Reliable law firm technology helps legal professionals operate more efficiently and service clients more effectively. The right legal software can optimize workflows and streamline clerical tasks, helping legal teams dedicate more time and resources towards sourcing Legal Recurring Revenue to expand the prospects of the firm.
What type of technology is best suited to help grow your firm? Are there certain platforms that can help you streamline your workflows, improve client services, or a combination of the two? Would a platform like entity management software improve the organizational structure of your firm? Answers to each of these questions, and more are vital to sourcing the right type of legal technology to support the best interests of your own firm.
Why does a law firm need legal technology
When selecting legal technology, a firm needs to understand its most critical pain points. Any technology should help solve the logistical or operational challenges that your legal team faces each and every day.
So what are the common challenges that make most law firms select the right legal technology? In most cases, law firms need solutions that:
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Automate the manual clerical tasks of running the law firm
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Digitize corporate minute book record keeping processes
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Provide advanced security to store and safeguard client information
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Offer remote access to cloud-based accounts and applications
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Increase opportunities for legal teams to generate revenue for the firm
While your specific legal challenges may vary in some capacity, those five common pain points are basically universal. Regardless of how your business operates, it’s important to identify the specific challenge you’re trying to solve with legal technology. Once you’ve pinpointed the exact need, you can select the right solution that will support your firm’s future growth.
Qualify a list of applicable software vendors
By identifying your specific needs, you can curate a list of software providers with solutions that can fit your bill. Review the descriptions of the software on each vendor’s website, and conduct your own research using third-party review sites. Customer testimonials posted on review sites such as G2.com describe real-world experiences of using the software, which will help you determine if the technology is the right fit for your firm.
Use your research to narrow down your curated list of vendors to a handful of viable prospects. Then, you can speak with a representative at each company and ask for a demo of the software. Seeing the technology in practice also provides a clear view as to whether the technology is best suited for your firm.
As you go through these walkthroughs, ask very probing questions of the demonstrators. Look for clarifications on how the software will solve your basic needs and evaluate how the responses measure up to your expectations. If it seems like a good fit, you can move forward to discuss pricing and subscriptions. If not, you can thank them for their time and move on.
Select the vendor, onboard your team, and implement the software
Upon researching a number of viable vendors, you’ve likely found one that stands out from the pack. If you’ve seen a solution that addresses your fundamental need for legal technology and has also been proven simple to operate, you’re ready to make a purchase.
When the deal is finalized, the vendor should assign an account executive or a training specialist to help onboard your team of legal professionals. For example, firms that agree to purchase MinuteBox are assigned an Onboarding Specialist and Customer Success Manager to oversee implementation and training. MinuteBox will even provide access to a team of scanning professionals to digitize minute book records on-site at your offices, if required. All scanning is completed on-site, guaranteeing that no records ever leave your office space. This is part of our commitment to client security and privacy protection, which is of utmost importance for legal professionals.
Onboarding timelines will differ based on the selected vendor, and the amount of developmental resources required to integrate the platform to your established workflows. You can ask those clarifying questions when evaluating the solution during your research phase.
Code-free solutions are easier to operate
Most law firms do not possess in-house developmental resources to manage the technicalities of a selected piece of software. If your firm also lacks developers and engineers, a solution that is intuitive and requires little to no coding is extremely beneficial.
Platforms like MinuteBox include built-in drag and drop functionality to help you complete the digitization of all corporate minute books. All uploaded records are intuitively organized into standard PDF-style documents, and you can use the drag-and-drop features to shuffle around any lines of copy within the records to match the intended deliverable to your own clients.
The platform also allows you to save previously inputted fields of copy and drag those same text blocks onto other documents. This is a great way to save valuable working time when creating new documents with sections that include identical transcripts. More efficient workflows are one of the prime reasons legal professionals invest in software in the first place. Code-free solutions fulfill those goals and empower legal teams to deliver better service to clients at faster rates.