Law Firms: Don’t Overlook These 5 Game-Changing Benefits Before Investing in Legal Technology
Bill Tilley
Visionary in Litigation Finance & Legal Tech | Strategic Board Advisor | Driving Legal Innovation Across the US, UK, & EU
Have you ever been excited about a new purchase, only to say weeks later, “If I had known it would do that, I wouldn’t have bought it” or “If I’d known it couldn’t do that, I’d have bought a different product”?
Legal technology is a major investment you want to get right the first time around. While wading through the sales hype, we can unintentionally disregard the less obvious benefits software can deliver. Below are five often hidden—yet absolutely game-changing advantages you can bring to your firm using various legal tech solutions, such as the ability to:?
1.?Expand into new markets with service innovation.
Document automation software performs the tasks to generate and manage legal documents. It’s a magnificent productivity booster, as lawyers report up to 82% time savings using document automation to generate contracts and other legal documents.
As I shared in my post, Automation is a Force for Good, law firms are empowering their clients with easy online access to automated legal services. Firms use the same service model as DIY websites such as Upsolve and HelloDivorce, relying heavily on document automation to make services affordable. Basically, clients fill in online forms and questionnaires, then receive documents tailored to their specific circumstances and legal needs. DIY services can meet the needs of typically underserved communities.?
Your firm may also develop cost-effective, automated delivery models for document-intensive legal services such as business formation, entity management, wills, real estate, and more. And in catering to new markets, you increase your firm’s resilience by expanding its revenue sources.
2.?Monitor and improve client services.
Using legal workflow automation, you can automate tasks involved in almost any process including client intakes, conflict checks, scheduling, calendaring, internal and client communications, billing and collections, and other repetitive processes with clearly defined steps.
The effect is like installing motion-detecting sensors at specific points along the workflow. Using the resulting data, you can track and assess performance against KPIs to measure and monitor the impact of change—a powerful advantage for improving client services.?
Take tracking the average time to onboard a new client as an example workflow. With more clarity into each step involved, you can easily spot and resolve obstructions that cause delays. Future variations in measurements will show where to make a change, such as routing approvals to a different manager, and whether that change brings the results you desire.?
And this is just one process among many that you can track and improve using legal workflow automation and data analytics!
3.?Understand litigation costs to make more profitable pricing decisions.?
Financial analytics platforms enable automatic and customizable data collection, analyses, and reporting on essential performance and profitability metrics on a case, attorney, department, or firm level. Firms can track case factors such as fee arrangements, scope of work changes, and budget variances.
领英推荐
Among many other benefits, the software shows who performed what activities on a case and the time, staffing, and other resources required. Accurately pinpointing a case’s resource requirements like this reveals the true cost of litigation.?
Then you can compare potential new cases to similar past cases to calculate likely resource requirements. In keeping a keen eye on so many factors, you can price new litigation cases in ways that protect firm profits.??
4.?Assess the likelihood of success before allocating resources.?
With the help of predictive analytics, you can look into the past, discover hidden trends, and estimate the likelihood of potential outcomes. Data can come from both internal and external sources. Predictive analytics helps some lawyers write more compelling legal arguments. Others use analytics to better understand the behavioral trends of judges and track records of opposing counsel. A recent Lex Machina survey found:?
Additional uses include leveraging data to identify new business opportunities and showcase firm expertise to new clients.
With predictive analytics, firms make data-backed decisions about which cases have the most potential, whether to go to trial or settle and what to charge for fixed-fee work. While no one has a clairvoyant crystal ball, you can assess the likelihood of your strategies succeeding before you allocate resources.
5.?Get multi-functionality from one provider.
Legal practice management platforms (aka all-in-one platforms) typically give lawyers instant cloud access to their matter files along with email, contacts, calendaring, timekeeping, document management, and other tools anywhere, any time. Some platforms even cater to specific practice areas such as immigration or personal injury.?
A lot can be said for an all-in-one environment. You solve several technology needs in one go as you get multi-functionality from a single provider. Your tools work together seamlessly, e.g., the system will automatically attach an email to the proper client and matter file. And you avoid paying multiple vendors with different pricing structures.?
Critically, less tech-savvy users reluctant to change can quickly get used to working with one new software interface versus struggling with three, five, or more vastly different apps. And they find all software tutorials, how-to guides, and answers to FAQs on one website.
One factor you can always count on is that the legal tech software industry will continue to evolve. If your firm is evaluating legal technology, call me or Amicus Capital Group at (877) 926-4287 to discuss how we can help you get the most out of your legal tech investment.
===============================================================