Recent years have seen a profound technological transformation across businesses of every sector, law included. In fact, the very nature of information routinely handled by practices has made the legal sector subject to much scrutiny. At the same time, clients are becoming accustomed to managing their legal matters online, whether it’s a do-it-yourself divorce, applying for immigration status, or seeking compensation.
These are just a few examples of digital transformation in the legal sector:
#1. Streamlining communications
According to the Law Firm Flexibility Benchmarking Survey conducted in 2017, two-thirds of law firms allow their employees to telecommute. Empowered by the rise of mobile and cloud technologies, it’s now easier than ever for people to work on the move. This trend introduces many important advantages to law firms, such as the ability to work with the best talent without being constrained by geographical barriers.
At the same time, mobility also introduces communication challenges. The landline simply doesn’t cut it any more. Instead, firms need a cloud-enabled unified communications (UC) infrastructure that allows their lawyers to send and receive phone calls and instant messages from anywhere. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and other UC services make that possible while also decreasing operational costs.
#2. Automated eDiscovery
You’ve just pulled an all-nighter trying to manage a complicated case that involves shifting through reams of documentation and digital data stored across disparate systems. If that sounds familiar, then it’s time to start automating your workflows. When it comes to discovery, technology is helping lawyers prepare cases faster than ever before.
Automated eDiscovery negates the need to spend many hours manually sorting through documents to find relevant evidence. Now that papers are likely to be in digital formats or can be digitized via optical character recognition (OCR) scanners, eDiscovery tools such as those built into enterprise editions of Office 365 greatly speed up the process.
#3. Simplified case management
Managing and preparing cases presents the bulk of the work in any legal practice, and modern technology is helping law practitioners there, too. Lawyers no longer need to rely on complicated digital and physical file systems now that document management systems streamline their workflows and bring everything together under one interface, regardless of where the files are stored.
Having all relevant information collated into a single database, complete with the necessary redundancies, helps avoid costly problems due to data loss and other unexpected events. And the software also helps with other routine tasks, such as scheduling, organizing contacts, and accounting.
#4. Data-driven insights
As companies across all sectors digitally transform, they’re starting to make use of insights from the vast amounts of data generated by digital activities. This information is helping law firms greatly improve operational efficiencies, maximize productivity, create marketing forecasts, and reduce overheads.
Many law firms are now using legal analytics to evaluate cases before committing to them. To illustrate, they might not take on a case that’s expected to have a prolonged resolution time or one that’s not likely to be settled in the client’s favor. For cases that they do take on, they can use data-driven insights to improve their negotiating positions and come up with powerful winning strategies.
Spectrumwise uses its expertise, cutting-edge technology and experience with the legal sector to help firms in Charlotte, Gastonia, and Rock Hill digitally transform. Call us today to get started.
