Tools to Boost Efficiency and Help Manage Your Practice

Running a law practice can be challenging, but fortunately, there are a variety of technological tools that can make it easier. These solutions can help you manage your client relationships, save time with scheduling, design email marketing strategies, automate webinars, and create consistent branding. Doing things the old-fashioned way may be comfortable, but you can gain time and money by taking advantage of business efficiency solutions. Keep reading to learn more. 

What to Consider First

Before choosing the best tools to improve the efficiency of your law practice, evaluate your office workflow. Review how you find and serve clients. After enumerating the steps, identify which of them could be more efficient. Narrow your search to the technological tools that will meet your needs.

Next, determine a budget for purchasing and maintaining new products. Some products offer free versions, but most will require some financial outlay to deliver the full scope of services that you need. When shopping, compare prices, features, ease of use, and customer service. Talk to colleagues and check online reviews to help you produce a shortlist of solutions to try. 

To get started, consider the following types of technological tools to boost efficiency, increase accuracy, and improve your law firm overall.

1. Scheduling Solutions

Keeping track of appointments and meetings can be confusing and time-consuming due to frequent schedule changes. You can stay on top of your calendar by taking advantage of an online scheduling solution. 

Calendly is one example. You can share your calendar with clients and co-workers or add the scheduler to your website. Then, your clients and co-workers can choose their appointment times and schedule meetings without you having to send emails back and forth. You can prepare for meetings by creating simple intake forms with questions to help you discover what participants want to discuss and to create meeting agendas. 

Other scheduling providers include Schedule Once, Dubsado, Appointy, and Chili Piper. Many scheduling programs can integrate with Zoom, Google Calendar, and Microsoft Outlook.

2. Law Practice Management Software

Software products that are specifically designed for law practices can help you run your entire business from one central online location. These all-in-one solutions handle case management, contracts, billing, accounting, and cloud document storage. This type of software can help you stay on top of deadlines, automate your invoices, track your time and expenses, capture leads, and sign documents electronically.

WealthCounsel is a LEAP Group Company. LEAP legal practice management software combines case management, document automation, accounting, billing, and online payments into one solution that enables estate planning and elder law firms to make more money.

3. Email Marketing

Email marketing can be a powerful business tool. Writing about legal topics and current events can position you as a thought leader. However, sending mass messages to everyone in your contact list is not the best tactic and may violate certain rules of professional conduct. Email marketing tools can help you obtain the proper consents and divide your list into segments so you can send targeted messages to the right audiences. 

The best email marketing tools help you learn more about your audience. Some email solutions feature analytics that can show you which emails are resonating with viewers and who is reading and responding to them. In addition, email marketing tools can enhance the quality and design of your email messages and optimize them for mobile devices. WealthCounsel’s Practice Development can also improve your email marketing efforts by providing done-for-you estate planning content each month. To learn about all the benefits of Practice Development, click here.

4. Webinar Platforms

Share your expertise and attract new clients by hosting online webinars. This allows you to reach people who may live too far away to visit your office in person. Software solutions like WebinarJam, Zoom, and GoToMeeting can expand your audience as well as your client base. You can deliver a solo presentation or join other professionals for a roundtable discussion.

5. Social Media Scheduler

Continue to leverage technological tools by plugging into social media. For your business, become intentional about sending messages on different social media platforms at optimal times using social media schedulers such as Hootsuite, Buffer, PLANN, and CoScheduler. You can write a batch of social media posts in advance and schedule them to be published. By batching your social media posts, you can create a cohesive social media strategy and avoid running into the problem of being too busy to post.

In addition to scheduling posts, social media scheduler tools can analyze your audience, so you can gain unique insights about your industry’s social ecosystem and boost your firm’s social presence.

6. Brand Support

Technology can also support your overall brand development. As an attorney, you may feel like you do not know much about branding or why it is important. Solutions such as Canva or Adobe Spark can fill the creative gap to give your law practice a positive identity and set it apart from competitors with easy-to-use templates for graphics and marketing materials of all kinds. These programs can help you deliver presentations and social media posts with a consistent look and message. Other providers of branding software include Stencil, Pablo, and Relay That.

7. Drafting Software

Drafting software is a tool that every attorney can and should employ. It can dramatically boost drafting efficiency and accuracy by offering customizable document templates and single-point data entry, so you will not have to create documents from scratch that could be incomplete. Using drafting software can also prevent typos associated with copying and pasting client information into the same templates. 

When researching software, look for drafting solutions that have the following qualities:

• Use the cloud for easy access and enhanced security
• Get updated regularly to reflect current best practices
• Integrate with your practice management system
• Are customizable to comply with state and local laws
• Offer personalized, unlimited content and software support

WealthCounsel’s drafting solutions have all of these qualities and more, whether you are working in estate planning (Wealth Docx^®), business law (Business Docx^®), trust administration (Wealth Tracx^®), or firearms ownership (Gun Docx^®). All solutions offer customizable documents for your practice that can be tailored to comply with the laws of your state. For more information about these drafting software solutions, click here.