By Legal Futures Associate CTS
The legal sector works with a copious amount of data from client information to case information, to market information. However, there is a wealth of untapped potential and possibility for law firms who aren’t analysing and leveraging the data that they possess.
When used intelligently and securely, your data can inform decision-making, promote efficiency, increase profitability, and help to nurture strong relationships with clients. Law firms that embrace digital transformation and that understand the importance of the data that they hold will find themselves ahead of competitors who are not so data driven. So, how can data help your law firm gain a competitive edge?
Inform decision-making
By embedding data analytics into your operational processes, you can receive actionable insights that can underpin business decision-making.
Data can support your law firms to become more proactive by allowing you a deeper understanding and offering new insight into immediate needs, long-term priorities, and potential barriers, empowering you to make sensible decisions that will drive your success.
Having the ability to track, visualise and analyse your firm’s critical business metrics will enable you to work and plan more efficiently.
Increase profitability
Identifying opportunities to expand existing client relationships or to identify opportunities to build new relationships with potential clients or markets is a key way for law firms to increase profitability.
Combining data analytics with information from your client relationship management software will enable you to identify potential cases or target clients to whom you can cater your marketing and acquisition strategies in order to secure their business. For example, data analysis of market trends can reveal a client who is likely to sell or purchase high-value assets, issue securities, or raise capital in other ways in the near future.
Streamline processes
Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) are hot topics within the legal sector, placing as the top technologies on Briefing Frontiers 2022’ efficiency and competitiveness chart, due to them enabling law firms to streamline and automate laborious and resource-heavy processes.
Having the ability to combine your important data with automation and AI tools to complete time-consuming, day-to-day tasks, such as contract and document management and billing management, or to analyse contracts and other documents for mistakes, missing information and inconsistent language and conduct legal research will enable your fee earners work more efficiently and to a higher quality.
Build strong client relationships
Law firm success is largely dependent on its relationship with its clients, and so being able to identify opportunities to expand existing client relationships or to identify opportunities to build new relationships with potential clients or markets is invaluable.
Entrenching data analytics into your operational processes can provide actionable insights to support client-decision making. For example, data analysis of market trends and predictions can reveal a client who is likely to sell or purchase high-value assets, issue securities, or raise capital in other ways in the near future. Such insights can transform the role of your firm into being a proactive partner who offers expert, timely and cost-effective guidance to its client base.
In addition to gaining and/or retaining clients’ business, data analysis can also improve client engagement can be supported by simply setting up an automated alert for whenever a client’s record shows that there has been little-to-no recent communication over a certain period of time, prompting you to reach out and nurture your relationship with them.
By embracing technology and truly understanding the value of the data that you hold, your law firm has the ability to improve operational efficiency, increase profitability and nurture relationships with your clients. It is undeniable that data analytics is vital for law firms who are looking to set themselves apart from the competition.
