There are many reasons a midsize firm should consider adding practice management software to its legal tech stack. This kind of software can help you better manage firm financials, matter management, business development, and other capabilities. You can think of practice management software as a toolbox that keeps all of your digital tools in one place or a Swiss army knife that combines multiple functions in one handy unit.
While this may sound pretty good, you might also be less than eager to take it on. That’s because it would require changing how your firm operates. Your firm has likely spent months and even years setting up and refining business processes so that you and your colleagues can focus on the big picture — your cases and your clients’ matters. And when you’re running a law firm, you have enough on your plate without having that plate completely upended.
It’s a reasonable concern. But the fact is, improving processes can also allow you to actually improve the way you work. But to do that, it requires everyone in the firm to do certain things a bit differently. A new white paper from Thomson Reuters, “How to get what you need (and what you want) out of legal practice management software,” goes in depth about practice management software and how it can help firms like yours save everyone time while also consistently producing high-quality work.
Let’s look at a couple of ways that incorporating legal practice management software into your firm’s technology mix could improve your processes. These are essential functions at every firm.
Accommodating client requests for e-billing
More and more clients are requesting e-billing because it establishes clear guidelines for how their legal representatives bill their work. Having that technology in place can give a firm an edge when competing for work from these kinds of clients.
If your firm wants to add e-billing or increase its use, it needs the legal billing software to integrate with your other digital tools (client management software, for instance). That’s something a well-designed practice management solution can help you do.
Streamlining legal document management
Document management can be one of a firm’s biggest headaches. Keeping up with current versions and making sure everyone’s changes are included so that the final document is completely correct is a huge challenge. And correct documents are crucial for a law practice.
That’s why many firms are opting for a legal practice management solution that handles all of their documents and client matters. These firms are integrating document management into the larger practice management platform to guarantee clean and accurate final documents. That way everyone involved can retrieve a document via either platform (document management and practice management) to make edits. The changes made are synced on both platforms, which eliminates the need to maintain multiple versions.
What might all this mean for you and your firm? Simply this: Being open to tech-driving improvements in your processes, despite the changes they require, can go a long way toward realizing legal technology’s — and your firm’s — full potential.
You can learn more about practice management software and how it could help your firm achieve more by downloading the new white paper from Thomson Reuters.
