Modern day legal practises demand dependable software solutions for overseeing the many departments within its business. An office needs to be able to organize and set responsibilities, along with confirming that the necessary tasks have been completed, properly! A lot of legal offices have chosen to start using Law Practise Management Software (LPMS) in order to fulfil this requirement.

A legal practice management software is an entire system that aids legal firms essentially managing their day-to-day business operations and workflows. Certain features that it is able to take care of are managing the legal firm’s cases, billing, time tracking, payments, tasks, calendar, documents, contacts, and so much more.

Basically, LPMS systems interconnect multiple independent functions within a legal practise. Many times they can take care of all of the necessary functions in just one system. This, combined with their ability to integrate with common software used in legal offices, make it an invaluable tool for modern day law firms to optimize their business.

How To Choose Law Practise Management Software

As you can imagine, there are a multitude of law practise management software options on the market, and since this is a relatively new industry, there are new contenders coming out almost every day. Even if you are crystal clear on what your particular firm needs from the software, it still can be difficult to sort through all of the different options available. If you just want to see the various software options and their features, you can skip down directly to the list, for those who are not as well versed in this technology, here is a short guide to fill you in:

Know Your Rights

You should be up to date on what to realistically expect from whatever software choice that you end up selecting.

Determine Your Needs

You have to know what you are looking for before you go shopping for anything, LPMS are no different. It is a good idea to categorize the specific requirements for your firm into “musts” and “wants”. You can do this by using the feature descriptions.

A good place to start is to write down your standard office procedures, from beginning to end. There are many services that you can use to do this, Google Docs and OneNote are two popular options. Once you have your requirements decided on, you can then begin your search for the legal practise management software options that takes care of all of those needs. Some popular options that law offices go for include robust workflow systems, or something that will directly integrate with third party document automation software.

If you are specifically a Personal injury firm, then you will probably want a software option that ties in with your current client intake software and CRM.

Filter The Law Practise Management Software Options

With the desires and requirements that were recorded in the last step, you can now filter out the software options that do not suit your needs by the features that they offer. You can read the community reviews, look through the product pages, and a good rule of thumb is to try to narrow the applicable options down to a three option long list. Make sure to include options that have different advantages in your final list, as this will help you to prioritize what are the most important aspects of the software.

Trial The Software First

This is simple and just like it says in the heading, try before you buy! Pretty much all software products offer a trial version of it for free, and it is our advice to take full advantage of the free trials before you purchase anything. This will give you a valuable insight into the software and help you to decide if it is the right option for you. A product may tick all of your boxes, but if it is extremely difficult to use then it will cause more issues than it will solve!

Consider a Client Portal

Read our article going over the reasons why a client portal is ideal for law firms. Alternatively, you can book a demo with one of our specialists to have a personalised consultation:

Core Features of Law Practise Management Software

Legal practise management software options conveniently allows you to keep all of the information relevant to your company in one place. This means that everyone in your firm has better access to information regarding the various ongoing projects, and studies have shown that this promotes employee engagement and coordination across all departments, not just the legal department. Up to date case files are just a click away for everyone at all times, and this saves time as no one has to chase down information.

Errors can be eliminated and workflows made more efficient because of these software solutions. Nothing will be missed, and here are some of the core features that allow all of this functionality to be possible:

Case Management - This will help your firm to stay organized and have all relevant information accessible when it is needed.

Legal Document Management - Store, edit, and organize all legal documents, all with a high level of security.

Billing - Money is the reason we all work, right? So make sure that the billing process is easy both for you and your clients. A good billing software will automate a lot of tasks for you, and will allow you to get paid faster, which is the name of the game!

Contact Management - This is pretty much self-explanatory, but keeping all of the information pertaining to your contact in one easy to access place again ensures that nothing is lost and precious information is not lost.

There are so many more features that law practise management software options will take care of for you, so go out and research! But for not, let's get into the different options that might suit your needs.

Law Practice Management Software

Zola Suite

This is a cloud based, mobile-suitable platform that allows users to access its features through an excellent user interface and design. It fully integrates accounting and billing, robust document management capabilities, and two-way synced email.

This is for firms that are aiming to keep up with the times, remain flexible and keep remote working an option. Thorough document management capabilities are a stand-out feature with this option. In addition to this, it integrates very well with Google Workspace, Office365, and Exchange.

Practice Panther

Like the previous option on this list, PracticePanther is a comprehensive option that will take care of pretty much all of your LPMS needs, and facilitates bringing a client in all of the way to being paid-in-full. It does integrate well with other programs (including MailChimp), and features an open API.

This particular option provides a lot of hard to find features, which make it an invaluable addition to this list.

Legal Project Management Software

Trello

Trello is a legal project management software that stores all of its information in the cloud. Boards are created for new clients and these can be customized by staff members as the project progresses. Various columns are designated to track different aspects of the project, and this increases efficiency by presenting it in an easily accessible way.

Its visual style promotes collaboration between employees and team members, while also keeping everything organized and in one place.

Asana

Asana is a big name in the legal project management industry, and for a good reason. It also visualizes workflows and efficiently breaks down complicated projects into easily tackle-able tasks. It is also very easy for team members to prioritize tasks so important tasks get taken care of first, as well as the dependencies between tasks.

Case Management Software for Lawyers

MyCase

MyCase is an extremely user-friendly case management software for lawyers. Their motto includes a one login, one bill principle where it streamlines workflows by offering all of their services with each time that the user logs in.

It features document storage, a full email client, and integrated leads management. This is a very good option for a turnkey software that will take care of pretty much everything for you. Something to note is that they use bank-grade encryption so that your information will be as safe as possible.

ProLaw

ProLaw is a comprehensive case management software that makes it easy for everyone to use in your office. It is targeted towards mid-sized companies, and allows its users to fully automate processes from the beginning to the end of their particular workflow. It allows lawyers to do what they do best, give the ultimate service to their clients without worrying about administrative tasks.

It also has comprehensive integration features with Outlook, Word, and lots of other popular programs that will optimize any legal firm’s workflow.

What do you think about these options for law practise management software? Will you be bringing one of these into your workplace to optimize business processes? Clinked would love to hear your thoughts and opinions in the comments below!