Automating your law firm

When starting a new legal practice, it’s hard to know why some firms are “great” and others aren’t. Some have been dominant in their field for a very long time and some fizzle out after a year or two. The truth is that this success is in due in part to them taking advantage of technology to improve their processes. From electronic signing to automation, these firms have been capitalising on advances in technology to get a leg up on their competition.

By now most within the legal industry will have heard of automation. It’s become a fundamental tool across many industries, predominantly because of its ability to help improve productivity by extracting those tedious, repetitive tasks that end up consuming a meaningful portion of the day. An area where automation is having a truly profound, positive impact on productivity is in legal practice.

A lawyer’s time is highly valuable, but day in and day out it is being segmented by tasks that don’t necessarily require their attention. Yes, they have admin staff and PA’s to help ease the burden, but it’s also impacting their ability to perform at their highest level. This is where automation steps in. Automation can be implemented to expedite many processes, such as:

• Document Filing
• Intake & Engagement
• Communication
• Marketing
• Tasks & Workflows

How can Automation Help Make Your Legal Practice Great?

• Increased Efficiency – Automating repetitive processes can alleviate the time-consuming tasks that take up a good chunk of your day. As listed above, automation can assist all across your practice. Doing so will free up your time to focus on more important tasks, which in turn will increase efficiency.
• Increased Profitability – Automation works in many ways to save your firm money. One of these ways includes eliminating the process of fixing errors that usually occur with manual data entry. Automation is perfect for inputting information into a system in an expedited manner, correctly the first time. Another way automation can save your firm money is simply by implementing it into your firm’s processes.
• Client Satisfaction – Earlier we spoke about being able to spend time on more important tasks, one of which is communicating with clients. When you aren’t undertaking unnecessary tasks you can spend a greater amount of time keeping your client up to date on where you are in their case. Firms can also activate triggered emails to respond to clients queries with a relevant correspondence template, and prebuilt document attachments if necessary. Information is then filed into a database, based on criteria set, which will then allow lawyers or their staff to get back to a client in a timely manner. Speedy responses such as these will instill a sense of confidence in clients’ minds regarding their choice in being represented by your practice. Good client relationships are fundamental in the success of a legal practice

Concerns With Automation?

There are some misconceptions with regard to implementing automation into your business processes. Many tend to think that with the incorporation of automation, comes the first stepping stone to a technological takeover which equates to lost jobs; but this is not the case. A firm cannot be great without the people that work in it, so technology will never take over their jobs, rather it will help them work as efficiently as they can. Automation’s sole purpose is to extract the inefficiencies from the workplace, in most cases the inefficiency is the repetitive tasks that only assist in maintaining the stability of a law firm, not its growth.

We are witnessing a shift in how law firms operate. We’ve seen variations of similar advancements in this industry, such as the implementation of printers, emails, and all other innovations that assisted in fine-tuning the system in which we currently utilise. Automation is here to enhance how you conduct your day-to-day operations, and the benefits of this technology range from increased efficiency to increased profitability. To learn more about automating your law firm’s processes, visit LawMaster today.