Law offices these days face an information glut that poses a grave threat to productivity, to say nothing of sanity. Never mind trying to win a case. How about trying to get your hands on the right file when you need it?
Technology, of course, can help. But first, a word about nomenclature: A few years ago "case management" software referred to programs that helped lawyers organize their case loads, providing calendaring, checklists, contact forms, to-do lists, and conflict checks. Later, a separate category called "practice management" software was developed to assist lawyers with the so-called back-office chores such as billing and accounting. In recent years, though, the distinction between the two has blurred. Many software programs handle both the front-office case management chores and the back-office billing and accounting tasks, so it's no longer necessary to purchase two separate packages to manage all of your office tasks. To simplify things, we'll refer to all of these tools as practice management programs.
The main advantage of using practice management software is that it gets all of the information about a legal matter into a single, easily searchable place. Otherwise, attorneys usually have their information residing in various data silos: There may be letters and documents stored in Microsoft Word, email exchanges stored in Outlook, a chart or spreadsheet in Excel, and a calendar in Google. It's sort of like taking a case folder and filing the paperwork into six different file cabinets.
"I hear lawyers all the time talking about how when they're on the phone they often can't find the file they need to answer a question," says Richard Paresky, national sales director for Needles, a case management software company. Sometimes, of course, they're not on the phone at all because they can't find the right number to call.
"When I first started a solo practice, it was right after I passed the bar and I was really on a shoestring," confides Brian Pedigo, a solo practitioner at the Pedigo Law Corp. in Irvine. "I started off just trying to use Microsoft Outlook for everything, which has a calendar and email and a task list. But I found out really early in my practice that there's just so much information and so much paperwork that I couldn't keep track of everything in Outlook. It was overwhelming. That's when I started looking at practice management software."
By bringing all the information about a legal matter into a single data silo, practice management software makes it much more searchable, retrievable—and ultimately, billable. The entire life cycle of a matter—from the client's initial phone call to the closing of the case—gets funneled into the system, eliminating the need for multiple programs.
Most programs also allow you to create a task list for a case—a to-do sheet that enumerates exactly what needs to be done, who has to do it (probably you), and when it needs to be done (probably today). Once the client is entered into the system, time tracking and billing can begin immediately. When it's time to bill, click a few buttons and the software will make an invoice in a .pdf format to email to your client.
Some programs even let you share selected documents with clients, and even collaborate with them on the case. Pedigo uses an online practice management service called Clio to share information and documents with his tech-savvy clients. The clients can review the documents and make comments or ask questions. And because they can also access other related court documents online whenever they like, they have a better sense of exactly what's happening with their case. Keeping a client in the loop can pay dividends down the line, as the most common complaint lodged against lawyers is "failure to communicate."
Up until a few years ago, every document attached to a case was stored electronically in-house, either on a lawyer's desktop computer or on the firm's server. Now, some software companies are offering practice management tools "in the cloud"—that is, the software and data are accessed online through a secure Internet connection. One advantage of cloud-based software services is that they're billed on a monthly subscription basis rather than as a one-time up-front cost. For attorneys who aren't sure whether a practice management software solution is right for them, a cloud-based service can provide a relatively risk-free way to find out.
But practice management software is not for everybody. Implementing such a system requires lawyers and staff to change the way they do things in order to accommodate the peculiarities of the software. Everyone must enter and store information in the database correctly or the software can't do its job. The only thing worse than no computer system is a partially implemented computer system.
"I've spoken to people and then actually advised them against using our product," says Needles' Paresky. "I think the biggest challenge we face today is making sure that the people who buy our product are capable of getting it up and running. I can't help you if you're not going to be committed to the cause. Everyone has to buy into the process of putting data into a database every day. There are people who just can't grasp that."
But training is available for most off-the-shelf practice management programs, and many practitioners have found that the initial pain of mastering a new program is worth it for the long-term gains.
"I think it's really hard for a practice to get by without this kind of software, even though I know some lawyers who do," says Pedigo. "I think just the information overload gets pretty bad. So it helps to have a system that streamlines everything. I feel like I couldn't live without it now."
Kari Santos
Daily Journal Staff Writer
