If you’re here, that means you’ve heard how legal software can be your sidekick in this fast-paced legal landscape. But before you invest in one, you need to create a checklist of legal software features to select the best solution.
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Table of Contents:
Key Features
We’ve mentioned some key legal software features you should look for while evaluating a legal software below.
1. Billing and Payments
Your law firm or practice is a ship sailing through the stormy sea of legal cases. But when it comes to invoicing, it might feel like trying to navigate with a faulty compass. Legal solutions with billing capabilities act as a lighthouse guiding you to adopt efficient invoicing practices.
These solutions enable you to classify legal services and expenses using Uniform Task-Based Management System (UTBMS) codes, helping you generate bills in Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard (LEDES) format.
Trust accounting capabilities help you record and track deposits and withdrawals, ensure compliance with ethical standards, and set up transaction alerts.
They automatically allocate interests earned on IOLTA accounts to specific legal aid programs.
Today, people prefer paying online. And if you don’t provide them with those means, they might switch to another law firm. You should consider a solution that enables clients to make electronic payments via debit or credit cards or digital wallets.
2. Calendaring and Legal Docketing
Missing deadlines can be a costly mistake for attorneys as it can result in legal penalties and the dismissal of cases. It can also tarnish your reputation and lead to lost clients.
To stay on top of your schedule, you should invest in a solution that offers calendaring modules.
They allow you to schedule appointments with clients within minutes. You can switch to the chronological timeline view and filter events by day, week or month. Furthermore, you can set up reminders for court appearances, meetings and more.
These legal apps often integrate with Google Calendar and iCal. You can share your schedules with other lawyers to keep them informed about important events.
Docketing tools enable you to access judicial calendars and track court appearance dates and deadlines for submitting documents.
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3. Client and Contact Management
Managing clients and contacts can be daunting. From updating contact information to ensuring timely communication, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle.
You should consider a legal app that provides client and contact management tools to streamline processes and keep your clients happy.
You can store and organize client and matter contact details such as names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses.
You can attach secondary contacts to any case or profile. Furthermore, you can maintain a client communication log to record every interaction.
Store matter contacts with Zola Suite. Source
These applications enable you to create individual profiles consisting of clients’ photos, billing preferences and connected matters.
Create and send custom intake forms to customers via the client portal. Enable them to share documents, pay bills, schedule appointments and fill out intake forms through the same.
4. Dashboard and Reporting
Data is the most valuable asset of any organization. But just storing it won’t help your legal practice. Dashboards and reports assist you in making sense of captured data.
Dashboards help you gain real-time visibility into key metrics of your legal practice at a glance. From billable hours to open cases, you will have a bird’s eye view of everything.
Data visualization tools enable you to transform data into charts, graphs and infographics, making it more digestible. Such capabilities help you develop strategic plans and make data-driven decisions.
You can generate cash flow statements, balance sheets, budget variances and work-in-progress reports to evaluate your practice or company’s operational and financial performance. Export data to third-party business intelligence tools for further analysis.
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5. Document Management
Managing and locating legal documents is challenging. According to the EY Law Survey, 90% of professionals said they face challenges locating contracts.
Legal software with document management capabilities helps you organize, store and retrieve files with ease.
You can store unlimited documents in a central hub. You can share files with clients and other lawyers from within the platform. Furthermore, you can convert documents into PDFs and combine them into one case file.
Optical charter recognition (OCR) technology allows you to digitize and convert scanned files into searchable, editable text, helping you find the desired information quickly. It also assists you in automating data entry tasks, which in turn increases efficiency.
Document version control enables you to track and manage changes over time. This makes it easy for you to audit and review files, ensuring that all revisions comply with legal guidelines.
Most legal systems provide pre-built, customizable templates to allow you to capture information quickly and maintain consistency. They integrate with eDiscovery systems to help you adhere to eDiscovery rules and data privacy laws.
They also enable clients to e-sign documents, making it faster and more efficient for you to execute agreements.
6. Matter/Case Management
If you want to effortlessly handle clients’ legal matters from start to finish, you should look for a solution that provides case management capabilities. They let you track case developments in real time and set lawsuit statuses to open, closed or pending.
