As we barrel towards 2017 many firms are looking at what they accomplished over the last year, what they didn’t get to in 2016, and what they want to do over the next year.
For a long time, technology and law firms didn’t always mix, but that certainly isn’t the case anymore. Many firms have already begun modernizing their practices. To be honest, modernization is a never-ending, ongoing task. Legal technology continues to grow and change. As that happens, firms need to grow and change with it to remain competitive and successful.
Here are some ways you can begin or continue to modernize your practice in 2017.
Bring Your Practice Into The Cloud
It’s hard to find an industry that can’t be supported by software solutions in the cloud. The legal industry is no different. Moving your practice management to the cloud can bring a number of benefits and advantages to your firm. Moving your firm’s practice management into the cloud creates:
- Increased Accessibility- Cloud-based practice management software allows members of your firm will to work wherever they can access the internet, which is pretty much anywhere nowadays.
- Reduced Focus On Technology Management- Bringing your practice management into the cloud means the vendor (not your firm) can worry about IT management, application management, business continuity, and disaster recovery. Members of your firm only have to focus on practicing law and remembering their software login.
- The Latest & Greatest Versions of The Software– Practice management software in the cloud is maintained by providers and vendors like CosmoLex and allows your firm to automatically utilize the most recent and up to date technology.
- Scalability– If your firm is growing or in a state of flux, you can easily add or remove users as legal professionals join or depart from your firm.
Use Technology To Better Organize Your Matter Records
When an attorney or firm is working inside of a single legal matter, there are many different records that need to be kept together and organized appropriately. With so many different forms of communication used by multiple members of a firm — all related to a single legal matter, keeping everything together can become a daunting task. Find a practice management system that allows your firm to link all emails, appointments, documents, transactions, and much more to the matter they are associated with. This makes it much easier for multiple members of a firm to find exactly what they need when they need it.
Integrate Your Legal Billing & Accounting Systems
Legal billing and accounting systems deal with the same sets of data. A problem is created when data entered in one system doesn’t align with the data that is entered in the other. In many cases, firms are required to enter the same data twice, once in each system. Even in instances where the manual data entry is perfect across both systems, this process is far from efficient. Firm’s looking to modernize their practice and increase efficiency in 2017 should implement a practice management system like CosmoLex that integrates legal billing and accounting systems and only requires data to be entered once!
Ensure Your Data Is Secure
As you modernize your firm’s practice management operations, you’ll notice a greater dependency on cloud technologies. This often means that much of your firm’s and your client’s sensitive data and information is hosted elsewhere. Data security is certainly a newer concern, but it doesn’t need to be a nightmare for your firm.
As you look to new practice management solutions and providers make sure your firm finds a provider that has the following data security features:
- Bank Grade Encryption
- Advanced Account Level Security
- Frequent Backups
- U.S.A. Based Servers & Personnel
- Security Assessments Performed By Independent Security Experts
Lawyers are rarely IT experts. Modernizing your firm’s practice can seem like an intimidating project, but with the right partner, it can be made simple. CosmoLex has built an entire practice management ecosystem that can bring all of the different systems and technologies your firm uses to manage the different aspects of its business into one place with a single login.
If you want to learn more ways that you can Modernize Your Law Practice in 2017, watch our special year-end presentation from CosmoLex.