These days, we live in a world of data overwhelm. Law firms have seemingly endless options for tracking, analyzing, automating, and organizing their practices.
From management efficiencies to marketing automation, it seems that with every want and need within your firm, the answer is most often the same: “There’s an app for that.”
Think back just 10 years ago. Back then, you had your choice of roughly 500 marketing software products. Today, this number has jumped to more than 8,500.
Of course, as law firms grow and the number of employees increases, so do the software related tools needed. After all, each department within your practice — whether finance, sales/intake, or human resources — has its own requirements. People often have their own preferences too.
According to research from ProfitWell, a subscription and financial metrics management company, firms with up to 50 employees use an average of 25-50 SaaS (software as a service) solutions. Those with over 250 employees often use more than 100.
What might surprise you is that many of these apps are free. The average small business uses three times more free apps than paid.
Currently, Google’s free G Suite, which offers solutions for email, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and cloud storage — and makes them all collaborative where you can share among your entire company — has the highest market share. There’s no question; my business would not function as efficiently without G Suite.
In helping law firms grow and increase caseloads from the Internet over the last decade, I see first-hand how software makes a powerful (and often very profitable) impact on legal practices. Benefits usually come in the form of time savings and increased productivity, which ultimately can have a positive effect on revenue.
After all, when you can help your staff be more effective at work, they get more done in less time. Because the reality is, longer hours in the office can make your staff less productive.
Research from Stanford University’s John Pencavel proves this point. He found that employee output falls sharply after a 50-hour workweek. So much so that after 55 hours, someone who puts in 70 hours produces nothing more with those extra 15 hours.
That’s a lot of wasted time.
So how do you know if what you’re doing could be completed more efficiently with software?
Well, frustrations are a strong starting point. When your employees complain about a certain process because it takes too much time or causes mistakes, software is a possible solution.
You see, you may have current processes that are outdated or better suited for other purposes, especially if they involve lots of manual work. Communication between programs could be a problem too.
Think about it … Are you doing manual transfers, up-loads, or downloads from one software to the next?
There may be alternatives that can get the job done quicker and more accurately. So look at what redundant tasks can be automated versus what you’re paying someone to do on a daily basis.
Your expenses are another place worth reviewing. Go through your yearly expense sheet and see where you’re paying for labor or other technology that could potentially be combined into one software.
The options available to you are growing at a rapid rate. In just the next year, the SaaS industry is expected to grow by 17%.
In fact, as of this writing, a Google search delivers 135,000,000 results for the phrase “software for law firms.” But, as you can imagine, not all are created equal.
Several CRM and automation software companies that were once hyper-relevant in the legal profession are now only a vague memory. Either they failed to adapt or were chased out by disruptors that came into the market at a lower price with equivalent value.
Remember, there are all those free platforms too. When you have buy-in, and the software syncs with other platforms, improves processes or builds efficiencies, this pushes out some paid subscription services.
All this is good news for you because fierce competition means options just keep getting better for the end user.
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Now, I am a long-time believer in the KISS principle — particularly in business: Keep It Simple, Stupid. While software and automation can most certainly move your law firm forward, you must be strategic in your implementation. No single software can turn a law firm around or take your practice to that proverbial next level. Priority of implementation should be a strategic decision based on a number of factors.
Before we jump into my software recommendations for your law firm, let me remind you that — even with all its benefits — software can be a source of struggle in the work-place. The simpler you can make the implementation process, the more likely you’ll see success with your staff.
According to FileMaker’s Workplace Innovation Report (January 2019), 94% of businesses struggle with their existing apps and software. An almost equal number, or 95%, also struggle with technology designed to address their business problems.
The reality is, you will run into roadblocks. People are naturally resistant to change. For whatever reason, this is especially common in the legal profession.
Personally, I believe the problem comes down to not understanding the positive impact (i.e., money savings, time savings, improved employee morale, overall efficiency, etc.) that law firms experience when they embrace technology.
All this being said, efforts to improve efficiencies and reduce costs get rewarded. So give the following software suggestions strong consideration.
As you’ll see, they’re divided into two categories — Must-Have Software and Nice-to-Have Software. The benefits of each can vary depending on your law firm size.
Most of these software options are cloud-based, meaning you can access them from anywhere with an internet connection and a login. The alternative is on-premise software, meaning it’s restrictive (in most instances) to your office.
