Essential Technology for Attorneys
“Investing in tomorrow’s tech today is more critical than ever.” This statement from Bill Gates couldn’t ring more true for the legal industry. Technology is an essential element for staying competitive—especially in a growing remote work environment. According to a recent study from the American Bar Association (ABA), “In 2022, 87% of respondents reported that their workplace allows lawyers to work remotely.”
Additionally, “88% of legal professionals use cloud-based software tools,” according to the 2021 MyCase Industry Report. So odds are, your competitors have already launched a full-scale arsenal of law office technology tools for improving their overall performance, enhancing client intake, stealing your prospects, and increasing profit. Does your law firm measure up?
In this article, we’ll discuss why technology is important for lawyers, as well as essential cloud-based software tools for law that you can implement today.
Why is Technology Important for Lawyers?
In “the good ol’ days,” your law firm probably used physical file cabinets, snail mail, and print-outs with post-it notes to manage and perform your daily duties. These days are over—and hopefully, you’ve started using some tech systems.
The right cloud-based technology for attorneys improves a law firm’s competitiveness, productivity, and overall cash flow.
Benefits of law office technology include:
- A streamlined client intake process
- Improved work productivity cycles
- Better communication (internally and with clients)
- A more efficient invoicing and payments process
What Types of Technology Do Attorneys Use?
Adopting any old technology isn’t enough. Online lawyer tools should house as many benefits as possible under one roof and integrate with other tech software for a seamless experience. Implementation should also be easy, quick, and feature excellent customer service for training and/or troubleshooting.
At the end of the day, effective attorney technology tools reduce the time it takes to find what you need and produce/manage work—not weigh you down with tons of logins, useless features, and a steep learning curve.
Below we’ll journey through the major law firm work processes from client intake to case completion and highlight how law firm technology benefits each—and provide a few optimum recommendations.
Client Leads and Intake
The 2021 MyCase Industry Report shares that 50% of legal practitioner respondents find lead intake challenging. Online lead intake tools can easily boost the number of new cases your firm takes on. And these tools benefit a wide variety of firms. “More than half of lawyers surveyed (54%) reported that their firms increase leads using online intake forms,” according to the report.
Legal tech options:
The MyCase online intake form functionality makes it easy for prospects and clients to enter information directly from your firm’s website.
This software service uses chatbots that answer questions, gather information, and set meetings. You can even pre-record a greeting for potential clients who reach out to live chat during or after hours.
Legal tech benefits include:
- Increased lead generation
- A more streamlined process for gathering client information
- Immediate client response times from automation tools
Workflow Organization
Once the client has signed the agreement and work begins, you need the most efficient software system for managing staff, meetings, and work. Well-rounded software technology for attorneys allows you to easily manage workflows and collaborate from a single source.
For more information on team building, check out this law firm operations management article.
Legal tech options:
With this tool, you can automate repeatable workloads to stay as organized as possible. This is performed by setting triggers that will automatically assign you and your colleagues the next task once the previous task is finished. In addition, you can set rules-based calendaring so no deadline or meeting is missed. Want to learn more about the benefits of legal calendaring software? Take a look at our blog, Legal Calendaring Software 101, for the inside scoop.
Both of these software tools are specifically designed to create and assign tasks, manage deadlines, and easily arrange approvals. Each task also allows users to easily share and annotate related documents.
Legal tech benefits include:
- Transparent and easy attorney/staff workload assigning
- Highly collaborative tool for case-specific communication
- Efficient timeline scheduling
Cloud-Based Storage
In the busy world of law, you can’t afford to waste time sifting through files to find what you need. A good cloud-based storage system should house your documents in a central location.
Legal tech options:
With this law office technology tool, you can seamlessly migrate files stored in your desktop into a secure, unlimited cloud storage system. It also integrates these files into the MyCase platform.
This well-known tool is useful for storing and sharing documents from a central, secure source. It’s also one of the easiest tools to implement and use due to its simple but effective interface.
Legal tech benefits include:
- Secure, cloud-based storage system
- Access to documents from any desktop, laptop, or mobile device
- Integration into existing device storage
Internal and External Communication
A strong communication system is central to the success or failure of your legal work. And in a busy career like law, phone calls, emails, and even texts aren’t enough. Your firm should implement software lawyer tools that allow you to chat with your team instantly and in an organized manner.
The same applies to clients. Good communication is an essential element of strong client management and service—as it can lead to future referrals and positive online reviews. Software tools for law can make client communication easier so they are properly informed and guided during every stage of their case.
Legal tech options:
This client communication portal allows you to share documents and deadlines, and chat from one central location. You can also assign a unique number for texts and calls, so you never share your personal phone number with clients.
With this online tool you can easily chat via text, call, or video—with an individual or a group of colleagues. You can also set channels for conversations on specific cases. Finally, you can easily share documents and operate the tool from mobile devices.
Legal tech benefits include:
- One central communication source
- A mobile-friendly integration that allows you to communicate while on-the-go
- An organized platform for separating communication by colleague and case
Time Tracking & Billing
Once it’s time to bill the client, technology for attorneys saves the hours (or days) it takes to track down billable time. You can finally end the invoicing scramble of sifting through emails and sticky notes. Tech software monitors each minute for you.
Legal tech options:
Switch between up to three timers to record time spent in billable meetings, phone calls, and assignments. And if you forget to set a timer, the Smart Time Finder provides an itemized list of assignments (recorded in MyCase) so nothing falls through the cracks.
Legal tech benefits include:
- Automatic tracking of billable time for every case
- Invoices that auto-fill with time entries to speed up the invoicing process
- More accurate invoices that capture all revenue
Financial Reporting
Finally, you’ll want to measure the success of your client intake and case workloads with analytics. Metrics allow your firm to set unique goals such as the desired amount of case completions per month or quarterly revenue targets. To dive deeper into setting goals using analytics, refer to this article on key law firm financial metrics.
Legal tech options:
With this software, you’ll gain access to useful insights such as the total number of open and closed cases, the current status of every case, and incoming/outgoing operating and trust account balances.
Taking this a step further, you can use Google Analytics to measure the incoming traffic, leads, and conversions you gain from marketing efforts around your content, SEO, social media, and paid ads. To learn more about utilizing Google Analytics, check out this article on the components of lawyer marketing.
Legal tech benefits include:
- Insight into your firm’s financial performance
- Metrics on the success of each case
- The ability to set goals to improve profit and productivity
MyCase Can Improve Productivity and Profitability
MyCase provides the tech tools you need to run a successful business, from the moment clients sign on to the closure of their case. And it’s all included in a single software to maximize and improve your time and workload. Learn why 14,000+ firms use MyCase to boost profit and productivity.
Then, try MyCase today risk-free with a 10-day free trial. We offer affordable monthly and yearly subscriptions. Plus, no commitment or credit card is required, and you can cancel anytime.
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