MYTH BUSTING COMMON BELIEFS: Part 3
Like our spreadsheets are good enough to manage a practice…
So, you have a budding legal practice.
You have a number of clients, and your matters seem to be increasing at a steady rate. So far, things are on track for your law firm.
So much so that you have had to start implementing a type of case management “system” just so that you can keep your practice in check. Steady on you say. And for all intents and purposes you would be absolutely right. Doing the smart thing.
Keeping track of your practice is exactly what you need to be doing – organising matters, handling conflict checks, tracking progress. You are dotting your i’s and crossing your t’s. Being responsible.
All this through the use of the trusted old spreadsheet.
It gets updated every day. So, you know that it’s 100% accurate.
Everyone in the firm uses it, so you know that the entire practice is being kept up to date with the who and what of every matter.
Only, you are getting the sneaky suspicion that as your firm gets bigger with the onboarding of more clients and the number of matters increasing, you don’t quite know if the “trusty old spreadsheet” is going to cut it anymore.
And you would be right.
With one or two matters, you may be able to manage it with a spreadsheet but with your law firm growing, spreadsheets become a highly ineffective tool for managing cases let alone for keeping your practice in check.
5 Reasons Why Spreadsheets Aren’t Practical for Law Firms
1. A spreadsheet isn’t scalable – a spreadsheet sounds like the answer to all your prayers. At first. You have the software already. You know how to use it, and it helps you stay organised. Mostly. But as you have discovered, as you start to grow, it becomes unmanageable. As your client list expands, the spreadsheet widens. Sure, you can get creative with it – have an overview page and then separate tabs for each open client matter etc. But you will soon come to realise that this (quite obviously) becomes a rather long and messy document that no longer serves your needs.
2. Spreadsheets slow down your workflow process – a spreadsheet provides very little insight into your workflows and processes. They’re just not built for that. A spreadsheet won’t properly capture conflicts, case overlap, or time gaps between hand-offs from one person to another. Spreadsheets don’t provide insight into bottlenecks, nor do they enable you to quickly identify and eliminate them. Important dates, notes, and instructions get lost in endless tabs and email chains. And all this can easily lead to missed deadlines, longer case processing times, budget overruns, and other avoidable mistakes.
3. It prevents efficiency and operational excellence – to succeed in a highly competitive industry where every law firm is trying to outdo their competitor, one needs to be highly efficient, achieving a high level of operational excellence on an ongoing basis. This means that you need to plan, manage and track matters at the highest level, with varying degrees of insight into how each matter is progressing. It’s also essential that execution is timely and flawless across the entire law firm, from intake to closure – with well-defined and easy-to-implement workflows. It’s a lot to take in let alone accomplish. In order to operate efficiently and effectively, every team member must have visibility into their matters, tasks, and timelines so that they can get their jobs done. They also need to know which tasks require approval and be able to get that approval in a timely manner. Static spreadsheets are simply not capable of automating workflows and providing the easy access to information required to achieve what needs to be achieved. Instead of being efficient and achieving operational excellence, you achieve the exact opposite.
4. Manual processes can lead to errors and missing data – as humans we are open to errors. After all – human beings are flawed. Therefore, any manual process that is inputted by a human will require certain steps and procedures to take place, and those in turn will be open to errors. It’s the natural course of things – regardless of how careful the human is being. What if they miss a step in the workflow? Or if they ignore a step in the process? It can lead to more time creating the entries which could also potentially lead to errors in the collection of data or the complete loss of data. And this will have a knock-on effect down the line. Suppose an attorney misses a few hours per month, i.e. they forget to capture time on an invoice. It’s not so great for the law firm, right? Missing time equates to missing earned income. Which means you’re decreasing your profitability! Again, achieving the exact opposite of efficiency and operational excellency.
5. Increased miscommunication and duplication – it’s an obvious thing with spreadsheets but maybe not something that jumps out at you straight away. But communication and documentation of all matters happens outside case management spreadsheets. Important things like emails, notes, briefs, medical records, photos, videos, and more cannot be stored in a spreadsheet. No matter how fancy it is. While it’s possible to link to many (but not all) of those things, doing so requires time – often your most valuable resource. Additionally, spreadsheets create information silos, it forces teams to work on their own information silo. As a result, no one knows who is working on what, or how many tasks they have completed. The next thing you know multiple team members are working on the same task, in some cases even after it has been finished by someone else. And that’s not ideal. At all.
The Solution
If it isn’t clear already, what a high-impact, efficient and competitive law firm needs is a case management system that gives you data outputs in terms of insights, analysis, and trends. Spreadsheets can capture data, but getting insights from that data is a far cry from what a spread sheet is actually capable of.
Case management software helps organise and streamline various aspects of your legal practice, including case details, client information, documents, and deadlines – providing a single location to store all case-related information, including case notes. It centralises data, automates tasks, and improves communication, ultimately increasing efficiency and productivity.
It facilitates the creation, storage, organisation, and retrieval of legal documents, often including features for document automation and version control. Which means efficiency and operational excellence.
It also enables secure and efficient communication with clients through features like client portals and two-way messaging, whilst also generating reports on various aspects of the firm’s operations – providing insights into performance and areas for improvement.
And this leads to increased efficiency, improved organisation within your practice, enhanced client services and therefore satisfaction and reduced costs due to less manual processes. And this all leads to a more competitive law firm that has an undeniable edge.
It would therefore seem that proper (and reliable) practice management software is an absolutely necessary and crucial tool for your legal practice – like the one offered by AJS.
At this juncture, we are sure you will agree that the answer is plain for all to see – the myth is BUSTED!
If you are in need of a service provider who has a proven track record or if you want to find out how to incorporate a new tool – like AJS’ trusted Legal Accounting and Practice Management Software – into your existing practice management suite, or if you simply want to get started with legal tech, feel free to get in touch with AJS. We have the right combination of systems, resources, and business partnerships to assist you with incorporating supportive legal technology into your practice. Effortlessly.
AJS is always here to help you, wherever and whenever possible!
– Written by Alicia Koch on behalf of AJS
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