Law Technology Today From the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center
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These days, clients are looking for lawyers who are responsive and have all the information about their matter available at all times. The idea that one should need to wait to get back to the office for matter information is anachronistic. Your competitors will crush you and your firm will face steady inevitable decline if you ignore the potential mobility of your practice.
The success of every law firm has always been dependent on the quality of service provided by its lawyers. That service, outside of legal skills, is largely dependent on the quality of the information that modern technology can deliver.
Traditionally, attorneys were lazy about this. They delegated IT decision making to back office IT and accounting staff using the excuse that they were not ‘tech savvy.” But times have changed. Every lawyer knows how to use a browser. Every lawyer knows how to use a smartphone. Power has shifted to the service provider, the front office, you, the lawyer, to make these buying decisions.
To choose the right solution for you, it is important to do the research yourself. All systems are not the same but it is the functionality and the content which is far more important than the technology and only you as a lawyer are qualified to assess how a particular product will help you work better.
To achieve a minimum standard for 21st century, practice lawyers need:
- Mobility – work from anywhere – even when traveling on a plane.
- Productivity tools – with pressure on charge rates efficiency is essential.
- Great client service – competition is fierce and loyalty no longer exists.
- Convenience – it needs to be easy so that your mental focus is on the matter at hand not poor technology.
- Lower cost – the cost of complex servers and expensive IT departments cannot be justified by small law firms; cloud software simplifies your technology, makes your data safer, and is considerably cheaper.
With so much law being practiced out of the office, the issue of making accurate attendance and time-keeping records has become a major problem for many lawyers who often have to rely on memory to make these records when they get back to the office. This is inaccurate, risky and costly.
Your smartphone should enable you to access all your matter information, record time that instantly synchronizes with your system anywhere in the world, make file comments, and read and compose emails. This aligns the way in which you work with your clients’ expectations and – most importantly – ensures that you charge accurately for what you do no matter where you do it. This can all be accomplished easily on a smartphone without any training needed!
When your case management, time recording and legal accounting are all in one elegant solution (not cobbled together from multiple suppliers), record keeping and compliance become a natural consequence of your work.
