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3 Practical Tips To Improve Your Law Firm’s Profits With Technology

Introduction

Every industry has been touched by technological advancements, which also affect how we work, connect, and get information. The legal sector is not an exception.

The era of paper files and in-person meetings is almost over. Legal technology has successfully modernized and revolutionized traditional legal activities, including:

  • Efficient case handling
  • Possibilities for electronic payments
  • Archiving of documents online

These are but a few illustrations. The fact is that legal applications are fundamentally altering how lawyers practise law all across the world, not just for the advantage of businesses.

Legal Technology: What is it?

The technology used to supply legal services and support the legal sector is known as “legal technology.” Instead of standard gear like computers, printers, and scanners not specialized for the legal industry, it usually refers to applications/software.

Most of these applications/software are typically made to make it easier for law firms and attorneys to practise their profession. Legal software/applications are used to do this.

Why is technology important in a law firm?

The legal sector has been dramatically impacted by technology. It has improved clerical staff productivity and the effectiveness of law offices. Legal technology has increased transparency between law firms and their clients. Clients can monitor the daily progress of the attorney working on their case and know the fees they must pay. Furthermore, there is no denying that technology is faster and more effective than any human being when employed effectively. Any law firm can find this to be of pivotal importance.

A set of applications known as a legal software system aids law firms in managing their regular business activities. In contrast to on-premise technology, it enables legal practitioners to complete more tasks, provide greater client service, and leave the office on time.

  • Being able to sign documents electronically rather than print and manually sign everything.
  • Accounting software for law firms that assists accountants in monitoring the company’s finances and cash flow.
  • Software that aids in managing a company’s administrative functions, such as scheduling appointments.
  • Storage and automation of documents

How is legal tech shaping the legal industry?

Though outdated practices have gradually been replaced by technology over the years, there is no doubt that the pandemic of 2020 expedited the legal profession’s digital revolution.

Nearly three years later, to this very day, technology continues to alter how lawyers practise their profession. Here are some examples of how technology has altered the legal industry: by making it easier for lawyers to access firm information and maintain client communications and by enhancing a firm’s capacity to meet client needs wherever a lawyer practises.

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Here are a few examples showing how legal tech is shaping the legal industry

  • Automated procedures

All internal legal tasks are currently carried out manually. While interacting with non-lawyers and other business professionals takes up a lot of their time, lawyers also need to spend some time managing the related chores. Of which it is discovered that 63% are repeatable and based on facts.

These tasks are now carried out automatically by legal software/applications. This not only quickens the pace of business but also frees up attorneys’ time to concentrate on other fruitful activities.

  • Quick research

Legal professionals continue to cling to print publications despite becoming accustomed to using the Internet and other similar resources for their study. They print out everything, including the updated rules and laws, and use them as a reference when working on each case. This extends the amount of time needed for the study.

This is where the legal tech plays its role as software/applications relating to legal research services assist attorneys in staying current on all legislative changes even when away from their desks.

  • Better handling of resources

In the past, young lawyers were hired for odd activities like collecting, storing, managing, and processing files or providing lawyers with information about their daily schedules. They get disenchanted in the process as a result, and senior attorneys start to ponder how they may make greater use of their potential. Legal tech solutions can help with this.

Software such as legal management and calendar management applications handle all the chores related to files and provide rapid insights into the tasks that must be completed on a given day. This offers senior attorneys the chance to make better and more efficient use of the resources such as junior attorneys. Resulting in improved results.

  • Reduced likelihood of mistakes

Reducing errors caused by overlooking or incorrectly interpreting any data or statistic, which could significantly change the verdict, is another benefit of legal technology in law practice.

Software/applications dealing with Legal Tech solutions make it easier to get all the information. Applications like these could harness the maximum capabilities of algorithms in processing, making it more straightforward for legal professionals to examine any fact or piece of evidence from several viewpoints and make greater use of it.

  • Remote meetings

Businesses must integrate technology into every aspect of their operations as consumer expectations following the epidemic have quickly changed to centre on communication simplicity and immediate availability to customer service. To adjust to future shifts, they also need to have the proper mechanisms in place.

Through these legal tech changes, remote meetings emerged, and Virtual consultations between attorneys and their clients were formed. Due to the social separation, the idea of lawyers communicating with clients via video conferencing spread. So, using the correct technology can significantly enhance the customer experience by leveraging digital and automated procedures to streamline and expedite previously time- and labour-intensive work.

