Law firm business development is a balance of relationship building, increasing revenue, and cross-selling. As firms continue to grow and evolve, it’s necessary to leverage end-to-end legal practice management tools to help you accomplish all three.
After reading this article, you will have a better idea of how to improve law firm business development using your technology.
You know BD, but what is legal business development?
Legal business development involves seeking ways to grow your firm in the most efficient way possible. Business efficiencies can be recognized as building new relationships, identifying new streams of revenue, and new sales opportunities — all of which can be made easier and more effective through the use of legal practice management software.
How to leverage technology for legal business development
Relying on manual processes can lead to large margins of error, longer remit times, and document inaccuracies. Using legal software as an integral part of your business development can help your firm save time, remain organized, and make profitable decisions. Well-rounded legal software should include:
- Case Management
- Legal Calendaring
- Document Management
- Powerful Dashboards
- Time & Billing Management
- Payment Processing
With the ability to integrate into your current business software and processes, your firm can benefit from maximized billing opportunities, centralized data, and the ability to work from anywhere.
3 ways to use legal technology to improve your firm’s BD
Here are a few ways you can use legal technology to enhance law firm business development.
Case Management
Case management is the foundation of your practice. Legal software can make all of your files accessible to everyone on your team. Plus, it keeps your tasks and deadlines organized. Case management can easily be integrated with your calendars and cases.
Document Management
There’s nothing worse than missing documents or documents riddled with errors. Document management technology can allow you access to all of your documents in one place. Instead of relying on team members to manually enter data or handle documents, you can expect automated documentation that is accurate, efficient, and secure.
Time and Billing Management
Keeping track of your billable hours can easily slip through the cracks if you’re not careful. Legal technology can help you stay on top of billable hours, get a snapshot of your activity, and get paid. Billing is how you keep the lights on at your firm and technology can help keep track of client files and provide payment reminders to clients.
Choosing the right technology to implement your legal business development plan
Implementing your law firm’s business development plan can be made easier with the right technology. Legal tech helps your firm run more efficiently, satisfy clients, manage cases faster, and remain competitive. It’s important that you choose the right technology that will suit your firm’s needs. Some things to consider before making a choice include:
Assessing the Problem
In order to find the best technology solution, you need to be clear about the issues your firm is facing. This could be outdated payment options, manual management of case files, or maybe you are using technology but it’s too slow. Regardless, assessing the problems will allow you to choose the best tech solution.
Choosing Technology That Will Actually Work
There are a lot of technology options available, so it’s important that you ask vendors all the right questions. Connect with stakeholders and your team to ensure that the solution is actually streamlining your processes and is intuitive. You don’t want to be stuck with a tech solution that is not useful to your firm.
Ensuring Your Technology is Secure
The last thing you want is a breach in security efforts. You don’t want any sensitive information to end up in the wrong hands, so ensure that your tech solution offers data protection, third-party verification, and geographical redundancy. Tech solutions like CARET Legal are deployed on a cloud server which offers increased mobility, security, reliability, and control.
Behind every great practice, is strong legal practice management software. Utilizing seamless integration and streamlined operations, CARET Legal offers improved workflows, efficient data gathering, sophisticated data analysis, and document automation — all of which make focusing on your firm’s business development loads easier.
