The benefits of legal management software are well known, but that doesn’t alter the fact that around half of UK legal firms have still not got around to using it and are still running a bunch of programmes cobbled together in order to operate their practices. There may be a number of reasons for this, not the least of which is that they may be hesitant to have their data sitting in the cloud because of the security aspect.
Others may believe that they don’t need a unified system, but the fact is that such a system will far outpace an assortment of several different programmes when it comes to efficiency. Still other firms may be wary of the efficiency of such software. However, the fact is that legal management software have actually been around for many years now and have been developed over time so that they now handle all of a practice’s requirements with ease, or at least the better software does. As with all things there is software which is good, and some which is not so good, but nonetheless legal case management software can considerably affect a practice’s performance for the better.
One of the big benefits for using this software in the cloud is that you can access it from anywhere on any sort of device – PC, laptop, jasa pembuatan pt dan cv jakarta selatan mobile phone, tablet – you name it. If you are sitting in court waiting for your case to be heard, you can be earning fees rather than sitting there twiddling your thumbs. You can access every aspect of a matter, send emails, dictate, record time, and more, from anywhere that you can connect to the internet.
Security Worries
As regards worries about security, the fact is that using a cloud-based software will be as about as secure as you can get. Your software supplier should be accredited to ISO 27001 which is the international security standard and also accredited to Cyber Essentials, which is a government backed scheme which sets out minimum levels of security and is intended to prevent security breaches. In addition, a good cloud-based software will be backed up at frequent intervals and in different locations and the security that you will get in the case of a solo or small practice will be far greater than you could have on a locally based server.
This sort of software will help you to bill more time, which is what every practice wants. Instead of spending time entering data, which is an essential part of any practice but doesn’t earn anything, you can be earning fees instead. There was a study done in the US in 2014 which showed that lawyers using practice management software could increase their revenue by between $2,264 to $21,895 a year. This was based on the assumption that the software cost $45 a month to run and that the average billing was $233.70 per hour. The lower figure was obtained by lawyers who only converted their saved hours to billable hours by 25%, while the high-end figure was of those who converted all the saved hours. At the high end, that is an ROI of over 4,000%!
The same study also found that staff wages were reduced by around $8,000 a year for every fee earner, based on a median reduction in staff per user of 40%.
The use of a cloud-based legal software can also help you to get paid faster. Obviously, you can generate invoices with a click of a button because your software has all your time recorded, and some software will enable you to accept credit card payments. One system that does this found that its’ users accepting credit card payments got paid 35% faster than those who did not.
Another reason for using cloud-based software is that you get rid of all your IT problems. You don’t have to worry about your server going down and you don’t have to carry out system maintenance or upgrades which results in downtime. So you don’t need hardware or costly upgrades because that all comes within your monthly fee to the software supplier. You can let them worry about all that.
If you have not yet explored all the benefits of legal practice software, you should certainly do so. It will be time well spent.
Resource: DPS Software provides a wide range of legal management software that can help law firms deliver better, more efficient case management.