6 Ways to Grow Your Law Firm with Legal Management Software

Legal software helps automate various tasks that lawyers usually find repetitive, boring, and that introduce little to no value to the end result.

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Law offices all over the world are using technology to automate tedious tasks such as managing documents and signing them online. This way, they can stay more competitive in the market and do more in less time. Is your law firm following the suit? 

In this article, we want to show you how your law practice can benefit from using technology to serve clients better and make them happier with the end result of cooperation. As a result, you will start receiving more client referrals. 

Good news – you don’t have to outsource software development to build these tools – there are multiple instruments available on the market that you can start using just now.

Types of legal software

Before we drill into the solutions legal software offers, you should first understand that there are various types of legal software available on the market. While some of them are more specialized and are built to resolve one specific challenge or improve one area of operations in your law firm, some focus on a few different areas at the same time. Let’s have a sneak peek into the types of legal software.

1. Legal spend software

Legal spend software helps manage billing and invoicing faster and easier. It gives you more control over how your law firm finances are managed and shows a bigger picture of where you stand with profitability, how you comply with legal requirements for accounting, and helps manage expenses.

2. Online signature software

With eSignature software, you can sign contracts using a legally binding signature online. No matter where you or your clients are – signing a document can be done with a few clicks. This technology helps sign documents faster and save on printing contracts and shipping them to a recipient.

3. Research software

You don’t have to work more to win more cases, you just have to start working smarter. Thanks to research software, lawyers spend less time searching trial histories and researching law statutes. The technology gives access to the selection of documents and case history you need now to help prepare for a court sitting better. 

4. Privacy and security software

This type of software ensures your law firm complies with international and local regulations such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA). By using this software, you improve the security of your clients’ information and boost their trust.

5. Contract review software 

Usually, law firms create PDF or Word documents that contain unstructured data. When one needs to analyze what information they contain, a lawyer has to review it by reading it through and making notes. Thanks to contract review software, you no longer need to pay someone to do this task for you. Artificial intelligence scans the document looking for the most important information and then summarizes the most vital points.

6. Contract automation software 

It helps you input client data, double check with the information in your CRM, and automatically populate contract fields; you get an insight into the contract amendments – you know what amendments have been made and who made them. As a result, you get a faster turnaround and your team spends less time on repetitive tasks.

Challenges that legal software helps solve

Before you start making market research to choose the right tools for your law firm, first think of the challenges it should help you resolve. Here, we have compiled some overview of what legal software can do. 

1. Improve cybersecurity

   

Introducing legal software to your firm brings multiple benefits in terms of enhancing security online. Here are just a few advantages to mention: 

• The software you choose does daily malware scans and security support.
• You get automatic updates and maintenance done by your software providers.
• No matter how quickly your legal team grows, the software can scale with you without compromising security.

When using legal software, you can restrict access to files to chosen users, track their session and entries, automatically reset passwords for security reasons, and track and react to suspicious activities such as multiple login attempts.

2. Better customer service

Old good times of juggling emails with clients are gone – with legal practice software, you give your clients access to their documentation in real time. With law firm management tools, you can provide quick access to all case-related documents, invoices, and get clients to track their case progress without your engagement in communication with them. All they need is access to the Internet!

Thanks to this technology, your clients no longer bombard you with questions and you spend more time preparing for court sittings. 

Also, your clients can add all documents to their folders online – no need to send it by post. As a result, this helps organize your case documentation better. Finally, they also can pay invoices directly through the platform and receive notifications about overdue invoices. All this results in a better experience and makes your offer more attractive among other law firms. 

3. Increased productivity

Instead of using multiple tools to automate your law firm practice such as email marketing services, client relations management software, booking software, and more, you can have everything in one specialized tool. By keeping everything under one roof, you can spend less time on managing the tools and focus on more strategic tasks. 

Also, there are a couple other ways how legal software can help your firm achieve more in less time. Thanks to an easy way of sharing documents, tracking and recording team members’ activities, your employees can communicate and coordinate their actions better. 

4. Create data backups

Nothing can be that dangerous for your law firm’s reputation than losing your clients’ file. These situations happen during hacker attacks, hardware failure, or even burglary. Thinking of your clients’ data protection and security can keep you awake at night. However, with a strict backup policy in your organization you can have certainty that even if a crisis appears, your clients’ files can be restored.

Every legal software offers data backups, but their policy varies depending on the provider. Make sure you learn how often backups are made in the tool of your choice.

5. Meet deadlines

Legal software helps automate tedious tasks and reduce time spent on low-value work such as copying and pasting documents or printing out contracts. With legal automation, you can comply with legal requirements while letting technology over repetitive and boring tasks for you. 

As a result, you will have more time to think critically and provide your clients with the best advice possible. Here are just a few areas that legal software helps automate: 

• Automate contracts, especially those of low complexity; for example, influencer contracts that don’t have to be re-drafted every time your client engages in a new cooperation.
• Review documents, drafts, and final agreements
• Streamline triage
• Introducing workflow to allocate work better; set up tasks and processes; automate email communication with clients.
• Billing management such as having clients to pay for invoices online. For your law firm, it also helps monitor expenses.
• Assign task deadlines and receive reminders.

6. Keep all files in one place

By managing your documents with cloud technology, you get 24/7 access to the documents – this way, business attorneys can work on cases anywhere they are. During file upload, data on your accounts is synchronized in real time. Also, tracking document changes is easy as legal software records document entries and shows who make them.

You no longer need to print out documents and keep them in folders. When documents don’t pile on the shelves, they can’t be stolen or lost – they are safer when kept online.

Summary

Legal software helps automate various tasks that lawyers usually find repetitive, boring, and that introduce little to no value to the end result. Instead of working harder for your clients, you can choose to work smarter using technology. By introducing software for law firms, your employees can focus more on high-value tasks to make the most impact on the clients’ case.