Workflow automations help lawyers run their law offices more smoothly by saving time and reducing stress and frustration. They can streamline operational tasks, client and team member onboarding, or marketing—and reduce the risk of user error with data entry.
Helping lawyers stay organized is part of what we do at CosmoLex. To support law firms in managing all their moving parts, we offer templates for creating workflows as part of our practice management program—and we support integrations with Zapier, a tool for automating repetitive tasks between apps.
Advantages of setting up automations
As a lawyer, the more billable hours you can work, the better your bottom line is. But unfortunately, it’s easy for a workday to get eaten up with small but necessary tasks.
Staying on top of legal billing comes to mind as a common example. It involves a lot of basic data entry, but if you let the ball drop, you could end up with cash flow problems. Fortunately, modern technology can take some of these tasks off your plate by automating key steps in the process.
Automations also help improve team collaboration. Any time you try to coordinate tasks between multiple people, you run the risk of something getting dropped or lost to miscommunication. Setting and automating workflows helps ensure that tasks are done correctly and consistently.
What’s more, when you automate, you can scale your services without needing to hire extra support staff to do so. While automation won’t replace a skilled staff at your law firm, it allows your team to do more work with less effort.
What is Zapier?
Zapier allows lawyers to create and automate workflows between two or more applications—no code required.
Once the workflow has been set up, it relies on a “trigger step,” or an action that happens in one app that then triggers the completion of the workflow in the other app. With Zapier, you can work across your go-to apps without having to log in to multiple different platforms and manage various dashboards.
For example, if a client enters their contact information into your website to download an eBook pertaining to a specific practice area, Zapier can ensure that their contact information is added to relevant mailing lists and that they’re sent other information that’s specifically related to the topic they’re interested in.
You can always refine and specify parameters in Zapier. If you want a new email to trigger a text message, Zapier can help you do that, but it also allows you to specify the types of emails that trigger a text message.
Zapier and CosmoLex together
Combined with CosmoLex’s practice management system, Zapier offers lawyers many opportunities to automate repetitive yet essential tasks.
New clients
When your firm takes on a new client and adds their contact information to your system, that information updates across CosmoLex, but you may have other platforms where you’d like that information to update, too.
With the Zapier integration, the creation of the new contact will trigger the necessary information to update across your other chosen platforms. This can include platforms such as Google Docs, where your new client’s contact information can be automatically put into a retainer agreement for your review.
Internal organization
If your team uses an app like Slack to stay organized or collaborate remotely, Zapier can create automations with CosmoLex.
For instance, if you create a new matter with a specific workflow, you can trigger a Slack message to notify a team member of the new workflow or that a certain step in the workflow has been completed.
Timecards
Creating a new timecard? Again, you don’t need to enter information across multiple platforms—Zapier can update it for you. And when the time comes, you can bulk draft your invoices in CosmoLex in just a few clicks.
Free up time with automations
Lawyers have more than enough on their plates already. Workflows and automations support you in staying organized and free you up to focus on high-value work that actually uses your law degree.