What is legal practice management software?
Effective legal practice management requires you to have control over a lot of business and administrative functions. Managing a modern law firm involves everything from billing your clients correctly and maintaining accurate accounts to maximising fee earners’ utilisation rates and handling case files in a way that ensures you’re always compliant.
We get that this is no mean feat. And the fact you’re here suggests that you may already have heard about how legal practice management software can help.
Keep reading to learn about what practice management software is, why it’s used by law firms like yours and much more.
What is practice management software for law firms?
Legal practice management software enables law firms to handle day-to-day administrative tasks as well as core business functions such as accounting, conveyancing case management and document control. The leading systems bring all of these functions together in one place.
In addition to helping you keep on top of the admin and remain compliant, practice management systems typically include features designed to:
- Give you the data you need to inform strategic decision-making
- Create bespoke performance reports
- Manage individual productivity and KPIs effectively
- Maximise the profitability of your business.
Why is legal practice management software used?
If you are involved in running a law firm and you’ve never implemented an integrated legal software solution before, then you’ll be familiar with some of the more traditional methods of legal practice management.
There’s a huge amount of work involved in managing the accounting, finance and operations of legal practice, and we often see firms approaching these functions as disconnected silos with little more than a few spreadsheets to support them. Many law firms choose legal practice software because it brings everything together in one place and streamlines the management process.
Another key reason why you might implement practice management is the impact on your bottom line. On the one hand, it’s easy for you to demonstrate how more effective case handling, claims management and cost drafting leads to increased revenue; on the other, this type of software also delivers tangible cost savings by helping you to avoid potential fines for non-compliance with regulations and facilitating more efficient processes across the organisation.
That said, we recognise that a legal practice management system may not be right for every business. Some firms aren’t as likely to benefit from the scalability of an end-to-end software solution, which can support organisations in hitting ambitious growth targets. Similarly, although all legal businesses must comply with the SRA Standards and Regulations, Lexcel and the Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS), it’s easier to achieve this without the aid of software if you’re running a less active organisation.
Find out how our legal practice management software can work for your law firm
What does practice management software do?
The features of legal practice management software vary widely from provider to provider. Like the other leading providers on the market, we offer a comprehensive solution with several different components. See the sections below to learn more.
Accounting software
First and foremost, all good practice management systems should support your accounting. From bookkeeping to bill drafting and Solicitors Accounts Rules (SAR) compliance, legal accounting is an increasingly complex discipline which demands a switched-on approach.
As well as offering multi-stage approvals and a full audit trail of all transactions, your new software should provide you with bespoke accounting dashboards and key financial data at your fingertips.
Business intelligence
More advanced legal practice management software solutions will offer business intelligence features as a standard to help you make data-driven decisions.
Whichever system you choose, look out for a package that gives you insights on overall business performance against KPIs as well as the ability to narrow your data down to the level of individual productivity and fee earner performance.
Claims management
Built-in claims management functionality helps you to optimise your case handling by reducing the time spent on each case. We understand that your organisation may have to handle a wide variety of different claimant activities relating to accident management, insurance claims or legal expenses.
Your chosen legal practice management platform should be able to keep pace, offering a range of solutions that are tailored to the activities you need to focus on.
Cost drafting
For rapidly growing law firms, bill creation can quickly become a complicated affair. Your practice management system should take the pressure off by catering for everything from the layout and fee calculation to the production of a red-line bill.
With the right software solution, you’ll be able to make more efficient use of your fee earners’ time and maximise billable hours.
Document storage
Effective document storage is more than just a practical necessity of running a law firm.
The right approach to managing legal documentation also saves time by making it easier to find the important files when creating court bundles or responding to data requests. Your practice management solution should facilitate efficient document indexing and create a full audit trail to ensure compliance.
Lexcel reports
The leading platforms make it easy for your organisation to meet the requirements of the Lexcel standard. As you’ll know, the ability to produce accurate and thorough Lexcel reports is a key part of this accreditation, and software solutions like ours allow you to automate this at the click of a button.
Take a closer look at our legal practice management software
Key benefits of legal practice management software
Now that you’ve got a clearer picture of the features that legal practice management software can offer, let’s explore some of the main benefits for your organisation:
- Effective contact management – your platform should offer a single source of truth when it comes to client data, keeping all of the important information in one place to facilitate more effective management of your relationships with contacts.
- Streamlined case management – all worthwhile practice management systems will help you to streamline the case handling process and make more efficient use of fee earners’ time.
- Centralised task management – with a comprehensive legal software solution, you’ll be able to manage the workload and productivity of your employees from one easy-to-use interface.
- Secure document management – keep legal documents in one secure place, find the files you need when you need them and meet the complex compliance requirements of running a law firm.
Onboarding new practice management software
There are plenty of options open to you when evaluating which practice management software is the best fit. Once you’ve found a platform that integrates effectively with your other legal software tools, we’d recommend booking a free consultation and demonstration to ensure that it offers all of the functionalities that your organisation requires.
From here, you’ll be in a good position to discuss the onboarding process with your provider. Typically, this will include:
- The delivery of a proposal document outlining everything that would be required for a smooth implementation.
- A review of your existing data and discussion surrounding the data migration process.
- A testing phase to ensure that your new practice management solution is ready to go live.
- The launch of your new system on a date agreed upon by you and the provider.
- Moving forward, a dedicated Customer Success team will provide ongoing support for your employees and make sure that you get the most out of the software.
Find out how Access Legal is the right fit for your law firm
Legal Case and Practice Management Software
What next?
Over the course of this guide, we’ve looked at what practice management software is and the kind of support that it can offer to law firms. If you’re keen to streamline the accounting, case management and day-to-day operations of your business, visit our legal practice management software page to discover how we can help or book a demo today.
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