There is no doubt that your law firm employs a team of hardworking attorneys, administrators and support staff. But the reality is hard work alone is simply not enough if you want to compete against other firms and grow your bottom line.
You need technology. But only technology that is right for your business and that will help your firm grow. Remember, technology itself is no magic bullet. It’s only a tool – and one that must be used correctly if you want to accelerate, not thwart, your team’s productivity and profits.
Step 1: Define Your Problem
At Honeycrisp, we spend our days making the lives of our clients easier. How we do that, however, looks different depending on the challenges our clients face. There is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to technology for law firms.
To find the right solution for your business needs, the best place to start is by defining your problems. Otherwise, the slow and clunky old processes that drag you down will continue to be slow and clunky new processes – just on a different platform and with a shiny interface.
Without getting to the heart of the real issue, you can’t find an effective solution. So, Step One whenever implementing a new technology is to take a deep dive into what’s really causing you problems.
It sounds simple, but so many firms are all-too-quick to purchase a solution without evaluating how it will help. They spend lots of money and waste lots of time on a technology that only holds them back.
What to Consider When Evaluating New Technology
If there’s a general sense of frustration among your staff but you can’t quite put a pulse on the problem, start by gathering information from your team:
- Where are they running into roadblocks? How is their time being spent (or wasted, depending on your perspective)? Efficiency is so important when you’re in the business of billing by the hour. The good news is that automation should be able to address many of these issues, if implemented correctly.
The crux of the problem with roadblocks, however, is that sometimes we don’t even know the roadblock exists. We make assumptions that something simply is not possible, so we disregard it as a potential roadblock (and in turn, fail to pursue a solution for it). When you dig a little deeper and perhaps even play devil’s advocate, however, it becomes clear that there are roadblocks – and roadblocks that can be remedied.
For example, many clients consider automation to be primarily document automation, like Mail Merge, but there are numerous repetitive tasks legal professionals do outside of a document every day that can also be automated. Tasks like moving a file from one folder to another for review, creating calendar events or sending emails – these are tasks that can all be automated.
- What does the data say? How are time and money being used, and in what ways is that affecting your attorneys’ utilization rates? If you don’t have any data to go by, start with a gut estimate, but in today’s world, it’s really important to track your data so you can make informed decisions.
- What workflows are you using, and how can they be improved? If the answer is none, be sure to read this.
Step 2: Pursue Your Solution
Once armed with this information, you can move forward finding a solution that will effectively resolve your problems.
For help working through these questions and other considerations unique to your business, get in touch with us at Honeycrisp. We’ll help you find the right technology for your law firm and make sure the implementation and ongoing maintenance is easy and seamless for your entire team.
