What is meant by Legal Matters Management Software?
Legal matter management software is a solution to manage the process in which a matter and its entire information such as the type of case, the lawyer on the case, legal documents, calendar, budgets, expenses, bills are managed and tracked by a law firm throughout the matter lifecycle.
Why has legal matter management software become so crucial in the last decade?
Over the years, the way law firms handle cases/matters has changed. Mid-size and big law firms are faced with challenges of managing thousands of cases every year and every case comes with tens of thousands of records such as documents, events, notes, tasks, contacts, etc. from both internal and external sources. Law firms have now recognized that managing these matter management processes cannot be controlled and tracked manually.
Law firms do not only need automation and control over the matter during the entire lifecycle of the case, but they also need a centralized source. A centralized source to manage the routine process of recording intake, creating matters, managing workflow, collaborating with colleagues, plaintiffs, consultants and most importantly, tracking and measuring the key performance indicators.
We will explore how modern legal matter management solutions can help you manage legal work processes.
Before we dive into benefits, let’s first take a look at the challenges during the matter management process and why big law firms need to adopt a more sophisticated approach using modern technology.
Five Common Challenges in Legal Matter Management
We’ve identified five areas in matter management software challenges that are silently sapping law firm margins.
1- Scattered case and client information
- The inability of systems/firms to share information with the entire team in real-time.
- Client information that is stored and managed across emails or spreadsheets is a pitfall in client service.
- It prevents the firm from providing clear client updates about cases, documents, timelines, and events.
- The decentralized storage of data also introduces the unnecessary risk of losing client information.
2- Barriers to collaboration
- When people/teams work sequentially, it leads to a waste of time, delay, and inefficiency resulting in firms unable to do their best for their cases and clients.
- Disparate matter data sources prevent shared understanding and create barriers to collaboration.
- The rest of the team cannot access the matter information and, therefore, cannot gain a shared understanding as to the timing and steps that move a case through all its stages.
3- Risk of missing critical deadlines.
- Using multiple legal calendars throughout the firm leads to chaos and grows the risk of missing critical deadlines.
- Modern legal technology enables a law firm to build process templates that keep projects on track and never miss a deadline or court dates.
- For example, a plaintiff firm can create a workflow process for high-volume cases to meet deadlines with insurance adjusters.
4- Relying on manual processes
- Sorting through a list of folders and files to ensure the firm is sending the most current legal document is a waste of time.
- How can one determine that all the reports, legal documents have been collected in the intake stage, e.g., hospital bills, medical certificates, police reports? With paper and manual processes, how does one ensure that all the information is captured correctly every time?
- This style of ad-hoc activity persists and results in a high volume of emails, phone calls, and team meetings to check and double-check on files, tasks, and deadlines.
- Once the firm decided to take the case, intake information is transferred to case management software manually. This process results in duplication of work, wasting time, money and resources, ultimately it leads to employee frustration.
- Searching for that all-important case file, document, or even a reference becomes a herculean task.
5- Continuous improvement in operational efficiency
- In the absence of a mechanism to manage both casework and processes efficiently, law firms are making educated guesses on fees, pipeline, and expenses.
- Partners need systems and processes for better planning and optimal resource utilization.
- Boosting operational efficiency enables the firm to offer both a competitive advantage and an optimized operational efficiency.
7 Benefits of App4Legal as a Modern and Comprehensive Legal Matter Management Software
Collecting and organizing actionable client information is a full-time job and one that isn’t very forgiving of mistakes.
As such, investing in a modern Legal Matter Management Software is a must for any Law Firm of any size that wants to improve productivity, efficiency, profitability, and improve client service to the next level.
Here are seven benefits of App4Legal as a Legal Case Management System that should help your Law firm build, manage, and grow its practice.
App4Legal offers a wide range of benefits that will help your law firm to reduce the capital expenditure, boost productivity, and assist your clients so that you’ll never have to worry about losing revenue.
