6 ways legal technology can increase your law firm’s efficiency
Learn how technology can enhance your law firm’s productivity
Efficiency and productivity are crucial for legal teams to produce positive results for its clients, increase profits and run a successful law firm. Looking for new and innovative ways to implement legal technology can be an effective way to do so. Nevertheless, less than 30% of law firms have an employee responsible for driving innovation technology. [1]
Continue reading to learn more about how technology can increase your legal team’s productivity.
#1: Automation
When time-consuming, tedious tasks are automated, it allows your team to focus on billable tasks or acquiring new clients. Billing is one of the most important, but time-consuming tasks lawyers must do. Billing automation can make this process a lot easier. There are programs that can take over billing entry, billing review, and budgeting.
Automating the client intake process is another way automation can be used to increase your team’s efficiency. The client intake process costs lawyers a lot of time—they need to interview the potential client, conduct conflict checks, document review, and more.
Although this is a very important step, sometimes a lawyer will go through the whole process only to find that the potential client is not a good fit. When the client intake process is automated, this step can be streamlined. This means your legal team and potential client will not have to arrange a time and location to interview, saving both lawyers and clients a lot of time.
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#2: Cloud-based applications
Cloud-based legal technology allows your team to access all documents from any device at any time.
Cloud applications also allow your team to share, update, and collaborate on documents and projects in real-time. This increases efficiency as it ensures everyone is on the same page at all times.
#3: Cybersecurity plan
Cybersecurity breaches are on the rise. In 2020, cyber attacks containing malware increased by 358% and ransomware attacks increased 435% from 2019, and this number is expected to only keep growing. [2]
If your attorney’s office does not have a robust cybersecurity plan, your firm’s data and your client’s data is at risk. Taking all the preventive measures and knowing how to respond in case of a cyber attack can greatly decrease the damage. As an example, a hosted legal platform can protect sensitive data from a computer being infected with ransomware.
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#4: Data measurement
Accurate measurements of your law firm’s activities and expenses is crucial to analysis, yet less than 15% of attorneys believe that their firm’s are effectively using their data to deliver legal services. [3]
Measuring data and results allows your team to examine past successes and failures to determine a future course of action that is effective and efficient. In fact, law firms that implemented data quality best practices saw a 66% increase in revenue. [4]
#5: Hosted dictation software
This software allows your legal team to speak directly into a phone or dictation device, and it is immediately and securely transcribed. These recordings are then automatically sent through a hosted server for final transcription with no interaction to paralegals or assistants.
Using this legal technology helps to save your team a lot of time by reducing the amount of time spent typing documents and transcribing by hand.
#6: Reduce downtime
Specialized outsourced IT services and legal technology can assist law firms to become more efficient and to maximize productivity. If there is any downtime, it can greatly reduce the workload, increase the need for customer service, reputation management, and all can be very expensive short and long term.
Many law firms outsource their IT to reduce the risk and amount of downtime. A skilled and experienced IT team can help prevent and ensure that any issues are resolved in a timely manner, so your team can get back to work.
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Sources:
1: Aderant | The 2018 Aderant Business of Law and Legal Technology Survey
2: Deep Instinct | Cyber Threat Report on 2020 Shows Triple-Digit Increases across all Malware Types
3: Thomson Reuters | Ready or Not: Artificial Intelligence and Corporate Legal Departments
4: Thomson Reuters | 7 things legal professionals need to know about AI