Several legal solutions include a database of statutes of limitations to help you easily reference the specific timeframes for different types of cases in your jurisdiction.
CASEpeer’s case management functionality. Source
They enable you to scan your client and contact databases to check for conflicts of interest to help you maintain the highest ethical standards and avoid any situation that can compromise your ability to provide unbiased representation to your clients.
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7. Mobile Capabilities
You might have to juggle multiple cases and deadlines at once. Legal systems with mobile capabilities help you manage everything at your fingertips.
Whether you’re in court or meeting clients, they enable you to access documents via Android and iOS devices.
Track tasks via mobile devices with Rocket Matter. Source
You can view upcoming deadlines, schedule appointments, approve invoices, and track tasks, time and expenses on the go. Furthermore, you can share documents with paralegals and other attorneys and send emails to clients with just a few clicks.
8. Task Management
If you’re tired of scribbling to-do lists on paper and sticky notes, you should choose an app that provides task management capabilities. They enable you to assign tasks to other lawyers on your team. You can also link tasks to cases for quick access.
Kanban tools provide you with a visual representation of tasks and cases as they progress. They allow you to identify and address bottlenecks to help you optimize processes. You can also set task priority to urgent, high and low.
You can add time estimates to jobs and set deadlines. Receive notifications when someone completes their assignments.
With the ability to streamline your workflows, you’ll be able to focus on more important things like winning cases.
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9. Time and Expense Management
It’s possible that you get super involved in a case and forget to track your hours. To never miss a billable minute, you should ask vendors if they provide time and expense management capabilities.
They allow you to track time via internet-enabled devices. If running a law firm, you can set hourly rates for different attorneys. You can also set custom rates based on time entries and case type.
You can set budgets for cases and track their progress against them. You can also categorize expenses such as travel, office supplies, private investigator fees and other miscellaneous costs.
Generate time and expense reports to gain an overview of your firm’s financial performance, identify key areas of improvement, and make informed business decisions.
10. Integrations
Constantly switching between different programs can cause inconsistency across your workflows. That’s why you should look for an app that provides integrative capabilities. They help you eliminate manual double entry errors and ensure data integrity.
You can integrate with apps like Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, Zapier and more.
PracticePanther’s Gmail integration. Source
Most legal solutions usually integrate with:
- CRM tools
- Legal billing software
- Case management apps
- Legal document management systems
- Legal practice management tools
They also support integration with popular payment gateways such as Stripe, PayPal and LawPay.
11. Security and Compliance
Some apps provide SSL/TLS encryption to aid you in securing data transmission between servers. They also enable you to comply with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) guidelines.
If you accept online payments, you need to adhere to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS). And legal solutions help you with the same.
You can grant role-based access to authorized users to protect sensitive data. Some apps also allow you to mask certain sections of your document for security reasons.
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FAQs
What is legal software?
Legal software is a digital solution that helps law firms, legal practices and attorneys streamline workflows, stay compliant, gain real-time visibility and boost productivity. They integrate with third-party applications to assist you in maintaining data consistency.
What are the different types of legal solutions?
Types of legal systems are as follows:
- Billing and time tracking
- Legal citation generator
- Document management
- Bankruptcy tools
- Record management
- Estate planning apps
- Legal research
- Family law products
How can I select the best legal system?
Start by listing your law firm’s needs. Do you need a scalable solution? What integrations do you require? How many user licenses do you need? What features do you require?
If you already use a solution, note down where it falls short and how a new application will address those shortcomings.
You can check out industry guides and read online reviews to learn more about the software and vendors. You can also contact professionals currently using the system to gather honest feedback.
To know more about how to select the perfect system, check out our Lean Selection methodology.
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Next Steps
Managing your legal workflows the manual way can slow you down. Legal solutions provide features like document management, reporting, billing and calendaring to empower you to work smarter and better handle your cases.
You can prioritize which modules are vital for your company using our free requirements template to find your perfect software match.
What legal software features are the most important to you? Please let us know in the comments.