Cloud is usually cheaper because, as a software as a service, costs are distributed across many clients. The only time on-premise software could be beneficial is when you handle hypersensitive information. Even so, most cloud-based solutions provide reliable security.
So here is a detailed rundown of the ever-growing (and often confusing) world of software for law firms:
Must-Have Software
CRM (customer relationship management system)/Email marketing
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This is a top priority for any law firm driving prospective client leads (i.e., doing any form of marketing or advertising, including word-of-mouth). After all, many leads do not sign up after the first call or inquiry. In fact, if you convert only 30% of your leads (which is very good), this means 70% of your contacts are leaving. Unless you have a way of staying in front of them, they won’t ever think of you again. So you need a way to organize your leads long term and automate your business’ communication to this contact base. As you know, you collect important information during the early stages of a new lead intake. Having a single platform that manages these details efficiently can be a game changer for law firms because it allows you to provide a higher level of customer service.
Recommendations: Captorra, Lead Docket, Infusionsoft
Case Management
This type of software is another key infrastructure element for law firms because it keeps client information in one location. It also allows you to build automation into your client communications and overall case management. In fact, many systems offer SMS/text messaging, which further enhances your firm’s communication with clients.
Keep in mind, all-in-one software that handles both CRM and case management (and more) is available (e.g., Filevine).
Also, if your CRM and case management software can sync via API (which is basically a way for applications to “talk” to each other), without requiring ongoing manual entries/transfers, having an all-in-one platform may not be as necessary.
Recommendations: Clio, MyCase, SmartAdvocate
Tracking/Reporting
If your law firm invests in any form of online advertising (especially if it’s more than $5,000 per month), you need tracking/reporting software. This allows you to monitor metrics so you can evaluate your advertising and marketing. Which metrics you track depends on the marketing channel, but your cost per lead and cost per case should take top priority. Other metrics can be helpful, but they are rarely as important.
Recommendations: Varies depending on where and how you promote your law firm. Here are several tools for monitoring online marketing and advertising effectiveness:
· Google Analytics – Tracks all your website’s metrics, such as bounce rate, visitor data, time on site/page, goal completions, and much more.·
· Google Search Console – Tracks more technical coverage issues. This has some similar data from Google Analytics but with better inspection capabilities. You also see more keyword data based on what users typed into Google to find your website.
· SEMrush – Tracks organic search rankings and positioning, estimated traffic value if you were to pay for the traffic you receive via Google Ads, competitor rankings, and estimated search traffic, and more. Other rank tracking tools include SerpBook, STAT, and ProRankTracker.
· Ahrefs – Tracks the backlinks associated with your website while helping you evaluate authority/strength of your website (and your competitors’ web-sites).
· Oribi – Paid analytics dashboard and software subscription that helps simplify the metrics you get from Google Analytics.
· Call Tracking/Lead Tracking
If you’re not tracking phone call conversions that come from your website, you’re missing out on critical information. Dynamic call tracking allows you to provide unique phone numbers to your website visitors, giving you gran-ular data such as which pages a user visits before calling and what page they were on right before calling you.
Static call tracking uses a single phone number through-out your website and tracks the total call conversions. I recommend dynamic call tracking because the more you know about what works (or doesn’t work) on your website, the more changes you can make to increase leads and cases over time.
Recommendations: CallTrackingMetrics, CallRail
Accounting
This one is a no-brainer. Using an established accounting platform helps organize and automate your financials and tracking. Plus, having an accounting software saves you from creating headaches for your accountant, especially around tax time.
Recommendations: Quickbooks
Data Backup
When it comes to backups, there are two important aspects to keep in mind: (1) Encryption before it leaves your device, and (2) Multiple storage locations (preferably in different geographic areas). Many cloud backup services provide for both of these requirements.
Data encryption before leaving your device is important because it helps prevent anyone from seeing your data who may hack into the remote data storage at a later time. AES 256 or higher encryption is preferred and the password/key to unlock your data shouldn’t be stored remotely anywhere.
Recommendations: IDrive (for individuals/consumers), CrashPlan (for small businesses)
Live Chat
If you advertise or market online and drive people to your website, having live chat will increase your lead generation. Some prospective clients prefer the phone, others are okay submitting a quick contact form, while others (10-20% of website visitors) prefer engaging via live chat. This is a great way to maximize website traffic that you would otherwise not convert into leads.
