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    Decrease Stress & Grow Profits By Doing Less

    by SimpleLaw on
    Case management software

    In a recent survey, 41% of fee-earning attorneys reported they spent 35%+ of their time on non-billable tasks. An additional 29% spent between 20% and 34% of their time on non-billable tasks. That's a lot of time. So, how can you reduce stress and grow profits by doing less?  It's kind of like eating more to lose weight. The details are what matters here. You can't eat more donuts. But you can eat more vegetables. So think of this as eating your veggies. Adopt your technology. Specifically, adopt some automation tools. But we aren't solely talking about the big artificial intelligence stuff. It's about tracking time, creating invoices, managing payments, and of course, document automation. 

    Time Tracking

    In the same survey, attorneys reported what they did with their non-billable time. Time tracking took 80% of attorneys up to 4 hours a week. An additional 18% spent between 5 and 9 hours a week. With the right software, this is reduced to under 1 hour per week. With the right technology, users enter their time directly into the software. There is no transcribing notes from a file or notepad. That's where much of the time is spent for non-tech adopters. As an example, with SimpleLaw, our users have three options to track their time: manual entry, responsive, or automated. Each user selects their preferred approach and can use any option at any time. Sure, it sounds simple (see what we did there?) and it is. But it's an easy way to save time. But that's just the start of the benefits.

    Invoicing

    For firms that don't use software, hours are spent generating monthly billing. Whether it's just attaching hours recorded on an excel spreadsheet to a nice-looking invoice, it takes a lot of time. One of the law firms we work with reported reducing the time required to create monthly invoices from 4 days to 30 minutes. Talk about an increase in productivity! With the right technology, all those hours that are tracked in the system marked billable, auto-populate the invoice. Expenses marked billable also auto-populate the invoice. Users can even add discounts for early payment if that's something your firm wants to offer. 

    Managing Payments

    Let's be super clear here. The increase in productivity is all about using online payments. In fact, according to the ABA, 75% of people like to pay with a credit or debit card online. So as attorneys, you need to make it easy for them. Many case management software platforms, like SimpleLaw, work with an external payment processing source, like LawPay. We are big fans. Clients can log in to their portal and view and pay invoices through the law firm's LawPay account. Law firms get a very competitive transaction rate due to the volume done by LawPay. No need for the law firm to receive a check, log it, and then deposit the physical check.

    While there is much discussion about the acceptability of using apps, like Venmo or Zelle, as payment options, it's not yet a widely accepted option. But as clients choose to use it, the legal industry will have to respond.

    Document Automation

    Per the survey, 44% of fee earners report spending 5 to 9 hours a week on document drafting. 24% report spending 10-14 hours a week. 18% reporting 15+ hours a week. That's a lot of time spent just drafting documents. That's not reviewing, finalizing, filing, etc. Imagine getting those hours down to literal minutes.

    With the right technology platform, the entire process is streamlined.

    • Client Intake Forms are created where the client completes all the fields necessary. The intake forms are created by the law firm and match the fields needed in the standard form.
    • Using the add-ins available from Microsoft Word, templates are easily created by simply clicking on the code snippets and putting them on the document. No need to cut and paste. It's just point and click.
    • Templates are saved and available to add to each case, dependent on the forms needed for that case.
    • Once the client completes the intake form, the attorney can review their entries to ensure all is accurate. Once confirmed, with the click of a button, the entire document is completed.

    Sure it takes a few minutes to create the templates. But that time is well spent for future document creation

    It's easy to decrease stress and grow profits by doing less if you adopt the right technology. The key is to jump in and adopt the functionality that streamlines the stuff that isn't billable. Ready to start? 

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