By Mashum Mollah
With technology rapidly changing the way people work, the legal industry is being influenced by such developments. If you are an attorney, you will likely have come across legal case management software that promises to ease up your workload. And below, we look at six ways how such case management software will benefit you.
1. Better File Organization :
Legal case management software allows you to keep all client-related files in a single location using its Content Management System (CMS). Information like deadlines, case descriptions, contact info of the client, etc. is all tagged to a specific case file. The CMS will have inbuilt search functions that will enable you to quickly retrieve any information regarding a particular case. As such, the system ensures that you are able to access and print any document of a case quickly.
2. Manage Deadlines Efficiently :
An important characteristic of a good lawyer is their ability to stick to their time commitments. A lawyer is expected to meet all the deadlines regarding a lawsuit by default. If you start missing the deadlines, it will give off a negative impression in the minds of the client. As a result, the word can soon spread out about your inefficiency and you will probably receive fewer clients. With legal case management software, you can avoid such issues. Once you enter all the important dates of a case in the software, it will add them to the calendar and chronologically arrange the cash flow. This will ensure that you are always reminded of upcoming deadlines.
3. Work From Anywhere :
The biggest benefit of legal software is that it allows you to work from anywhere in the world. Your office might be situated in New York and you may be in Tokyo for a business trip, but you can still work on an important case since all documents and information relating to the case can be accessed online. In contrast, if you never use a case management software like the one at http://www.quill.co.uk/case-management-software/, then you won’t be able to work on any case during travel since important documents will be safely stored at your office. And even if you take copies of such documents, there is a likelihood you might miss out taking a few of them, which will again prevent you from working on the case.
4. Team Collaboration :
Legal case management software allows for better team collaboration. For example, you may need to set up a meeting with your other partners at the firm. However, this can be quite a headache since you will have to call each one of them, know the dates when they will be free, compare their free times, decide on a suitable date, wait for approval, and so on. You may also have to repeat these steps many times over to finalize the date of the meeting. But with case management software, you will easily be able to set up a meeting with your partners. You only need to find out the free time of the partners as reflected in the software, set up an appointment for the first time slot when everyone is free, and wait for a confirmation. That’s it.
5. Accurate Billing :
Another time-consuming area of legal practice is billing. Usually, lawyers charge by the hour they spend on the case. As such, it becomes important that there be an accurate time-tracking method that will never miss a single hour of work a lawyer has put in. But considering that you will likely be handling multiple cases throughout the day, keeping track of the time spent on each individual case can be quite a headache. You might also end up missing out on recording a few hours and suffer losses. A case management software will allow you to track time and produce accurate bills. Just enter the time you spend on a case once you decide to stop for a particular day. The software will record the time and link it to the specific case. This will ensure that you never suffer any losses in billing.
6. Avoid Human Error :
When you handle everything related to the legal practice manually, there is bound to be some human error. For example, you might misplace some documents, throw out certain files in the waste-basket accidentally, and so on. Such actions can turn out to be very disastrous for you since they can negatively affect the chances of winning a case. With legal case management software, such errors will be non-existent.
