental sessions to focus on specific questions to improve adoption time and reduce instances of user error in the future.

 

Your law firm cares about its clients. Retaining information for those clients while keeping matters organized and accessible is critical to providing optimal client service and maximizing billable time.

But client management is often a nightmare for law firms. We both know that keeping hard-copy records is an inefficient use of time and space. Plus, you never can find what you need just when you need it. And setting up an individual spreadsheet for each new client can prove tedious and frustrating.

Enter client relationship management (CRM) software (also known as “customer relationship management” software outside the legal industry).

CRM systems can help your law firm create a client-focused environment where your clients feel valued — while your firm reaps other benefits. Through organization and enhanced efficiency, CRM software helps your law firm maintain and strengthen business relationships. CRMs can help you keep your eye on the prize by prioritizing clients and ensuring that no growth opportunity goes unnoticed.

But it can be hard to decide which CRM is right for you. Multiple law firm CRM options are available today in the market. Below, we’ll guide you through what to consider as you evaluate the best solution for your law practice.

What is CRM software, and what does it do?

Put simply, CRM software helps law firms manage wide-ranging business development functions. These functions include client intake, client scheduling, and follow-up, automated marketing tasks such as email campaigns and reminders, revenue tracking, and workflow simplification. The right CRM software can help your law firm systemize its approach to maintaining client relationships. It’s a critical piece of your overall marketing plan and, in turn, essential to your bottom line.

In sum, CRM software can help your firm turn potential clients into retained ones while also helping you strengthen relationships with current clients. Think of it as a magical Rolodex.

How can a CRM help with client intake and with providing a better client experience?

You never get a second chance to make a first impression. For your law firm, intake is the first communication with a client and the perfect opportunity to impress with your firm’s client-centered approach. As you already know, legal practice management software streamlines procedures like client intake forms and onboarding new clients. Consider a CRM as another piece of this efficiency pie.

A pivotal part of growing your firm is understanding the client lifecycle. With this knowledge, your law firm can personalize and systematize each step within that lifecycle, maximizing efficiency and profit. This is where CRM software excels.

CRM software can help your law firm streamline the intake process, including client communications and correspondence, document exchange, internal data sharing, and even processing bills. You’ll eliminate duplicative tasks, have more time to do substantive legal work, and ensure that your first impression is flawless.

An improved intake process and the right integrated tools can help your law firm start working on a matter as soon as possible. These, combined with CRM software, will provide your clients with the best possible experience.

How can my firm get started using a CRM?

It’s easy to get started with a CRM. The first step in getting oriented is understanding which CRM best suits your firm’s needs.

Take some time to consider where your firm’s biggest inefficiencies are and where you see the most growth potential. The right CRM solution can help with efficiency while also helping your firm grow. Then consider these four options.

Are certain CRMs specifically designed to help law firms?

When conducting your research, you’re likely to find there are endless CRM options. We recommend taking your time and thinking about your law firm’s needs (including its budget) and how CRM software can meet those needs.

Be sure to consider which CRM best supports your legal practice. For example, Salesforce is an immensely popular CRM across all industries. But Salesforce might offer more features than you need if you’re a smaller or midsize law firm. And if you’re still exploring your technology options, you may think a solution like QuickBooks is all you need because it stores your clients’ information. But it doesn’t do anything to manage your client pipeline.

Here are five options that you should consider.

1. HubSpot

HubSpot is one of the legal field’s most popular CRMs. It’s free and useful, and if your firm grows in the future, HubSpot can also support expanded operations and needs. HubSpot allows your firm to track social media hits and interactions. It also offers valuable workflow functionality, including marketing tools such as email automation and scheduling follow-up emails based on website hits. HubSpot will provide your firm centralized access to important client insights and assist in better managing your sales pipeline.

2. InTapp

InTapp is a CRM solution built for the corporate world. It’s used by many of the biggest and most prestigious law firms. With Microsoft, email marketing, and billing system integrations, it has much to offer midsized and small law firms looking to up their game. InTapp also offers social media functions and various mobile apps to allow your lawyers to stay connected and bill on time.

3. InterAction

InterAction is LexisNexis’s CRM software that turns your firm’s contacts into business opportunities with client contact management and data collection. InterAction focuses on building client relations and generating leads through easy-to-use CRM applications that leverage client data. With its comprehensive approach to data control and quality, InterAction also helps your firm create a more efficient workflow that will help it develop opportunities for growth.

4. Lawmatics

Lawmatics is another law-focused CRM software. It offers solutions by practice size, so whether you’re a solo practitioner or a small, medium, or large law firm, Lawmatics has software designed to help your firm thrive. This CRM includes many basics you would expect, like enhanced automation options and customizable emails to help with marketing campaigns. It also offers graphic-forward systems, including a pipeline management system to track the nitty-gritty of client acquisition, advanced custom fields to capture comprehensive client information, and a built-in suite for e-signatures.

5. Law Ruler

Law Ruler is a CRM solution that collects and organizes information about a law firm’s leads, prospects, and current clients. It includes marketing automation tools, including personalized emails and text messaging for lead nurturing. It also supports client intake with custom form building and templates. It rounds out its offering with a robust set of analytics and customizable reports.

The next step is integrating your CRM with other legal technology

Any of the CRM tools mentioned above can help your law firm optimize and streamline daily operations while keeping an eye on your growth. Coupled with an improved intake process and the right integrated client management tools, your law firm can spend more time focusing on its top priority: serving clients.

