Practicing law is more than advocating for clients by appearing in court, negotiating and preparing contracts or signing papers. The key to running a successful firm is managing and developing the business. Certainly, being a knowledgeable and highly-skilled attorney is essential to attracting and retaining clients, but it takes more to build a successful practice.

We believe that in order for a law practice to thrive, it must operate like a business. A key component of operating like a business is understanding metrics and gaining insight in order to understand how the business is operating – what is working and what can be improved. This is displayed in our guiding principles – what isn’t MEASURED cannot be IMPROVED. As a result, we offer real-time data with comprehensive reports and analytics to help you better understand the business side of your practice.

Have you ever received an email from someone and couldn’t quite put your finger on who they were? Did you later find out that the email contact was a member of the case that you are working on? Your firm is consistently dealing with cases, clients, and other related individuals which makes it easy to lose track of what point of contact is associated with which matter.

Every day there is more evidence that in order to stay competitive, lawyers need to harness technology to streamline their processes. The more sophisticated the client, the less tolerance they have for inefficiency. In our never ending quest to provide the right tools for law firms, CARET Legal is thrilled to now support electronic LEDES invoices with Uniform Task-Based Management System (UTBMS) Codes.

As much as marketing will improve your law firm’s ability to build clientele, nothing is as valuable to bringing in prequalified clients than a referral from an outside source. Whether this source is a former client, another attorney, or a close friend or family member, the benefits of sitting down with someone who is primed

As an attorney, there are no shortage of minefields that can land you in hot water.   While many of the dangers that lurk can be subjective or unavoidable, failing an audit of client trust funds is one that consistently strikes fear into one's heart.  Yet, keeping your trust funds in good order need not be a challenge if you employ the right process and software.

Freakonomics Radio recently did a really interesting podcast about handwriting. During the episode, they talked to regular people and experts about the pros and cons of moving from a pen and paper society to a digital one. Here at CARET Legal, we have an on-going debate about pen and paper vs. digital notetaking, so it was exciting to listen to the podcast and hear that we are not the only people thinking about these things.

If you can’t get a real-time, 360-degree overview of your practice and its finances, you have little more than your intuition to help you make smart strategic decisions. This 360-degree knowledge is the “current truth” that informs you about your firm’s financial position and overall productivity. The trouble is, unlike mega corporations who have access to highly-customized applications and a small army of number crunchers, small (and midsize) law firms rely on disparate applications, each perform only a portion of the firm’s activities and hence there is no clear way to perform centralized reporting.

You are ambitious. You want your law firm to grow from an all-consuming practice to a thriving business. But how? Once you realize that your time is better spent doing those things you can’t offload – namely, enhancing your knowledge and reputation in your practice area and cultivating relationships with your clients and referral sources -- it’s time to get some reinforcements. You need to hire an associate or a paralegal who can help you grow your firm and keep the work flowing. But, since it’s your reputation on the line, it’s crucial that your clients receive the same level of service that you provide to them without anything falling through the cracks. CARET Legal to the rescue!