The Increase In Remote Work

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.

Disadvantages of Remote Working and How to Fix It for Legal Professionals

Difficulty With Time Tracking

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.

Blurred Work and Personal Lines

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.

Increased Risk for Miscommunication and Document Management

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 Risk of Decreased Client-Facing Work

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.

Reduced Collaboration and Networking Opportunities

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.

Increased Home Office Distractions

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.

Striking a Balance with Remote Work

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.

Conclusion

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.

7 Principles of Today’s Lean

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.

Optimize the Whole

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.

Eliminate Waste

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.

Deliver Fast by Managing Flow

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.

Build Quality Into the System

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.

Create Knowledge

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.

Defer Commitment

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.

Respect People

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.

In Sum

The Challenge

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 Opportunity

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.

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.

 

Seven Types of Waste

 

Overproduction

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:

 

• Is one part of the firm producing more than others can handle?
• Is there a way to help supplement the slower workers to leverage that production?
• Are you doing too much of one thing past the point of it being productive?
• Does what you’re working on have to be done right now?

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.

 

Inventory (your matters) and Waiting

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:

 

• Are you closing out cases promptly? (If not, is anyone at the firm holding up the process?)
• Are you collecting payments as promptly as possible?/Can your billing be faster?
• Are you making it seamless and for your clients to pay you?

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.

 

Transport and Motion

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

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:

 

• Do you send out paper or electronic invoices?
• Are you sending them out in batches?
• How do you generate invoices?
• How do you create documents?

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!

 

Defects

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.

 

Quantifying Success

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.

 

Cycle Time

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 Rate

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?

 

Average Case Unit Value (ACUV)

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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Peruse any standard law school syllabus, and you’ll find a class – and a curriculum at large – that rewards individualism. An attorney’s entire career rides on their sole expertise to attract clients. With this in mind, from test scores to days in court, it’s no secret attorneys often prefer to practice separately. It’s easier, not to mention they don’t have to rely on someone else – and thoughts of “What if they steal my client?” can be put to bed.

But it’s lonely and risky at the top. We’re seeing the narrative is starting to change with the advent of successful collaboration and the value it’s bringing to law firms. (Who knew working together could pay off so well?)

Legal collaboration “involves specialists working together substantively to deliver a project rather than experts working separately in disciplinary silos.” (Source)

Distinguished Harvard Law School Fellow Heidi K. Gardner uncovers the empirical, often unlocked potential of collaboration: that “clients served by multiple practices are far more likely to retain their law firms for longer – even when the client-relationship partner leaves.” The higher margins brought on by attorneys working together are often ignored due to the inherent risks and lack of competency trust. After all, as we mentioned before, attorneys are led to their profession on the efficacy of their own work; their own test scores; their own intellect. It’s far easier to trust yourself than another associate in an area of law you’re not well-versed. And what if they take your client?

On a surface level, matter collaboration may not seem palatable to risk-averse firms, but the long-term payoff reaps considerable rewards for attorneys by helping them gain a wider breadth of experience and higher payment margins – often by hundreds per hour in a few short years.

So let’s demystify the stigmas around collaboration and discuss how you can take actionable steps toward adoption of its practices in your firm:

There are many similarities between managing a practice management implementation and being a coxswain on a rowing team (for those who don’t know what a coxswain is, it’s the person who sits on the end of the boat and motivates the team to row faster) – your job is to make sure everyone is working in unison to achieve a common goal. If everyone rows hard together, you win the race, but if everyone is rowing at different speeds, the boat gets turned around in a different direction.

Over the past few years, I’ve been watching law firms successfully and unsuccessfully adopt practice management software. Very rarely do you get everyone “rowing” at the same speed right from the starting gun, but there are things you can do to make the transition smoother for your employees and increase your adoption rate.

1. Begin with the highest value changes

If you’re at the point of implementing practice management software, you should have a list of the features you wanted to implement because you had to pitch this list of features to the management team by explaining the benefits. If you don’t have a list, stop what you’re doing and make one right now!

Take this list and begin putting together a plan of attack. Personally, I like to first implement the features that bring the highest value and are the easiest to implement. This way, your team members quickly see the benefit of the software and your team morale is heightened.

If you’re having a hard time prioritizing, make a list of the features. Next to the list of features create two columns, one for “highest impact” and one for “easy to implement.” For the highest impact column, take the total number of features you’ve listed and begin to number them with the lowest number as the least impactful feature and the highest number as the most impactful. Next, do this same exercise for the “easy to implement” column with the lowest number being the hardest to implement and the highest number as the easiest to implement. Then, add up each row and begin implementing the row with the highest total first.

2. Roll it out in stages

I’ve seen law firms do entire practice management, billing, and document management software implementation at once, and although it’s possible, I don’t recommend it. I also don’t recommend going from 0 to 100 using practice management software either.

Why is this? It’s a big change for your staff and it can cause you a lot of personnel headaches along with a low adoption rate of the new software.

3. Pick super users at your firm

It’s always a good idea to have a few super users on staff. These super users are typically staff members that are more technical and well-respected amongst their coworkers. These super-users will do a few things at the firm:

• They’ll help troubleshoot problems once the software trainers finish.
• They’ll communicate with the software vendor when there are support issues.
• They’ll help boost morale when employees get frustrated with the software because they can’t figure out how to do something or a feature takes one more click than it did before.
• They’ll conduct ongoing training for staff to make sure there is a high adoption rate.
• They’ll take in all the ideas staff members have for making the program a better fit and either customize the software themselves or contact the vendor with a slimmed-down list of changes.

4. Invest in training

Many people view training costs as an added expense, but in reality, it is a vital investment because of its ability to boost adoption rates for any software at a firm. If this is the first time your firm has used legal practice management software, training is especially important because it’s new to your staff.

Training should be broken out into multiple sessions. In my experience, the staff begins to lose focus after about an hour.

We have a lot of great material on investing in your training and how to create a legal practice management software training program.

Implementing legal practice management software is rarely a walk in the park but if you commit to the steps above and have the right implementation specialist, I am confident your team will be more willing to make the leap. If you have more questions about implementing legal software, feel free to reach out to us – we are happy to help.

If you think your firm is ready to take the plunge and pursue a practice management software, check out this blog about the 3 Types of Legal Practice Management Software to Consider for Your Firm.