Here you are in 2011 and the year-end pause is over. You are already ramped up, dealing with deadlines, client development, and administrative work. Where is the work/life balance that you promised yourself was just a matter of reaching the target number of clients? And how can you make your staff as efficient as possible?
As legal technology consultants, we know that while systems can’t do it all, they can offer peace of mind by organizing the office and by improving workflow. Once you have implemented trusted systems, you and your staff will stop wasting time looking for information. One vendor suggested that the average attorney spends up to 40 minutes a day just looking for information in an office that is not automated. If you take 40 minutes multiplied by your billing rate, then multiply by the number of days in the year and number of people in your office, you can see that there is a financial cost to searching for information.
Do you have an efficient workflow for entering new matters into your system, or are you or your staff entering new matters separately into the calendar system, the billing system, and document management system? How many steps does it take to complete the intake process? Would better integration of your systems help your office to work faster with fewer errors? Are you confident that your conflict checking process is working?
- Don’t deny yourself the opportunity to do some serious technology planning to streamline your office and to support your client development efforts. Schedule a technology check up to go over your key software systems including billing and accounting systems, practice/case management including client information tracking, docketing, document assembly capabilities, document and email management, practice area automation, conflicts checking.
- In addition, get some help with your paper management and scanning efforts. Storing paper files is expensive, while the cost of disk storage is getting cheaper every day.
- Consider getting some training in the systems you already have, for the people in your office. Make sure you have a plan in place to cross-train your people. Can you help them be more effective by designing better workflows or by automating repetitive steps or documents?
Talk to your local consultant at Eastern Legal Systems about scheduling an evaluation of your technology. With over 100 years of combined experience as legal technology professionals, we can help you to identify the hardware and software best suited to your practice. Our focus is to work with you and your firm to implement technology that will increase your productivity and enhance your efficiency.
Got a question? Email us at info@EasternLegalSystems.com, or give us a call at 877-ELS-0555.
Jack Schaller has been active in the field of law office technology since 1989, and has worked with a variety of commercial accounting, legal billing, practice management, and document management software products during his twenty plus years in the software consulting field. During his tenure as a software consultant he has garnered many sales and service awards for his work with legal software products. Jack is a frequent presenter at legal conferences and seminars, and is a regular contributor to TechnoLawyer and other technology publications.