The right combination of legal software, including CRMs, case management software, document management systems, and invoicing solutions, can help your law firm give clients the best possible experience. The key to ensuring use is integrating your systems as much as possible, reducing the administrative burden on your lawyers and your clients. Look for a CRM tool that works with your firm’s existing legal technology suite, and you’ll reduce implementation and adoption headaches.

Recently, we wrote a blog about the timekeeping, billing, and accounting features you may want from your legal practice management solution.

However, those requirements likely don’t include anything related to calendaring and task management, document and email management, workflows and automation, or communication tools.

When evaluating new technology, you should also think about your firm’s day-to-day operations and how those procedures lend themselves to your practice management software requirements.

Practice Management

A practice management system creates a hub for the entire firm to find information about your cases, which makes you more efficient and allows you to provide better client services, answer questions faster, and gain a better grasp of your data.

Practice management is a feature-rich component of legal technology with two overarching features: calendaring/task management and document/email management.

Calendaring and Task Management

Calendaring. It seems so simple – trivial even. Yet nothing is more critical to your firm’s day-to-day operations than an accurate and up-to-date calendar.

Practice management software gives you a centralized calendar that is backed up and allows you to choose from multiple views along with a matter-centric view. You can even create workflows and automated tasks that are built into each calendar view. This is great for collaborative firms or those that have a heavy workload and need help juggling a multitude of tasks.

All of this sounds great, right? But how does it fit within the complete picture of your firm? Start by asking yourself these questions:

One of the major benefits to a firm-wide calendar is that you can see everybody’s calendar and schedule multiple events with several attendees all at once, or select only the peoples’ calendars you need to see – no more having to do it manually one at a time.

The point of task management is to make it easy for your managing attorneys to check the progress of their cases. How easy is it for them to do this now? Can they see at a glance what has or hasn't been completed? The goal of any task management platform is to be able to present an overview of where any case stands at any given point in time.

Document and Email Management

Essentially, you have two options: You can either go with practice management software or you can use an integration dedicated to document management. When you’re evaluating document management, you need to look at a few things:

Storage is another important factor. How big is your drive now? How much would it cost for additional storage? These are the things you need to evaluate when thinking about document management systems.

Email management is a related priority. Some practice management systems let you save emails directly from Outlook or Gmail into the system itself. If you’re planning on going this route, how easy is it to do so?

Once you have learned how saving emails works within the system, the next step is to ask how the system will store the emails you save. Is it making copies of the emails or simply linking to them? Is it converting them?

Workflows and Automation

Workflow itself is defined as the sequence of processes through which a piece of work passes from initiation to completion. For many law firms, finding tools to free up more time to bill is essential to growing their practice.

Essentially, workflow brings process and automation together. Workflow takes a process, adds highly defined inputs and outputs, and uses automation to complete the tasks on your behalf.

For example, a client fills out a form on the website which triggers a potential client record to be populated in the database. Once a new record is created in the database, an email is automatically generated and sent to the prospective client letting them know someone from the firm will be in touch. Then, a task is created and assigned to the firm administrator to contact the potential client. And there you have it, workflow in a nutshell.

For many law firms, workflow can be a game-changer by creating structure and efficiencies within their practice. Additionally, workflow can free up time to bill, keep your database clean, and speed up the onboarding of staff.

Communication Tools and Portals

As important as it is to maintain thorough internal communication, it is just as essential to be able to communicate externally with your clients. Does your current system allow you to text and call your clients? Does it track and record the time you spend communicating with those clients?

Client portals have become a standard feature that your future clients expect. What does your client service like now? Does your team lose billable hours answering questions that could easily be answered through a client portal? Do you give your clients the autonomy to pull the answers they need on their own or do they still rely on getting in contact with you?

In order to improve client communication and create a client-centric approach to your day-to-day tasks, prioritize file storage and data security to promote a seamless, positive experience that clients will recommend to others.

Client Intake Process

Another make-or-break process for client satisfaction is the intake process. The client intake process looks different from firm to firm, but at its core, you need to be able to track data efficiently and access it whenever you need it, from wherever you are.

Your practice management software should help facilitate:

A huge part of the client intake process is cultivating the relationships that are most fruitful for your firm and tracking the progress that comes from those leads. The ability to pull lists and reports on current and potential new clients is paramount to your firm’s growth.

 

To understand the full history of legal industry practice management consultants, you’d have to go back 30+ years. Back then, all programs were server-based (not cloud-based) so law firms needed someone with enough technical expertise to understand how to load new programs onto their servers, install all the updates when they rolled out each year, deploy those updates to the firm servers, train and teach staff how to use the software, and ensure everything functioned and was maintained properly.

Obviously, things have changed quite a bit. Technology has progressed and law firms that are evaluating cloud-based programs don’t necessarily need someone to download their data and upload it to new software on a new server. Why? These days, the technology vendors will do all that leg work for you.

Over the course of the last several years, we have seen firms work directly with practice management software vendors and we have seen firms utilize practice management consultants. We’re not here to lead you one way or another, but rather to give you an overview of what both scenarios could look like.

Evaluation Process

When it comes to evaluating different programs, the first step is always going to be evaluating your firm’s needs.

The first thing a consultant is going to do is come in and interview you and your firm to understand your technical needs. They’ll probably be familiar with the program you’re already using as they begin their process. After conversing with your stakeholders, they’ll make a recommendation based on the information they collect.

If you’ve ever felt uncomfortable speaking directly with a vendor about what you need, or if you feel like you lack the technical expertise to make those judgment calls, we recommend bringing a consultant into the conversation.

Juggling Multiple Systems

Today’s consultants typically work with multiple systems. This can be both a good and bad thing.

