Quick Technology Upgrades for Small Law Firms

Small law firms can often be caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to technology.  Technology issues common to small firms can include both software and hardware. For example, the firm may not be large enough to warrant a brand new, expensive document management or case management software solution, but the old filing system on a shared drive just isn’t cutting it anymore.  Or, while the firm is challenged keeping track of busy lawyers, it may not want to invest in a new calendaring system because, Outlook Calendar meets most of its needs.  Or, the firm’s experts no longer want packets of documents sent to them in the mail, but prefer a file transfer, and a small law firm does not have the budget to spend on a custom FTP (file transfer protocol) site.

In an effort to help bridge the technology gap for the small law firm, below I list some quick fixes (free to cheap) that can help.

Updating Your Case Management System: Heading for the Cloud

The simplicity and ease of use of a shared drive with a nested folder configuration cannot be overstated.

Nested folders most closely parallel the paper filing system of days gone by; however, as your caseload expands and you begin tracking more data, that system can easily become overloaded.  While some law firms use expensive software that has to be run on internal firm servers, another option for firms on a budget is to consider cloud-based services.

Rocket Matter and Clio are two established law firm case and document management systems that rely on cloud services.  Utilizing the cloud to store your case information provides two large incentives: 1) your firm does not have to maintain or pay for its own servers, and 2) your busy attorneys can access their files from anywhere, including their mobile devices.

Both services offer payment options priced per user that can be incredibly affordable for a small law firm looking to update their shared hard drive electronic filing system to a cloud-based document and case management system.

Calendaring for Your Law Firm

Individual attorneys and their legal staff may have a great calendaring system, but if their data “lives” locally, only on their machines, with limited access to others in the firm, scheduling can quickly become a nightmare.  All law firms should have a comprehensive, publicly shared calendar that is set up appropriately.

One free solution to your calendaring conundrum is to simply add permissions to all calendars to allow sharing among all individuals in the firm.  This will allow each attorney to see staff or attorney absences, trial schedule, deadlines, and networking activity.

Another calendaring solution is OfficeCalendar, a plugin that runs on top of a current Microsoft Office license.  For a fee, you can have a calendar “dashboard” that aggregates calendar and contact information into a new desktop icon.  Individual calendars are automatically synced across your network to OfficeCalendar, providing seamless updating.  This solution would be valuable for an office manager that maintains travel schedules, or even for a managing partner that wants to track workflow throughout the office.

Dropbox

While transferring files securely to a party outside of your law firm can be worrisome, the days of mailing large boxes of paper documents are coming to an end.  Your law firm should start considering how best to deal with document management issues now.

While critics have discussed the dangers of Dropbox with regard to the transfer of confidential data, many firms are already using it or a similar cloud-based document storage solution. Dropbox now has encryption capabilities, and even beyond those, several services have stepped up to provide a second layer of security in the event you use Dropbox to transfer or store potentially confidential client files.

Boxcryptor and Truecrypt are two such services, that when downloaded, work with Dropbox to double-encrypt your data.  Both services have free versions as well as upgraded versions available for an annual fee.

 

Originally posted on staceyeburke.com in 2014.

Five Analytics Reports You Aren’t Running and Why You Should

Last week I spoke at the State Bar of Texas Annual Convention during the wonderful Ignite Program.  I am truly honored for the opportunity to speak with such an amazing group of people (you can see the full line-up here).

Five Analytics Reports You Aren’t Running and Why You Should was a huge success, and while the topic certainly isn’t sexy, the advice can push you toward creating a lean, mean law firm.

You can check out the presentation on Slideshare or below.  I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Automation 101: Rethinking Tasks and Calendar Entries

In this day and age, it has become virtually impossible to keep our personal and professional lives organized without our electronic calendars and to-do lists to remind us where to be, what to do, and who to see.  The economic downturn forced many law firms to scale down, while asking each staff member to take on an increased workload.  Using our calendars, reminders, and tasks more efficiently means that we can relax a little knowing that nothing will be missed. 

Automation 101: Increasing Law Firm Efficiency

As computers have proliferated our society over the last 60 years, one main fear has remained prevalent: computers will one day take our jobs. We fear that there will no longer be a “personal touch” to our business transactions, and that we will all just be talking to machines.  In the professional services space, automation and computerization are all the more scary, as customer relationships are paramount.

As professional service providers, lawyers pride themselves on giving clients top-notch, personalized care, and thus, many fear the practice of law becoming “too automated.” The valid fear decreased personalization keeps many law firms from fully utilizing legal technology to its optimal capacity.

What if I told you that in reality, increasing your firm’s technological efficiency actually creates more time for you and your staff to spend on face-to-face communications with your clients?

Auditing Your Law Firm’s Technology

Technology can be a double-edged sword if you aren’t careful.  You have to temper Shiny Object Syndrome with functionality.  While it can be easy for law firms to get caught up in the “pretty” aspects of new technology – hardware and software, the actual purchases of technology should be done with an eye toward rejuvenating your firm and rethinking productivity and work flow.

I recommend that law firms do an annual technology audit to ascertain whether 1) technological needs are being met, 2) hardware is measuring up to the tasks at hand, and 3) your firm has technological bottlenecks reducing productivity.  Below are steps to take and ideas to think about when looking at your law firm’s technology.