By Legal Futures Associate Advanced
In this day and age, you can do many great things from your phone, that you would’ve previously had to don a suit and sit in a branch or an office for, even apply for a mortgage. From a mere touch you can submit all supporting evidence, identification documents, bank statements and personal finances – and just like that, you’re done. With market demands and client behaviour changing, we now have a customer base that’s eager to have everything accessible at their fingertips.
With the rise of digital legal service providers, lucrative commercial clients have never had it so easy. Law firms are now looking at ways to compete in the digital marketplace in order to align themselves with their client’s expectations, else they risk losing ground to more tech-savvy competitors.
Going digital
Digital advances are rewriting the terms of engagement, and then rewriting them again before the ink has had time to dry (or in this case, I suppose, we’ve had change to save our word document) on the last draft.
When thinking about upgrading your software, your clients should always be at the forefront of your thinking, particularly when considering software as part of your overall business strategy. Clients are increasingly looking for digital journeys and greater transparency as part of their overall consumer experience – even in the legal field. This will mean that more firms will look to adapt and offer client-specific portals, e-signatures to execute documents and much more.
From an internal perspective, as well as the obvious external benefits for your clients, newer technology comes with the most up-to-date security measures, meaning that your data and your clients data is safe from malicious attacks – something that continues to rise as more firms look to go digital.
Then of course, with new software come greater possibilities mainly from the features that they provide – usually tailored to the challenges and needs of law firms as and when they are released. This means that if you are a digitally-invested firm, you are likely to be able to offer features to clients and your staff as they need them, rather than being reactive.
Digital expectations in the office as well as from others
Embracing digital in your day-to-day may also open more doors from a firm management perspective.
Even from your case management system, there are now tools out there that allow you to conduct a case from start to finish from anywhere, all through workflows and third-party integrations – without skipping a beat.
From a practice management perspective, you can access dashboards for cases and accounting with ease, ensuring that you are always on top of important tasks and deadlines, as well as understanding your financial position at a glance. Important for making decisions with ease and precision – as well as at pace.
Click here to see how our practice and case management system can help law firms work more effectively and in a time-related matter.