1- Seamless Information Management
The more you know about your clients, the better you’ll be able to give them robust legal advice that pays off. To do this, you need to move beyond the sticky-notes and disorganized filing cabinets and start utilizing modern legal technology. App4Legal gives you ‘pre-defined templates’ to ensure you gather documents and all information, accurately quantify and categorize matter data for easy future reference, and make that data available across departments.
App4Legal allows you to store an unlimited number of client matters and any critical information regarding them. It makes it easy for legal teams to access their files and is even more convenient than before due to the cloud, so no matter who is helping the customer in question, they’ll have the same actionable information instantly available.
2- Improve your client service
Your time is valuable, but so are your clients. Moreover, should your clients experience issues that need resolution, they’re going to be unhappy unless that issue can be taken care of quickly.
App4Legal keeps all contact details of your clients, leads, partners, counsels, and all parties you work with. It captures all specific details related to your clients from matters, legal document to expenses and billing.
With App4Legal, client support should become a walk in the park. You no longer need to worry about clients’ calls to get an update about their case, nor will you have to chase them for critical information.
Just like your clients can track their food order online; similarly, they can track the progress of the matter and contribute wherever needed. Keeping all parties informed and less nervous.
3- Automate Everyday Tasks
Along with the surface details of any matter, there are hundreds of smaller tasks that must be completed for everything to function correctly. Forms need to be filled out; legal documents need to be sent, legal issues need to be addressed—these ancillary chores are a time consuming, yet vital aspect of the legal lifecycle.
App4Legal is your way to organize, manage, and collaborate on legal tasks at your law firm. It helps you to estimate and schedule tasks, so you can make decisions when changes in priorities are necessary. It is one place to manage your entire firm’s tasks, reminders, and document workflows. It’s your way to save time, reduce errors, and streamline your business.
4- Achieve Greater efficiency and collaboration
Automatically stored communication allows you to view emails, calendar entries, and other details in one easily accessible place, your attorney should be able to create, edit, co-author documents alongside their staff. Add that to the ability for multiple teams to access the same information; it skyrockets the amount of achievable progress.
5- Insightful Analytical Data and Reporting
Miscalculated data should not be the reason you cannot succeed; with matter management software, this no longer will be a worry.
App4Legal’s Reporting Module makes it easy for you to personalize your dashboard to quickly locate information needed, such as usage information, KPIs, and performance reports to reach untapped opportunities. With better reporting data, you can make actionable and data-driven decisions to reap the rewards in happy customers and higher profits.
6- Financial Management
Few things strike fear into the hearts and minds of otherwise-intrepid Lawyers quite like the words, “law firm accounting”—and for good reason.
Effective legal accounting is critical to your firm’s success. To get a rich financial picture and meet your obligations to your firm, clients, and the regulating authority, your firm needs a clear, accurate accounting system.
App4Legal makes it easy for law firms to track all money transactions in a built-in billing module with full accounting features that maximize efficiency and revenues. It streamlines the processes of expenses tracking and invoicing control. Raise invoices quickly with the integrated billing system. Get paid faster and record payments in just one click. Managing receivables got simpler and quicker.
7- Contract Management
Legal contract management refers to the processes in which legal practitioners in law firms manage the flows of contracts held between a law firm and their clients and other divisions in the corporation. Contract management includes contract creation, negotiation, adherence, service level agreements, and documentation.
Using App4Legal as a complete contract management system improves business cycles. It streamlines the contract process and helps move contracts quickly from one step to the next. With its pre-configured intuitive workflows, it ensures contracts go to the right stakeholders for reviews, approvals, and negotiations.
Conclusion
To overcome all of these challenges and take advantage of modern practice management systems, you need a unified system to turn your law firm into a 21st-century law firm.
Another positive side of having such robust technology is that you have all the information and matter data in one place. You get a holistic view of your practice and insights out of one single source to help you make informed decisions.
Interested to know more! Book a free Legal Tech consultation with one of our experts and find out how we can make the difference.
