Frequently Asked Questions

Organizing files electronically will declutter your practice and save time flipping through manilla folders and stacks of paper. Law firms should organize electronic files just like paper files but should take advantage of the increased ability to segment documents with subfolders. Using software to organize files further enhances the process by allowing you to easily store emails and other extraneous documents associated with the matter and upload documents through a scanner or your phone.

Law firms can be automated using technology and software. The first step of law firm automation is identifying areas of your law practice that are time-consuming, complex, and repetitive. Using technology can provide real benefits to your firm, helping to improve productivity and efficiency, and reduce errors. Commonly automated legal practice management software sectors include:

• Document creation, storage, and sharing

• Form creation, population, storage, and case synchronization

• Office accounting, client billing, and trust accounting

• Client management, communication, and scheduling

• Time tracking and recording

• Email management and storage

The first part of better serving your legal clients starts with understanding how your clients found you in the first place. From there, you can make changes to streamline the process and make it easier for your current and future clients to communicate with you. Important interactions with your firm that your clients will face include completing intake forms, viewing and interacting with documents, scheduling appointments, making payments, and simply asking questions. These contact points can be improved to better serve your clients by making them paperless, online, and automated.

There are many benefits to digitizing your law firm that will ultimately lower your firm’s business cost and improve client relations. Making your firm digital is as simple as identifying the areas of your law practice that can be digitized, and then finding the right legal practice management software that fits your firm’s needs. Areas of a firm that can easily go digital include being able to work from anywhere, having an automated legal forms library, using secure document management, having legal time tracking and billing, and managing your clients. Switching to software to manage your clients is an easy place to start as doing so will save your firm time associated with filling intake forms and scheduling appointments and save costs due to manual errors in data entry. Cloud software provides these benefits and more. After choosing the best legal software, you can begin moving files and in-house processes to the cloud.

Finding new legal clients starts with clearly communicating with potential clients how you and your firm can solve their problems. Additionally, it is important that your current clients know that you will always be available, can answer their questions, and help them with their legal issues. Streamlining this communication process can be done with technology and will result in better-informed clients and valuable time saved for your firm. Client management tools should include document collaboration, appointment scheduling, and simple online payments. Your legal software should enable your firm to get more legal clients and make the communication process easy.

Starting and running a successful law firm takes more than just knowing how to practice law. It also requires the skills to run a business. Running a law firm includes managing all aspects of the firm, from managing staff and clients to managing property and expenses. That is why choosing the right legal software will save a firm time and money by streamlining all aspects of the business. Please read our “10-Step Guide to Starting an Online Law Firm” and see how cloud legal software can get your firm started on the right foot.

LEAP firms typically capture at least an extra 10th of an hour per day per fee earner with our built-in time tracking capabilities. For example, if an attorney's hourly billable rate is $350 per hour, that's $35 extra per day per attorney. $35 per day x 22 working days per month=$770 extra per month per attorney or $9,240 in additional revenue per year per attorney.