The good thing? Their experience with multiple systems can prepare them to bring multiple options to the table for your firm, providing the pros and cons of each of the recommended services.

However, if a consultant works with multiple systems, they’re probably not an expert in any single one. So, if you’re evaluating multiple software systems and end up going with a specific one, your consultant will not necessarily be an expert in that chosen system. What this means is that they will likely have the foundational knowledge to initiate the basic setup for you but may lack the granular details to help you flourish and excel. In this scenario, working directly with the chosen software vendor specifically for implementation will be more advantageous because the vendor knows more about its own program, and will be better equipped to help you overcome any issues you may encounter.

Cost

Vendors and consultants operate under two very different business models. The vendor is a software company and the consultant is a service company. Software companies view services as a means to get you to use their software and to ensure your success with their program so you remain a happy and loyal customer. Service companies sell services as a way to make money.

Typically, working with a consultant is going to be more expensive than going directly to the vendor. The right consultant will offer a lot of value, but some firms don’t need those services. Think about whether or not it makes sense for your firm to hire a consultant in order to get from point A to point B.

If your main concern is cost and keeping expenses as low as possible, you may want to skip the middleman and think about working directly with a vendor.

Conclusion

Most software vendors today are set up for you to work directly with their team throughout your migration, go-live, training, and ongoing support period; however, they will also accommodate your firm if you choose to work with a practice management consultant.

Ultimately, the decision is up to you and what you think will not only best fit your firm today but your firm’s future needs as well.

The cloud has become a standard part of our lives. From streaming video platforms to smartphones and smart home devices, we rely on cloud computing to make our days exponentially more convenient. But individuals are not the only benefactors of cloud services. Over the last 10 years, business leaders around the world have incorporated cloud-based technologies, recognizing their greater efficiency and cost savings potential. Though it has taken a little longer, the legal industry has also started embracing the cloud.

As reported by the 2018 American Bar Association (ABA) Legal Technology Survey Report, less than 55% of all surveyed law firms utilized some aspect of cloud computing. The hesitation among law firms typically stems from three main reasons: worries about security, limited understanding of how the cloud operates, and ties to traditional methods of practice management. Many of these law firms still rely on filing cabinets and in-office servers, but the disruption of service that took place over the last couple of years made the drawbacks of this decision painfully clear.

As a result, law practice management software is meeting the cloud. Why are more and more law firms adopting cloud solutions?

Let’s explore in more detail the benefits of cloud computing, and why more and more law firms are adopting this cost-effective, more secure option for their legal technology solutions.

If you are a law firm leader or administrator who is frustrated with the inconvenience of premise-based software, this blog post is for you. It will explore four reasons why your law firm needs cloud-based legal practice management.

Why Law Firms Are Moving to the Cloud

Legal practice management software helps law firms keep all aspects of their practice organized and running efficiently. Firms have been using them for years to handle such needs as document storage, contact management, calendaring, and task management. They become the backbone of a practice, and when they are not available – whether due to a server crash or office inaccessibility – firms can experience debilitating process failures. After all, practice management software is only beneficial if a law firm can actually use it.

With in-office options, the practice management software is installed on a local computer or server located within the physical office space. Those servers are usually only accessible from computers also located within the same space, which limits the capabilities of the practice management software.

Cloud-based legal practice management software is not installed locally on your office server. Instead, it is web-based, using a remote server maintained by the software provider. Access occurs through the internet, which makes the software convenient and virtually 100% available for use.

1. Consistent Availability

With cloud-based legal practice management software, legal professionals can access all of their data at any time and on any device. This includes everything from documents and emails to time tracking tools and invoices. It eliminates the need to be located within the physical office because all data is stored in the cloud, which can be accessed remotely with the proper credentials or through secure mobile apps.

Even when a firm member makes changes to a client file or administrative document, other firm members maintain access to the most recent version. Working with cloud-based legal software gives attorneys and legal support staff the ability to retrieve case data and work on matters in a secure environment without the need for those antiquated network connections that confine them to the four walls of the office. Remote work becomes easier, with greater efficiency, productivity, and accountability.

2. Decreased Downtime and IT Issues

Law firms need an IT infrastructure that they can consistently rely on to meet their practice management needs. Recurring problems and excessive downtime limit productivity. They can also threaten a firm’s ability to maintain confidential client data in an adequately secure environment.

In-office servers are notorious for their unreliability. They break down often, especially without regular maintenance and updates. They are also known to be extremely glitchy which frustrates firm members as they try to complete time-sensitive tasks.

Firm administrators that choose an on-premise legal practice management software must prepare for continuous maintenance needs and repairs. Many firms find these tasks so challenging that they either keep an IT expert on staff to address server problems or contract with an outside IT consultant. Yet, even with the most proactive measures in place, servers can still go down, leaving firm members unable to use them.

Cloud services obviate all of these headaches. There is no requirement to manage expensive servers because the software provider automatically performs all necessary updates, regular maintenance, and backups. They also quickly address any repair needs, often before firm members even recognize that a problem occurred. Every technical task related to cloud-based practice management software is supported by one centralized team solely dedicated to its performance.

3. The Right Tools for Internal Changes

Changes within a law firm require a practice management system that is flexible and quick to adapt. Whether you are the administrator of a mid-sized firm that is scaling up or you are downsizing your firm’s physical office space, cloud-based legal practice management software adjusts with the changing landscape of your law firm.

Cloud-based practice management software offers a variety of modules and features, and many providers allow administrators to choose which options best meet the firm's needs. As the firm grows, so can its practice management software. There is no need to start from scratch with a new system when you can easily make adjustments to what already works.

