In the business world, speed is of the essence, and law offices are no different.
A third of the law firm marketers that Content Pilot talked to said they had lost potential clients or clients due to their slow response time.
Eighty-four percent of the time, law firm marketers need access to the data within 48 hours. They must constantly reach out to attorneys for additional information or clarification.
Yet Deborah McMurray, founder of Content Pilot, who presented the study results, said that lawyers “do not make it a priority” to help create material for clients or potential clients.
Marketers still have to act promptly to any requests they receive, even if the information is “locked in some lawyer’s mind” rather than in a live database.
Increasing speed is good, but not at the expense of firm members.
The founder of the Law Office of Dustin S. McCrary, PLLC, recognized in an article for the Harvard Business Review that burnout is a serious issue for lawyers.
He mentioned a Bloomberg Law article in May 2021, which stated that half of all lawyers had burned out within the first three months. The hardest hit were junior and mid-level colleagues, 67% of whom reported a decline in their general health and well-being.
Leverage the power of technology.
McMurray suggests some strategies to effectively manage law firm data, including the use of technology, which many law firms are already doing or planning to do so.
The Thomson Reuters Institute’s 2022 State of US Small Law Firms indicated that legal firms are using or are planning to use technology like law practice management software. This can help with issues like firm members spending too much time on administrative tasks, a lack of internal efficiency, and the advent of remote work setups.
Law practice management software helps speed up the processing of your matters from inception to resolution.
Usually, data was only available on the platform where it was hosted or on its “silo.” It was hard to transfer data between systems or combine them.
With legal practice management software, disparate systems can be integrated, pushing all of the data they hold into a centralized, searchable database. It lets you move data between apps and combine huge amounts of data from different sources into unified databases, from which you can access the exact information you need regularly.
Legal practice management software makes it easier for everyone to communicate and collaborate seamlessly. Everyone can get accurate and up-to-date information without manually importing, exporting, and changing documents.
You may keep track of all completed paperwork and correspondence using legal practice management software, which can operate as your single source of truth.
For instance, Clarra legal management software includes cutting-edge features like Mail Log. This allows you to upload final documents and correspondence quickly, both inbound and outbound, assign tags and matters to a file, and create an event or deadline related to that issue and file.
To make sure that further deadlines are introduced and never missed, Clarra also enables firmmembers to calculate dockets based on the type of action or event. Thismakes docketing across jurisdictions easier with the help of Clarra’s integration with CalendarRules.
Legal practice management software makes it possible to handle paperwork and correspondence very quickly. This allows your law firm to make informed decisions faster, , and get better results in court, and boost firm profitability
Conclusion
In today’s competitive market, the best chance of success goes to legal service providers who are efficient, reasonable, and competent.
Law firms can improve speed and efficiency by using legal practice management software that allows them to handle documents and correspondence more rapidly, get information faster, and make decisions more swiftly.
If you need help finding the right legal management software for your firm, feel free to reach out to us.