By Legal Futures Associate Advanced
Running a law firm can be a rewarding experience but it comes with its own challenges. One of the most pressing issues that every firm faces is supporting their fee earners. Lawyers are constantly juggling multiple tasks and, as a result, a work-life balance can become a distant dream. However, with the right software, you could tackle some of the biggest challenges that cause workload pressures and inefficiencies in your firm:
Managing casework
Fee earners are constantly trying to manage caseloads, which can lead to missed deadlines and low client satisfaction. Managing cases and clients builds pressure when you are expected to keep on top of multiple deadlines, contacts, and bills, while delivering proactive, high standard work for each case and create loyal clients. This is where practice and case management software excel.
With features such as task management, deadline reminders and client communication tools, this software streamlines the process, reducing the stress on your legal professionals. The ideal solution is a practice and case management system that integrate various systems like billing, time tracking, and document management. You can improve the efficiency of your workflows, reduce manual errors, and streamline your processes. Your firm can handle caseloads better by increasing transparency, reducing duplication, and lowering the risk of errors.
Missing time
Time recording is critical to success in the legal industry, it’s the life blood of any firm. Inaccurate, late, or missing time entries can lead to a loss of revenue and impact client relationships. However, keeping track of the time spent on each case can be tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone, adding undue stress to fee earners.
In fact, if billable time isn’t recorded immediately after a task but instead left to the end of the day, it leads to fee-earners under-reporting hours by up to 10% and as much as 25% if left by a day or two. When you consider that almost half of UK law firms had increased billable hour targets by 10%, this is an area that could provide some quick wins.
Time recording software, such as Carpe Diem, helps automate the process of tracking time spent on a task, ensuring accuracy, and provides useful reports. The right software can also help allocate your resources efficiently, enabling you to reduce the time required for administrative tasks. This allows fee earners to focus on delivering quality work, leading to improved client satisfaction and increased revenue for the firm.
Document management
The amount of paperwork involved in legal proceedings can be enormous. Law firms need to keep track of hundreds of cases, contracts, deeds, and other vital documents. Printouts, binders, digital folders, and files can only take you so far. Finding the right document on a time frame is stressful, even more so when a case could hinge on its correct and timely solution.
That’s why firms should look to deploy a document management system that can help manage critical data, whether internal or external. A DMS can reduce task that could take hours to resolve, down to minutes from finding the correct documents, to helping produce documentation. Even with finding the correct documents in a non-digital system, McKinsey found that it takes 20% of a fee-earner’s time to find internal information or track down teammates to assist with tasks. That’s one day per week for a full time fee-earner.
Investing in document management systems is essential for a legal firm as it saves time, increases efficiency, and accuracy. Automation of document management can lead to the virtual elimination of lost files, enabling you to focus on case work and generating business.
Managing a law firm can take its toll on lawyers and support staff. However, embracing the right software can optimise, automate, and streamline the firm’s processes. These systems collectively alleviate workload pressure and enable law firms to become more efficient. Say goodbye to the stress that comes with managing large caseloads, tedious time recording and endless document filing. Welcome to the world of automation, where clarity is created, leading to better organisation and work-life balance, while guiding you through the process with greater peace of mind.