It’s no secret that office relocation can be a pain in the neck. But it’s even more challenging with an on-premise server. Moving the server from one location to the next will likely require the assistance of an IT technician. It can also result in a period of inaccessibility to important firm and client data.

With a cloud-based system, your firm’s practice management software remains intact and ready to access throughout the entire move. Unlimited storage capabilities alleviate the need for heavy file cabinets and multiple servers. With everything stored in the cloud, firm members can settle into their new digs and get right to work without the costly interruption.

4. Improved Security

Many lawyers still doubt that cloud technologies can offer the level of security that they are ethically obligated to provide their clients. Yet, the real dangers of theft and data breaches are much more prevalent with in-office systems. A single fire or natural disaster can decimate physical documents in a matter of seconds. In addition, the responsibility to protect an on-premise server from cyberattacks falls on the firm, and that can prove very expensive. Cyber experts and server updates cost money, but law firms must take on these costs to keep their physical servers secure.

When using cloud-based document management, data is continuously saved and stored within the cloud, protecting it from physical threats like fire or natural disasters. Law firm leaders also control which members of the firm have access to the software. Some systems even offer security measures that limit the accessibility of individual cases or client information.

Cloud providers maintain a team of cybersecurity experts who are on constant guard against cyber threats and attacks. They take on this expensive responsibility so that law firm administrators feel comfortable trusting them with their law firm data.

Law Firms Need the Power of the Cloud

Law firm administrators that understand the power of cloud-based legal project management provide their firms with a valuable resource that streamlines and protects numerous aspects of legal practice. When choosing the right cloud-based option, look for features like:

As your law firm evolves, cloud-based legal practice management software can provide the continuous support and stability that your firm needs to become more productive and more profitable.

Many firms, upon deciding it’s time to evaluate new technology, make the mistake of immediately sprinting toward a solution, especially when they have been forced to react to address a sudden problem.

Diving headfirst into the search for a new practice management software completely forgoes a huge step (and arguably the most important one): meeting with the people who are going to use the software the most.

Meet with Your Team Internally

As soon as you realize your law firm needs new technology, the first thing you need to do is bring the discussion to your team internally. Too often, the decision to buy software is made by a handful of people within the organization, which makes firm-wide adoption more challenging. It leads to greater conflict and pushback and makes training on the new system considerably harder. Without team buy-in, expect a harder transition for many when it comes time to implement the new technology.

How to Meet with Your Team

Let’s face it: Some people are set in their ways and will push back on adopting new technology, period. If you have staff who are used to using one system or a certain set of procedures to complete their work, they may be quite reluctant to switch to a completely new way of doing things.

If you'll be the one organizing and collecting the internal data, start by putting out some feelers to people in order to get a grasp on the sentiments around the firm. It will be more helpful than you think to know exactly what people’s gut reactions are prior to processing any feedback.

To get the best results, send your team an email saying you’re shopping for new software. Within the email, make it clear that you are looking for internal feedback. Then, set in-person meetings to discuss their feedback and thoughts. Conducting the actual discussions in person as opposed to over email encourages open dialogue and ensures your team feels like part of the process.

If you’re a small team, try to talk to everyone at the firm; if you’re midsize, it’s advisable to speak with at least one person from every department that will be heavy users of the software.

Consider speaking to partners, associates, paralegals, and legal assistants, among other stakeholders.

Addressing Concerns

Once you have spoken to everyone, compile a list of all the feedback you received to categorize it into buckets. These buckets can be organized however you’d like, but if you need a place to start, try using billing, accounting, and practice management as a guide.

Oftentimes, the two parties that will push back the most when presented with new software are the billing team, who don’t want to change their processes, and the shareholders, who may not feel the expense is justified.

To address billing and accounting concerns, the first thing you should do is ask the team to identify any major pain points or complaints they foresee with moving to a new system. Listen to them, make sure they feel heard, and point out the benefits of the new system. In most cases, the initial change is the biggest hurdle to get past.

For the shareholders, it’s all about the value proposition. Show them the money! Highlight some of the ways the new technology stands to make your firm money, both in the long and short term. It will enable you to capture more billable hours, increase client satisfaction and referral rates, and attract top talent for a long-term competitive advantage.

Build a Requirements List

After you have collected and categorized your firm’s feedback, the next step is to create your requirements list.

A word of warning: Use what you have collected as a guideline for what your firm MUST have vs. pitting staff with opposing opinions against one another. If you carry a mindset that every feature is equal and all practice management systems are the same, you’re going to be severely disappointed. Avoid the feature comparison trap by thinking about the direction your firm is going. Ask yourself: What do I want my practice to look like in 5 years? 10 years? What do I want my interpersonal relationships with my staff to look like?

The easiest way to start building your requirements list is to list every possible feature that a practice management software could have and then begin crossing off the features your firm doesn’t need.

Looking for a list of potential features your firm should consider when researching new legal software?

Visit sites like Capterra to evaluate the customer reviews for the software options you’re considering. Many reviews on sites like Capterra will talk about specific shortcomings. Feedback from third parties who have already used the software can often prove to be just as useful as feedback from your team.

These reviews can provide you with a great snapshot of customer sentiment, but don’t look to them as a shortcut to making a final decision. Rather, use reviews to find ideas or read comments about topics or problems you haven’t thought about already.

Additionally, if you’re part of the Association of Legal Administrators (ALA) or similar professional communities, take advantage of your network to ask questions such as: What is something you wish you had asked or known ahead of time prior to buying new legal software?

