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Client Management Software

Client Management Software

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Legal Technology - Benefits of Legal Case Management SoftwareCase management software (CMS) can help a law firm manage cases, clients and firm matters. While CMS has been around for some time, many law firms still are not yet using this tool.  The trend continues that more and more law firms are finally implementing this useful organization management software to better run their cases and their law firms.

If your law firm has decided to make the move to a CMS, here are some questions you may have as you begin your search:

What is Case Management Software?

The definition of case management software is confusing because it can encompass so many different areas of your practice.  Here are the different major areas that a CMS system may cover.  Any one or a combination of these features are considered a CMS system.

  • Case database
  • Time tracking
  • Document assembly
  • Contact management
  • Calendaring and docketing
  • Time and billing

What Will a Case Management System Do For Me?

The question that needs to be answered before you begin looking for a CMS is “Do we really want to buy a CMS?”  To answer that question, you’ll want to know what added value you get from a case management system. Here are a few of the benefits you might receive as a result of using a CMS.

What are the Benefits of Case Management Software?

1. Case management software can manage deadlines

One of the largest tasks of legal professionals is handling all of the deadlines that are a part of any lawsuit. Case management software will help you manage these deadlines so you never miss an important date. Many of the software options will allow you to enter deadlines relating to each case, and will automatically add them to your calendar.

2. Organize Client Files

All of the information relating to a client can easily be kept in one area with a CMS. You can enter case description, deadlines, contact information of parties and participants, notes on the case, task lists  related to each case and much more. You typically have all of this information, but do you have it in one area?  A CMS will allow you to quickly and easily access this information.

3. Automated Time and Billing Entries

Most software will have the ability to take a calendared event and, with a few clicks, record it as billable time. You won’t have to write your billable time on a paper to then be entered into a billing system every month.  This type of automation can save a lot of time that you and your staff can be using on other tasks.

4. Coordinates Communication

Because you’ll have all of the contacts of participating parties in one place, it now becomes much easier to find the contact information when you need it.  If you’ve ever spent several minutes looking for an old email in order to get someone’s address, you know how much time it would save you to be able to open up the CMS file and retrieve exactly the address you want, when you want it.

5. Document Retrieval

When it’s time to organize a case, currently you have to pull information from many different sources. Briefs and pleadings are in a folder on your server, transcripts are in a stack on a shelf, email messages are in your email system.  With case management software, all of these pieces of information will already be in one place.  Now when it’s time to organize a case, much of the work will have already been done for you.

6. Work From Anywhere

Many of the software options are currently available online. This means you can access them from any computer with an internet connection.  You simply go to the website, sign on, and continue working. You can work from home or any other remote location.  This can be a big advantage when you’re traveling as you’ll be able to better use your down time to stay productive.

Productivity

Productivity

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There are a variety of factors, such as the quality of your equipment, the management of materials flow, and general economic considerations (e.g., inflation or recession), that can affect your business’s profits. However, your business’s profitability depends, in large part, on the quality of your employees’ performance. You can evaluate the quality of your employees’ work through productivity measurements.

Choose a convenient measure of productivity, based upon the type of operation your business is involved in and what you’re producing. You’ll also need to choose a time frame in which to measure it. Productivity will mean something different to each business.

One standard measurementof productivity is output per worker-hour, or the ratio between the number of hours worked to total output. You can also measure your productivity per week or month, if each unit of production takes more than an hour to create.

Output can be measured in terms of volume or quantity of items produced, or dollar value of items produced or services provided. For example, a graphic designer’s productivity may include aspects of how many jobs he or she completes in a month, as well as how quickly the jobs were produced. A company that builds and sells widgets, on the other hand, might measure productivity in terms of the number of units built and sold over a month’s time.

Service industries. It can be a bit harder to measure productivity in a service industry due to the somewhat intangible nature of the product involved. Service industries can measure productivity by considering the number of tasks performed or the number of customers served in a given time period. Other measures might be whether the service delivered measured up to company or customer standards and whether performance deadlines were met.

Professional employees can keep personal time sheets to indicate the number of hours spent on a given task. Quantity of work is a possible measure, such as number of service calls made per day or number of contracts written. Clerical workers can be given specific amounts of work to determine the relative time it takes to complete a given task.

Other methods. Another method for measuring productivity involves determining the time an average worker needs to generate a given level of production. You can also observe the amount of time that a group of employees spends on certain activities (such as production, travel, or idle time spent waiting for materials or replacing broken equipment). The latter method can reveal if employees are spending too much time away from production on other aspects of the job that can be controlled by the business.

How to improve productivity? Identify potential problem areas. The quality of leadership in the business can have an effect on productivity, so make sure that you, as a leader, ensure that your business isn’t suffering from:

  • poor planning or scheduling of work
  • unclear or untimely instructions to employees
  • an inability to adjust staff size and duties during light or heavy work load periods
  • poor coordination of material flow
  • the unavailability of needed tools
  • excess travel time.

Ultimately, the key to improving productivity lies with the employees themselves and the way that you work with those employees. Studies have shown that most workers think it’s important to do their best at their jobs. Chances are that most of your employees feel that way. People want to do a good job, and you should provide them with every tool to do so. It becomes your challenge to tap into that desire to perform and make it work for your business.

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