With the applications of office technology expanding all the time, a huge number of businesses are planning to increase their spending on tech in the coming years.
Law is an area in which business software has become increasingly relevant. Many law firms have been leveraging new types of legal software to compete more effectively with market rivals.
Read on as we look at seven of the most important types of legal software on the market today.
1. Practice Management
Practice management is somewhat of an umbrella term. These programs incorporate tools for a number of functions, including some of the others listed here.
Practice management software comes in various forms and can be custom-designed. Some common features include timekeeping, document management, case management, payment processing, and calendar coordination.
Vertex offers a holistic practice management solution for law firms. Their suite of services comes with unlimited support and their team will work with you to create the infrastructure you need.
2. Billing Software
Billing software assists in the management of invoices and amounts owed. This type of software can track a number of things, depending on your needs.
Many law firms use billing software to track hours worked by employees, invoices owed by clients, and amounts owed by the firm for contracted work.
These programs rely largely on mathematical components, like auto-sum tables and other spreadsheet tools.
Automating these processes saves a huge amount of time. Given the available technology, manual processing of invoice details is a thing of the past in most law firms.
3. Workflow Processing
Workflow processing technology helps to streamline any function of your business.
The nature of legal work implies a lot of human involvement and interaction. This means that workflow processing programs will not be as broadly useful in a law firm as they might be in other settings.
However, they still have their uses. Employee onboarding is one example of a process for which workflow processing software would promote efficiency in a legal office, especially for larger companies.
The various interactions in this system (between legal department managers and the HR department, for instance) could be recorded and tracked by workplace management software. Reminders can be sent to the relevant people when their action is required.
4. Client Management
This type of software manages interactions with clients, and the relevant data that arises in client relationships.
This is particularly useful in a legal context. Law firm clients may have a huge amount of files under their name at any one time. These can be spread across several years and relate to many different actions or purposes (wills, property deeds, etc.).
Client management software allows lawyers and other law firm employees to neatly categorize these items, and access them easily when required to.
Physical files will still be required in a lot of cases. However, storing the relevant information from these with client management software avoids a huge amount of physical inconvenience in terms of the regular use of these paper files.
5. Online Payment Processing
With the use of physical payment methods in decline in every industry, online payment processing software becomes more relevant every day.
This is especially true in a setting like a law office, where invoice amounts are typically large and cash payments are therefore uncommon. Most legal clients today expect the option of online payment, especially bigger-paying ones.
There are a few different types of online payment processing software. Some are designed and marketed for general use.
Others are designed specifically for legal offices. These have special features, including functions that keep trust fund monies separate from other funds.
Payment processing software may incorporate elements of other types of legal software, such as billing software and client management software.
You should bear in mind that some payment processing programs do not comply with the rules of certain state bar associations.
6. PDF Conversion
Most states have strict requirements in terms of retention of original documents of many kinds. In the case of wills, for example, the original physical copy of the document must always be retained in order for the instructions therein to be upheld.
This is where PDF conversion comes in. PDF conversion tools allow you to scan physical documents, and keep and manage the soft copies as PDF files.
As is the case with client management software, this avoids much inconvenience for employees. It allows for access to important documents at the touch of a button.
PDF conversion software also allows you to transfer copies of the document by email. This is obviously much more convenient than sending them by mail!
7. Password Management
Sometimes, the simplest tools are those that make the biggest difference. A password manager is something everyone can make use of.
Best practices in data protection require us to have different passwords for all of our accounts. Not only that, but we're also supposed to include capital letters, numbers, and special characters. Anyone would be forgiven for losing track of them all!
Password management software will ensure that you can keep your data safe. It will also guarantee that you can do this without ever forgetting a password, nor even having to rely on a security question!
What Types of Legal Software Does Your Firm Need?
As you can see, software has something to add to nearly every area of the legal profession. Any of the different types of legal software listed above would be a valuable asset to a law firm of any size.
You should note that most legal software offers a limited free version. These versions allow you to test the efficacy of a given software solution for your firm rather than having to blindly invest your capital.
If you found this post on the types of law firm software solutions interesting, be sure to check out some of our other articles. Visit the Law and Tech sections of the Bootstrap Business Blog right now!