Final Steps

Be aware that one of the worst things you could do for yourself is to ask a vendor to fill out the requirements list for you. Instead, you need to have that list readily available and in front of you before a live demo.

What happens if you pass your list off to a vendor? First, you’ve commoditized the software and, second, you’re letting them check things off for you. When you watch a demo, you want to be shown what is important to you and you want to see how the software works so you can determine whether or not it will align with your processes. For example, a vendor may say its software includes origination tracking functionality, but that does not mean its origination tracking feature will match your firm’s needs.

No one knows your firm or processes better than you do, so don’t overlook these details!

Timing is everything. This old adage holds true even when thinking about upgrading technology.

Maybe you’ve been on legacy software for years. Maybe you work entirely on paper. Perhaps you’re still dipping a fountain pen into an inkwell (by the way, if that’s the case – cool). Wherever you’re at, how do you know when it’s time to start evaluating new technology?

When firms begin to think about evaluating new software, two distinct mindsets come into play: reactive and proactive. Which one your firm holds will set the stage for how you kick off this process.

Reactive

For firms with a reactive approach to software purchases, one (or more) of the following primary motivations tends to drive them to reevaluate their legal technology:

Server replacement

Just like car batteries, servers don’t last forever and eventually need to be replaced.

Picture this: Your server is on the fritz but still operational. Your IT guy says it’s got six months to a year at best. Still, you hold off on any major moves and it dies unexpectedly three months later. Now, you’re looking at hours of downtime, potential loss of data, and thousands of dollars to replace it.

A reactive firm will wait until its server is at the end of its life, which forces them into making a sudden choice to either buy a new one or move everything to the cloud. Since buying and maintaining a server is such a big capital expenditure, at this point, the firm often realizes that the costs associated with replacing the server do not outweigh the benefits of upgrading to cloud-based technology.

Remote work initiatives

Investing in technology that enabled remote work used to be a proactive exercise for law firms. Now, over two years into the pandemic, many have been forced to make a reactive shift to remote work, which is now considered essential.

Remote work was an immediate necessity at the start of the pandemic, but firms are now looking for ways to evolve these arrangements, which may have been enacted hastily, to make them more efficient, seamless, and responsive. The “make it work” approach is quickly being replaced with a strategic one that identifies areas for improvement sooner rather than later.

No matter where your staff or attorneys are located, they need to have access to their work; if they don’t, your firm is going to lose money. Cloud-based technology paves the way for a more effective remote working environment.

SaaS deficiencies and consolidating systems

Many firms already use some form of cloud-based technology, but that doesn’t automatically mean they’re happy with the software they chose. Their current system could lack features that the firm needs to operate. This is the unfortunate result of poor communication with the vendor, or not being explicit enough about the firm’s needs during the initial discussions with the sales team.

Another pain point that often leads firms to switch software is how their data is distributed. If their current software doesn’t have the integrations they need to manage day-to-day tasks like document management, calendaring, and court deadline scheduling, the firm must rely on additional third-party programs. Working out of multiple systems makes it significantly harder to both run operations efficiently and utilize data effectively enough to make sound business decisions.

Imagine software that has billing features but lacks accounting functionality. In this case, firms must rely on outside technology for all of their accounting needs, leading to copious amounts of manual work, and, subsequently, more chances for human error. If you’ve ever had to enter information into multiple systems like this before, you know very well the pain we are talking about here!

Data security issues

According to the American Bar Association, 25% of all U.S. law firms have experienced at least one data breach. In other words, the risk to your firm’s information is at an all-time high.

At one point in time, cloud technology was viewed as a security hazard compared to on-premise servers. Today, however, that reality has changed. On-premise servers are at significantly greater risk for breaches because they are exposed to many more physical elements.

The easiest way to take server security off your plate is by working with a cloud-based provider. Ask yourself what you can do better to protect your firm and your clients and how you would react to a breach. The data you handle is sensitive and hackers today use sophisticated techniques to gain access to it. If you aren’t relying on companies that protect data for a living to keep yours secure, you are exposing your firm to significant risk. As soon as a security breach happens, a reactive firm is pushed to evaluate new cloud-based software.

If any of those motivations resonated with you, it is time to start looking at new legal technology while you have the leisure to do so.

Proactive

Firms with a proactive approach are intent on staying ahead of any problems and motivated by a desire to improve. Instead of waiting for issues to occur, these firms pursue action-driven solutions to maximize their operations. This road often leads them to consider cloud-based software much earlier than a reactive firm.

Maximizing cost savings/increasing revenue

If a firm’s goal is to increase revenue, the initial reflex for many is to try to hire more attorneys. But, if you leverage the right technology, you can increase revenue by capitalizing on features that allow you to capture more billable time. This can be as simple as the ability to enter time on your commute, or it can be complex like being able to instantly track and create billable events for text messages, calls, and emails as conversations occur.

On average, attorneys only capture 2.3 billable hours a day, so automatically capturing your time as it happens is the easiest way to grow your business and increase revenue without hiring more staff.

Improving client service

Your clients expect three basic things from you:

Your firm needs to be available. No one hits the panic button faster than a client who either doesn’t feel heard or can’t quickly get the information they need. When you go with software with advantages like a client portal, you help reduce the number of client calls your staff may receive while helping your firm stand out by giving your clients a quick way to access what they need.

A client portal also helps you achieve autonomous accessibility, which has the added benefit of reducing the time you spend answering their questions.