  • Client intake applications

Businesses are most likely to gain new business if they answer queries from potential clients quickly and do so accurately and comprehensively. Technology can assist businesses in managing and keeping track of crucial client communications. Additionally, specialist legal software applications can assist in addressing clients’ urgent demands and fostering a sense of timeliness, giving your firm a genuine and long-lasting competitive advantage.

For instance, communication tools enable businesses to centrally handle email and SMS messaging. This gives businesses a simple option to respond fast while assisting them in keeping track of incoming messages.

Also, clients can book consultations instantaneously using legal scheduling software, eliminating the need for back-and-forth communications.

  • Online transactions

Payment options can make it easier for your clients to purchase legal services by reducing the stress of a big, one-time payment. Offering various options makes the cost easier for customers, and lawyers benefit significantly from putting the client experience first.

A cloud-based legal software system enables businesses to provide clients with various billing options. It makes it simpler and more effective for businesses to handle billing procedures from a single location. Online payment systems also make receiving payments simple, setting up and monitoring automated payment plans for client bills or retainer deposits and top-ups and collecting customer payments.

How does technology affect a lawyer?

Everyone in the legal system benefits from legal technology, including attorneys, judges, and clients, especially if it is incorporated to provide a more comprehensive legal operating system.

Legal technology is crucial to lawyers’ ability to practise law more effectively. A lawyer would need to return to the office if they discovered a vital case file was missing after arriving at the courthouse if they could not keep and retrieve papers while on the fly. Without legal technology, this event might have terrible repercussions, and you can envision other horrifying occurrences that would inevitably occur.

Lawyers who use legal software solutions can stay organized and get the essential information they require whenever and wherever they need it.

  • New Market Demand

The legal business nowadays must abide by the needs of its clients, just like any other company. New technologies on the market are known to affect consumer behaviour, and consumer expectations are also rising. Due to these recent trends, independent attorneys and legal firms urgently need to upgrade their operations to stay competitive and relevant.

What are the Pros of Legal Technology?

  • Efficiency and Superior Service

Clients are questioning their counsel because of the repetition and inefficiencies that plague the legal industry. Customers no longer accept or understand sluggish progress or antiquated working practices. Happily, this is precisely what modern technology aims to do. The legal industry is being scoured by emerging technologies like automation, machine learning, and AI to eliminate tedious and repetitive operations. Reading books in libraries is no longer a method of conducting legal studies. Contracts can be proofread with the click of a mouse. Instead of chasing unpaid invoices, billing is done on a digital cycle. Thanks to contemporary technology, clients receive services from their representation that are more effective and precise.

  • Enhancing profitability

The wonderful thing about this increased effectiveness and customer happiness is that it also increases profitability. Outgoings are decreased due to automation and software replacing non-billable operations, including marketing, time tracking, invoicing, contract review monitoring, case management, and company management.

Non-billable expenses are reduced, but billable time is also increased. In addition, due to automation, businesses that previously had to trade expenses for income by employing senior attorneys for non-money-producing duties can now do so.

  • Increasing Market Coverage

Attorneys were frequently limited to taking on clients from nearby areas. That restricted their prospects to a nearby area. The emergence of virtual businesses and digital service delivery has broken these chains.

The evolution of online commerce has made it easy for clients to communicate with attorneys via video chats and shared file drives; because of technology and client behaviour, attorneys can accept clients from around their state without travelling.

  • Favourable work-life balance

Some of any profession’s worst mental health issues affect lawyers in silence. 28% of people experience sadness, 21% abuse alcohol or drugs, and 39% put in too many hours at work to significantly impact their personal lives.

Technology addresses this issue far more comprehensively than legislation or senior business executives. Effective time tracking enables businesses to gauge the demands placed on individual attorneys, while virtual companies eliminate long commutes and automate repetitive tasks. Lawyers can reduce their personal costs and devote more attention to their well-being, families, and health by adopting technology tools to expedite their labour-intensive duties.

Disadvantages of Legal Tech

  • Jobs at Risk

In actuality, efficient technology is quicker and more precise than people. Less human capital is needed if functions like contract review or research are replaced or improved. This is supported by the trends foreseen by Deloitte, and Forbes, who project that 20% of the duties and jobs performed by legal professionals can be automated within the next few years. Up to 100,000 jobs are anticipated to be lost due to this.

  • Regular Capital Expenses

Digital transformation is a continuous process. It involves a shift in perspective towards ongoing growth and technological evolution. This implies that whatever technology or software you invest in today must be improved, replaced, or retired fairly soon because something new will make it outdated. If you don’t, your competitors will adapt, putting you in danger.