Recommendations: Apex Chat, Client Chat Live, Ngage or, if you wish to try a chatbot on your site, look into Smith.ai or ZyraTalk
Local Citation Syndication Tools
Local search (i.e., optimizing your Google My Business listing for each of your offices) has become an important platform for driving leads and cases online. People use local search results like they did the YellowPages 15 years ago. They quickly read ratings/reviews and decide who to call.
To support your local maps rankings, make sure your business name, address and phone number are as consistent as possible across all platforms. You can automate citation building and clean-up efforts using the tools below.
Recommendations: Whitespark, BrightLocal, Yext
Reviews Software/Automation
Many law firms struggle getting online reviews. Yet, they are of utmost importance in helping establish trust and perceived credibility. We live in an Amazon-shopping society where potential clients know they can do a quick search online and read about others’ experience with your firm. In fact, they often use this information to decide whether or not to hire you.
Recommendations: Birdeye, Podium
Nice-to-Have Software
Landing Page Creation
If you manage any paid advertising efforts in-house, having a subscription to a page builder allows you to make on-the-fly updates to your landing pages and host them in one location.
Recommendations: Instapage, Unbounce
Social Media Management/Content Curation
If you or your staff spend more than one hour a week managing your law firm’s social media channels, having this software can free up time. The primary benefit is that you can automate publishing content/posts to different platforms simultaneously. You can also schedule posts for a week or month (or more) ahead of time, monitor reviews on your social channels, as well as get real-time analytics on the performance of your social posts and engagement.
Recommendations: Hootsuite, Social Report
Legal Time Tracking and Billing
If your law firm already has a sophisticated case management software in place, it likely has a time tracking and/or billing feature available. Look into this before seeking a second software to handle these tasks.
Recommendations: Timesolv, Bill4Time
Legal Discovery
Electronic or e-discovery is where data stored electronically can be easily searched and located in a secure platform. The purpose of having access to this information is to use it as evidence in a case.
Recommendations: Reveal Data, Safelink
Document Management
This is especially helpful if your staff spends multiple hours per week manually managing documents or sending hard copy retainer agreements. Although “document management” could mean a number of different things — such as PDF conversion, document automation, document assembly, etc. — the biggest impact is agreement signing automation.
If you still have your retainers signed by hand, you can eliminate significant “friction” by going paperless and having clients sign e-retainers.
Recommendations: HelloSign, DocuSign
Calendaring and Docketing
If you or you staff manually schedule appointments with prospective and existing clients, using a calendar scheduler tool will save significant time and money. It also enhances your professionalism when booking appointments and eliminates back-and-forth emails or time-sucking communication.
Recommendation: Calendly
Internal Communication Platforms
This is a way to improve communication, especially away from your office, because it makes people more accessible. Now, sure, sometimes it’s more efficient to write, rather than walk into someone’s office or call them. Yet with certain types of communication software, you can retrieve and reference conversations at a later time via the recordings.
Recommendations: Zoom, Skype
Heat Maps/Click Tracking
When you see where users click throughout your website, you can guide your designer to continuously improve the usability and conversion rate. This can lead to more qualified leads driven from your website. The challenge is that most law firm sites do not generate enough traffic to provide conclusive data on what is or isn’t working.
Recommendations: HotJar, Instapage
How to Ensure Your Staff Embraces Soft-ware Changes
You probably know the phrase, “junk in, junk out.” There are no shortage of law firms that have jumped from software to software over the years, wasting tens of thousands of dollars, while burning out employees along the way.
In these circumstances, the problem most often starts with the managing partners. They seek to implement new software, but they don’t get full buy-in from the people responsible for using the software each day.
You can easily avoid this issue by first tapping the collective intelligence within your office. Seek input from the people who will be most involved with the change in process. Then work with them to identify a handful of options.
(Note: If considering software from a fairly new company or startup, I recommend leaning toward options specific to the legal industry. There’s likely more staying power versus a software company that caters to all industries. Also, make sure the company is already working with firms similar to yours and speak to a few of those firms to understand what implementation issues they ran into and what is good/bad about the software.)