This responsiveness can be translated into new business as well. When people are searching for representation, oftentimes, it is the firm that responds to their call or email first that wins the business. Not only are these firms setting the tone right off the bat, but they are also making the client feel prioritized – a huge factor when it comes to converting prospects into billable clients. Legal software is the best place to start if you want to improve these aspects of your client experience.

Going paperless/reducing paper

As we all learned these past couple of years, the ability to access files from any location is imperative to today’s practices. Firms that were paperless before the pandemic were able to continue their practices without missing a beat. The advantages are valuable outside of a pandemic as well. Digital case files allow your attorneys to access them wherever they are – from court, a client’s office, or home.

With all file information hosted in the cloud, firm attorneys and staff can access the files from any location with internet access.

 Improving efficiency and productivity

The bottom line: Proactive firms are motivated to meet the current state of technology. They take active steps to adopt modern solutions that may not have existed five years ago, taking note of their current pain points and strategically planning out how they can alleviate them. Generally, they set out to improve current processes, become more efficient, and implement software that allows them to be agile, grow, and develop.

What is law firm accounting?

Most law firm leaders do not enter the legal industry with an accounting background, but a basic understanding is important to inform decisions about billing processes, the acceptance of payments, and trust accounting.

Simply put, you need to know about your law firm’s financial performance. But, you also need to be able to meet your legal, regulatory, and ethical obligations, such as preparing your federal and state income tax returns and managing your clients’ money. Accounting practices enable you to prepare financial statements, capture expenses, and create budgets and forecasts. The better you understand your law firm’s finances, the easier it will be to make smart decisions for your business and avoid legal and ethical headaches.

A lot goes into navigating the world of law firm accounting. Let’s explore some of those vital components:

Choosing the Right Bank

The wrong bank could create financial complications for your firm and result in serious legal problems.

When choosing a bank, consider the following:

Law firms typically need a business checking account for the management of general business revenue, a savings account to set aside money for taxes or emergencies, and an IOLTA account for holding client funds in trust.

Some law firms also choose to open a money market account to take advantage of a higher interest-earning rate, as well as a business credit card for strategic practice growth.

The Intricacies of Trust Accounting

For law firms that hold client funds in trust, the IOLTA trust account comes with its own set of detailed accounting rules and risks. Noncompliance can result in severe penalties, so it is important to understand the complexities of trust accounting.

With so many different rules in place, it can be challenging to stay on top of all of them. Even still, some mistakes show up more often than others, with the most common stemming from these IOLTA rules:

Tax Obligations

As businesses, law firms must stay on top of their federal, state, and local tax obligations. The specifics vary based on the type of practice, but most firms have a responsibility to pay the following types of taxes:

This is not an exhaustive list and firms may have a variety of additional tax obligations. As such, firms need a tax professional in their corner to help them navigate these vital responsibilities. For firms that do not have an accountant on staff, a contracted Certified Public Accountant (CPA) can offer valuable guidance for limiting tax liability.

Payroll

Legal time tracking is not an easy task, so law firm payroll poses challenges that do not exist within other industries. Firm members may have varied pay structures, which requires a payroll process that offers flexibility.

Payroll accounting includes components such as:

The rise in outsourced legal work adds another layer to payroll duties. Law firms should carefully categorize employees and independent contractors for taxation purposes.

Payment Processing and Collections

Once the invoices have been sent out, law firms need processes in place to actually receive payments and manage collections. After all, there is nothing to manage if revenue is not going into the firm!

While most firms still accept cash and checks as payments from clients, online payment methods have become more common within the legal environment. This requires having a system in place to accept these payments, and the choice of provider could mean the difference between accounting success and failure.

Invoicing

Invoicing is arguably the most important part of law firm accounting, as it is the mechanism by which firms bill for the legal services they provide. Improper invoicing can have many negative consequences, including unbilled tasks, sporadic billing, and unpaid invoices.

Law firms can choose an independent legal billing system to handle invoicing tasks, but the most streamlined option incorporates legal billing into a legal practice management system. With these platforms, firms benefit from advantages such as simplified approval processes, tracked invoice changes, and the ability to process numerous types of fee arrangements.

Some legal practice management software options include extensive data reporting capabilities so firm leaders can quickly access financial reports with just a few clicks of the mouse.

Should my legal practice management software include accounting features?

There’s no doubt that your legal practice management software should include accounting features within the larger platform. In fact, this is one of the most common reasons that law firms choose to implement cloud-based software.

Legal professionals spend time tracking billables and nonbillables. Management spends time reviewing revenue statements, budgets, pricing, and law firm expenses. Billing administrators spend time generating invoices and following up on delinquent accounts. By having legal practice management software that includes both billing and accounting features, you can streamline some of the most time-intensive, manual processes at your law practice. This software also lets management review billing and accounting data within the larger context of other law firm metrics.

Legal practice management software without any billing or accounting features leaves a gaping hole that management usually needs to fill with multiple platforms. This can confuse the data and your employees, and it typically creates more work for everyone. Plus, it usually results in an added expense for the law firm.

What are the most important features that law firm accounting software should have?

As you’ve probably gained from this post, law firm accounting can be challenging. But, it doesn’t have to be another headache on top of the stresses of your law practice.

The first step is to put down the pencil and paper - or even the Excel spreadsheet. If you want to get really serious about your accounting, you need to ditch small business accounting platforms, like QuickBooks that aren’t designed specifically to meet small law firms’ needs.