Due to the competitive evolution’s vicious cycle, lawyers must continue investing in technology for the foreseeable future, especially for big businesses. In addition to sourcing and purchasing expenses, digital transformation calls for stakeholder buy-in and training.

  • Cyber risks and security

Every 11 seconds, a cybercrime is perpetrated, costing the global economy $6.1 trillion annually. The primary goal is data acquisition, and few sources are more desirable for this than law firms.

All data and communications were formerly conducted on actual paper, which is harder to manipulate. The advent of technology, however, has changed everything. Firms are introducing digital solutions for file sharing, accessibility, and communication between attorneys and clients. Increasing digital access points increase the likelihood of errors, omissions, and hacks. Given the skyrocketing cost of cyber insurance, the legal sector is under severe attack, and cybersecurity is essential.

Tip 1- Elimination of paper and outdated procedures.

Use technology to increase productivity and decrease errors that can occur with paper-based and antiquated processes.

Due to the need for client confidentiality, caution, restraint, and dependence on precedent in legal work, getting rid of paper and old methods could be challenging.

You can boost efficiency and still fulfil these requirements by investing in law practice management software that provides enterprise-class security. For example, your concerns, contacts, event logs, records, due dates, and appointments may all be stored and managed in a secure database only authorized individuals can access. This approach is more effective than logging contacts and events on a local computer or paper logbook.

Additionally, digitization creates new opportunities. For example, to fulfil deadlines, you can use digitized data to automate scheduling, timekeeping, and reporting. While digitized records are simpler to exchange within and internationally, it also improves teamwork.

Tip 2- Simplify workflows and processes.

When digitizing, keeping contacts and papers separate can be just as ineffective as using paper. Imagine that each company employee utilizes a desktop computer at work or a personal smart device for work. If you don’t give your employees a technology platform that enables them to combine their digital data into one hub, your business won’t fully profit from it.

You may eliminate silos by using legal practice management software that integrates people, processes, and technology for seamless operations.

Everyone will find it simple to track deadlines and events in real-time if your law practice management software system syncs with the personal calendars of your firm’s members.

A workable approach enables users and shareholders to edit and monitor final documents online. It will increase openness and visibility, eliminate mistakes and waste, and streamline procedures.

Tip 3- Increase reporting capacity.

Technology can also collect the data required to produce and modify reports. Reports can help users, management, and business owners learn more about their operations. Reports can be used to keep track of new cases, make sure each case is handled wisely and effectively, monitor the progression of cases from the beginning to the end, and ensure clients’ requirements are satisfied. At the same time, firms seek to bring them the rightful remedy.

How do lawyers use technology?

A wide range of modern technologies is used by lawyers today, including document and filing services, dictation devices, encrypted communication channels, research tools, and cloud-based organizational software.

  • Dictation equipment

A lawyer’s closest friend when it comes to capturing and arranging oral information is a dictation machine. Many dictation technologies have been widely accessible for some time now and are commonplace in many lawyers’ toolkits. Lawyers can do several activities using dictation devices, including taking notes, recording legal briefs, and organizing their thoughts.

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Dictation devices can be used for two primary purposes: voice recording and real-time transcription of uttered words using speech recognition technology. Legal practitioners can rapidly refer to talks and notes using the second type without going back and listening to the entire recording. Most lawyers will use a professional-grade audio recorder for this, although some may use the technology already in their smartphone.

  • Software for managing practises

It is very typical for legal firms of all sizes to employ practice management software. Lawyers can schedule and handle court dates using software, automating cases, calendar events, templates, case files, etc. Using this technology, lawyers can arrange the copious amounts of data they need to work with into an accessible virtual filing cabinet.

Although this primarily aids with organizational problems, it should be emphasized that this software would save substantial time because it enables attorneys to spend less time on routine activities and more time concentrating on their top objectives.

  • Tools for Research

Lawyers now have various modern research tools to acquire pertinent case-related information quickly. Several research tools typically focus heavily on one specific law topic. This saves lawyers significant time conducting research and enables them to concentrate on other crucial tasks rather than spending hours poring through documents.

Conclusion

Legal tech is vital in helping practitioners offer exceptional service and positively grow and develop their businesses. The benefits of tech can pay off in improving mental health and well-being and supporting a better work/life balance. All these benefits are then passed onto the client, ensuring they receive the best service possible. Technology adoption benefits all in society: from lawyers to legal clients.

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