In the wake of the pandemic, countless law firms lost their financial strength, they continue to look for more affordable or cost-minimizing options to adapt in their law firms. Many firms didn’t even use the normal signing method and have now shifted to e-signatures from last year. A few years before, just a handful of law firms were using e-signatures, as they weren’t so popular as well as there was no need as everything was stagnant because the offices were conducted in the physical form and things were done that way.
A major part of businesses shifted their operations from offices to remote working. In the current scenario, the last few years have been a breakthrough for tech companies as digitalization of all day-to-day tasks is at an all-time high. While most businesses adapted tech solutions, the legal industry was not lagging.
With remote working, countless new challenges were introduced in the legal industry, to make lawyer’s practice more effective and efficient legal tech came into the picture.
Legal technology just not simplified day-to-day tasks but also streamlined its operations.
One of the major challenges is document organization, law firms use documents all day every day, emails, forms, intake forms, pleadings, documents, files, discovery, contracts, etc and lists go on. Managing all the information without a standardized system for storing, organizing, and retrieving can be overwhelming. Adapting a law practice management software like a document management system in your practice can significantly increase your productivity and efficiency.
How Document Management Can Be A Game-Changer For Your Firm
1. Document Sharing and Collaboration
Since the pandemic has hit the legal industry, most businesses operate from remote locations, and in situations like this one must have the tools to conquer this battle. Sending documents with emails increases the risk of breach. With a document management solution, you can collaborate seamlessly with colleagues and clients through portals and features to streamline your collaboration. With legal document management software, you can easily collaborate with your employees sitting anywhere in the world.
2. Role-Based Access
Big law firms have hundreds of employees due to a centralized place of all information, sometimes it’s not ideal to share all your information with everyone. With a cloud-based document management system and role-based access, you can choose whom you want to give access to information. Choose who can edit, suggest or access the details. With role-based access, you eliminate the risk of information being replaced and keep confidentiality intact. Role-based access management is great for large firms that have multiple offices and a huge number of employees.
3. Exceptional Security
Having solutions that are not good enough, and can’t provide document exceptional security, will become a matter of concern later on. A good document management system should provide features that can secure a document from mishappenings like loss of information, better security from cyber-attacks, and role-based access. A good document management software for law firms provides security features like role-based access for situations where you don’t want all the details of the cases shared with all employees above this, you can also choose who you want to grant access for editing, reading, or delete.
3. Lets you Access your Documents Remotely
Keeping in mind the current situation, lawyers often need to access documents remotely. To have an effortless retrieval of documents one must have the right tool. With document management software and its cloud technology lawyers and legal professionals can instantly retrieve documents from anywhere and anytime with a device and internet connection. With cloud technology, it becomes super easy for law firms to manage their information remotely.
4. Custom Document Templates
Lawyers intake a huge amount of paperwork every day, often creating all these documents from scratch is time-consuming and mitigates frustration. With document management software you can get an option of having custom document templates, these templates are pre-made you just need to put details, and voila. You can also make your custom document fields according to your needs and then use them while creating documents.
5. Integrations with Top Used Applications
Lawyers use multiple applications in their law firms such as applications storage, project management software, case management software, QuickBooks, and other important and commonly used applications. With document management software you can easily increase and data migration becomes effortless with your document management software.
6. Use of e-Signatures
Connecting with your clients and colleagues has become a common trend. Making them come to your law form every time you need a signature is not just an inconvenience but also not a feasible option for you. A key feature of a good legal document management software is that it should quickly send out new documents for e-signatures and have the ability to collect them back.
7. Document Tagging
Law firms deal with all types of documents such as briefs, pleadings, motions, contracts, and complaints. It becomes highly difficult to find a specific document out of all such types. With document tagging, you can tag documents and easily retrieve documents when needed. Tools help lawyers not just identify documents but also lead back to details such as who created the document and help you interact with the document.
8. Time Tracking and Billing
In legal document management software, you can not only just store documents but also track your time and your billable hours. With CaseFox legal billing software, you can track your time including billable and non-billable hours, and get reports of your activity. With document management software you can also generate invoices and create a streamlined process for billing and payments. Features like a bulk invoice generator, you can generate hundreds of invoices with just one click.
9. Less Paper
Paperless, a concept these days most businesses are trying to adapt themselves to a digital world, while law firms can not be completely paperless but with an effective paper management system a firm can convert loads of paperwork into electronic files and use much less paper. In the upcoming few years, traditional ways of maintaining documents will become completely obsolete and document management systems will be in full force more than ever. Uploading all your paperwork can not just make your practice paperless but also make your practice more organized, streamlined, efficient, and effective.
Summing Up
Managing all documents in old traditional systems can be frustrating and time-consuming, document management systems not just provide document management features but other features such as ready-to-use templates for documents, client intake forms, LEDES invoicing, and other such features to make your practice more efficient.
Adapting to a legal document management system would feel different at first but will show its results with continuous adaptability. Adapting to a document management system regardless of the size of your law firm can show immediate benefits. Cutting your time frames to shorter and more efficient working.