You need a legal practice management platform that includes full billing and accounting capabilities, making sure that you’re able to track every last penny and satisfy your ethical obligations to your clients. To find a tool that’s able to resolve your biggest accounting challenges and meet your firm’s needs, look for a platform that is equipped with the following accounting features:

Organize the chart of accounts and trust accounting

Given the number of financial accounts in a law firm’s financial ledger and the potential number of firm clients, it can be daunting to track them all in a standard bookkeeping system. Law firms must track assets, retainers, receivables, revenue, equity, expenses, and much more. A centralized repository that puts all of your bank accounts, operating accounts, and related information at your fingertips in real-time is essential.

Every lawyer knows that closely managing client trust accounts is an integral part of ethical (and legal) law firm billing. Billing and accounting software must be able to effectively manage lawyer trust accounts that hold clients’ funds before they are earned. This includes tracking interest-bearing accounts (IOLTA) and three-way reconciliation with the asset sheet, trust asset account, and trust liability account.

Facilitate timekeeping and billable hours

Legal accounting and billing software must be able to accurately track billable hours and support LEDES e-billing practices. It’s even better if the software has features to automatically detect timekeepers’ billable hours, such as the ability to capture time for appointments or communications sent through the same platform.

Support flexible fee arrangements

Some law offices use flexible fee arrangements, depending on the client or type of case. To be effective, the accounting software should recognize various fee arrangements like fixed fees, contingent fees, and subscription-based payments.

Generate automatic invoices and payment collection

Generating invoices and collecting payments is one of the most time-consuming parts of legal billing. Software that can automate the billing process by automating and sending invoices to clients, facilitate edits and changes to bills directly within the system, and collect credit card payments through a secure system will cut down on the time that administrative staff spends on billing.

Prepare Billing and Accounting Reports

It’s important for billing and accounting software to synthesize data and generate reports that give law firm management insights into the efficacy of billing procedures. These reports may include billable and nonbillable hours per timekeeper, client, or case as well as measures of attorney profitability.

Track expenses

Law firm billing and accounting are important because they tie directly to the financial success of the business. Legal practice management software must be able to track metrics related to big-picture finances like expenses, overhead, and cash flow so that management can pinpoint areas of success and opportunities for improvement.

Provide customizable features

Perhaps the most important feature of legal billing software is that it can be customized to support your unique business goals. For example, a legal billing solution might offer add-ons like billing templates, an app, a customizable dashboard to track relevant billing and accounting metrics, or the ability to create one-of-a-kind financial reports.

Features like these can make the difference between an inefficient accounting process that’s prone to errors and bookkeeping and accounting systems that run like clockwork, enabling you to meet your ethical obligations and client trust account reporting requirements.

Takeaway

Mastering law firm accounting is no easy feat. However, the right legal accounting software can help you streamline these critical accounting functions.

If you keep the above components in mind and put them into practice, you’ll be well on your way to navigating your firm’s finances successfully and without penalty.

Table of contents

What is legal workflow?

Process vs. automation vs. workflow

Benefits of workflow in a law firm

Areas workflow can be used in a law firm

Types of workflows found in legal practice management software

Legal practice management software that includes workflow

How to implement workflow software

What if we told you about a technology that would relieve 50% of the administrative burden from your legal operations professionals... would you be interested in hearing what we had to say?

Of course you would!

That’s why many in the legal tech community have become fascinated by workflow technology. For many attorneys, finding tools to free up more time to bill is essential to growing their practice. Based on a recent report, law offices responded that they spent 40% of their time on administrative or manual tasks.

In this blog, we’ll introduce you to workflow, explain what workflow is, some of its benefits, and the different workflow tools available in legal practice management software to help you streamline your law firm.

What is legal workflow?

If we go back to the basics, workflow itself is defined as the sequence of industrial, administrative, or other processes through which a piece of work passes from initiation to completion.

Process vs. automation vs. workflow

Process, automation, and workflow are terms you’ll hear people refer to as synonyms or married together such as “workflow automation” or “process automation”.

Though they sound similar, the three terms refer to different things:

For example, if you’re trying to improve your client intake, here’s how each term would be defined:

Process:

A prospective client contacts the website > someone from the firm contacts the prospective client > an initial consultation is scheduled > an attorney meets with the prospective client

Automation:

A webform populates a database, a personalized email is created and sent from information stored in the database and a document is automatically generated based on information stored in the database.

Workflow:

Benefits of workflow in a law firm

For many law firms, workflow can be a game-changer by creating structure and efficiencies within their practice.

Although the list is long, here are some of the most important benefits workflow processes can bring to a law firm:

Areas workflow can be used in a law firm

Workflow can be used in any area of your practice that requires administrative work but the majority of the legal practice management programs will focus on automating one of three areas:

Intake

74% of all legal consumers visit a law firm’s website to first take action. This means if your firm has a high volume of website form submissions you need a process for managing your pipeline.

Today, many firms receive an automated email from their website’s form tool with the prospective client’s information, but that doesn’t get the information into your case management software to begin managing the intake process.

These days, most legal technology offers workflow tools to help you manage your intake.

This includes sending personalized response emails out once someone contacts the firm, scheduling follow-up tasks, merging new client agreement documents, or keeping the status of the potential client updated.

Matter

If your firm deals with a high volume of matters, such as an insurance defense or personal injury firm, workflow within matter management software can be used to help you juggle all the balls in the air.

On a matter, you can use workflow to do things such as schedule follow-up tasks if a member of your staff hasn’t touched a matter within a certain number of days, automatically email updates to clients or generate/email medical records requests for you with the click of a button.

Billing

Using workflow to manage the pre-bill process and collections can help dramatically improve cash flow.

Pre-bills

For pre-bills, workflow can flow the pre-bill through an electronic approval process. If your firm requires the associate then responsible attorney to review a pre-bill before posting it, the workflow can move the bill from one person’s approval list to the next, before finally updating the status once all the approvals are completed. Your billing team can then receive a notification that the bill is ready to post and send out.

Collections

Collections are another pain point for a lot of law firms. It requires the staff to constantly manually send out reminders to your clients. With workflow, you can have reminders automatically sent out to your client once a bill is overdue and continue sending the emails until the balance is paid off.

Types of workflows found in legal practice management software

Task workflow

If you work with a team, there is a good chance that you assign tasks to different staff members at different stages of a case.

Think about when you open a new case. If you don’t have activity workflow, you either:

This can be automated using a calendaring workflow within practice management software.

Some legal practice management programs will let you create prebuilt lists of tasks and then quickly assign them out.

Other programs will automatically assign tasks to different staff members you’ve designed once a matter is open.

Or finally, programs will give you a list of tasks and let you fill in the staff you want to complete the task.

This is helpful to any firm, but especially to firms that have a high volume of cases, new potential clients contacting the firm, or if you have a high staff to attorney ratio on your team.

Appointment workflow

Similar to tasks, many firms have a set of internal deadlines or meetings they want to schedule once a new case is opened or reaches a certain stage.

For many firms, this requires a paralegal or assistant to manually calculate relative dates based on a certain deadline. It’s time-consuming and error-prone.

Many legal practice management software programs have a feature built in to solve this problem.

The technical term for this feature is chain calendar events. These are all appointments with relative dates based on a trigger date such as “date of trial.”

This isn’t to be confused with a scheduling order designed by the courts but rather, a list of internal deadlines.

Automated workflow

Automated workflow expands beyond activities and allows you to flowchart your processes into software automation. This type of workflow will keep your case status up to date and offer your staff different options based on the process you’ve defined for that stage of a case.

Your process for opening a new matter might look like this:

  1. Run a conflict check.
  2. Send then receive the engagement letter from the client.
  3. Open the matter in your practice management software and send out the initial retainer bill.
  4. Collect the retainer from the client.
  5. Set up an initial meeting with the client.

Throughout this process, your system could use workflow to take the burden off your staff by automatically merging the engagement letter, sending out an emailed retainer bill to the client, and even opening the matter file in your system.

With workflow, the software will bring you down the path you set up and automate certain tasks, but your staff will still be required to prompt the software to move to the next stage by marking tasks as complete or clicking on the next step.

Advanced automated workflow

Advanced automated workflow is like having a robot assistant.

The difference between automated workflow and advanced automated workflow is in an advanced automated workflow, your staff doesn’t have to click a button to make something happen.

Advanced automated workflow can be triggered by the creation of a record, updates to a record, or queries.

Your possibilities become endless with advanced automated workflow, but it does require the most setup.

Legal practice management software that includes workflow

ActionStep

ActionStep is a cloud-based, legal practice management and billing and accounting software. Within ActionStep, you’re able to build a matter-centric automated workflow.

Their tool lets you create different workflows based on the type of matter. The individual workflows are broken into linear stages of a case. Once a matter is moved into a certain phase of the case by a staff member, the workflow can perform tasks such as generating appointments/tasks, creating merged documents, or sending emails.

ActionStep also allows you to purchase prebuilt practice packs that have already been set up for you if you want to plug in and go.

Centerbase

Centerbase is a cloud-based, legal accounting, billing, and practice management software. Within Centerbase, you’re able to build advanced automated workflows on any record type.

Each step of a workflow can automatically or manually trigger different events to occur such as creating a record, updating a field, merging a document, sending an email, or creating a calendar appointment/task. Workflows in Centerbase are not linear, they instead let you move throughout the workflow based on your needs.

Clio

Clio is a cloud-based, legal practice management and billing software. Within Clio, you’re able to create intake workflows.

Clio’s intake workflow allows you to create forms for clients to fill out. Once the form is submitted, internal tasks can be assigned and personalized emails can be sent to the prospective client.

Rocket Matter

Rocket Matter is a cloud-based, legal practice management and billing software. Within Rocket Matter, you’re able to create calendaring workflows on matters, based on status updates. These workflows can create tasks assigned to different members of your staff or the workflow can create calendar appointments based on relative dates.

Zapier

As Zapier put it, they’re “the glue that connects thousands of apps.” Their software is used to connect different applications in your technology stack, based on certain events occurring. If you’re using different siloed programs within your firm, this is a great option to integrate your processes and curb duplicate entry.

For instance, if you enter a new potential client in your practice management software, Zapier can create a task in your task management software for someone to follow up and add that contact to a specific marketing bucket within your email marketing software.

How to implement workflow software

As soon as you pick a workflow tool, it's natural to want to get started right away.

However, it may be beneficial to take a slower approach to implement your new process automation tool. If you’re implementing a new practice management software that includes workflow tools, get into the software first before you start designing workflows.

By delaying your workflow implementation, you’re able to better understand how the new software works. Many firms jump right into implementing workflow by designing their workflow process around how their previous software worked, which in turn makes the workflow effective.

Another common recommendation is to build your workflow out in pieces. Start small, use what you’ve built for a few weeks and continue to build from there. It’s common for a flow to sound good during implementation but isn’t practical once you begin using it. If you build your workflow out in pieces, it’s easier to tweak these changes as they come up.

Finally, if you’re new to workflow, work with a legal consultant. There are many in the industry that have spent their careers helping law firms implement workflows and can guide you through designing the right workflow for your firm’s processes.