Top 3 Ways Legal Practice Management Software Helps Law Firms

Look, we get it.

Whatever Frankenstein’s monster of patchwork software your law firm has pieced together over the years probably still works. And by works, we mean it feels familiar enough to begrudgingly deal with, only sometimes loses you billable hours, and doesn’t have your clients reaching for torches and pitchforks just yet.

Still, wouldn’t it be nice to have a software solution you trust?

One that makes your work easier, rather than harder?

One that doesn’t have you constantly wrangling dozens of tabs, wondering where that last time entry went and who sent that follow-up message?

Good news: that software solution exists, and you don’t have to play mad software scientist to find it.

A true practice management software for law firms can help you track your hours, streamline your workflows, boost your team’s efficiency, and take the bite out of billing.

And best of all? You don’t have to manage your firm’s data and processes across multiple software tabs. Everything from Quickbooks to Office 365 can be integrated with your legal practice management software, so you can do everything you need to do conveniently from one place.

Check out this quick (and by no means exhaustive) list of the ways your firm can benefit from having the right practice management tools at your fingertips.

1. Better software, fewer errors

Still stringing together an endless chain of different databases, programs, and internet tabs? Chances are you have the same duplicate data in ten different places. And even worse—some of those duplicates might not be the same data.

That’s because copying your practice’s data from software to software (or from computer to computer) is a recipe for mistakes.

It’s like a game of telephone: before you know it, every attorney at your firm has a slightly different set of data on a current matter, and some of that data might be three weeks out of date.

A legal practice management software helps to eliminate duplicate data. Update a client’s contact information? Now it’s updated everywhere, and everyone at your firm will pull from the same database. No more sending six emails to an ancient email address and wondering why your long-term client still hasn’t responded!

And cutting down on the software clutter also helps your attorneys work more efficiently.

We don’t claim to hold advanced degrees in psychology here, but the people who do are pretty clear on this point: multitasking makes you less efficient. And if you’re juggling three or four platforms at once just to make a basic data entry? That’s a recipe for lost time—and fewer billable hours.

A legal practice management software with integrations lets you do most of your work from a single window, cutting down on the busywork so you can focus on actually practicing law.

2. Get paid quicker with less risk of billing mistakes

No one chooses to go through the hard work of law school because they just can’t wait to spend their time assembling and sending invoices. But like it or loathe it, timely, efficient billing is a must for any practice.

That’s why your law firm needs the software tools to make time tracking, invoicing, and collecting payments a breeze. And guess what kind of software tool helps your firm do all three?

You guessed it: practice management.

A good legal practice management software lets you record your billable hours and even switch between multiple timers for different matters without missing a beat. (Maybe try not to do that too much though—remember our note on multitasking above?)

And once you’ve got all those hours recorded, you can:

• Process your accounting through integrations with Quickbooks and other accounting software
• Quickly and effortlessly generate accurate invoices
• Send those invoices digitally to clients
• Accept and process their payments online or even set up recurring billing plans

All from within the comfort of a single software. From time tracking to invoicing to billing to payment collection, the right practice management software makes collecting the money you’ve earned as fast and painless as possible.

It can also help your firm avoid billing mistakes, rejected invoices, and trust account compliance issues with payments. Basically, a software like Rocket Matter does what needs to be done to make sure you get paid on time, every time.

3. Keeping your workflows speedy and lean

Cutting down on tab clutter isn’t the only way a practice management software can boost your firm’s efficiency. After all, it’s called practice management for a reason—one of the main things it does is help you manage your practice.

And that means any legal practice management solution worth its salt will also help you:

• Assign new matters and due dates
• Track the progress of matters throughout their lifecycle
• Coordinate more transparently with other attorneys at your firm
• Filter matters and tasks by due date, status, and more
• Visualize the week’s work with calendar layouts

Combine all of that with the time-saving features mentioned above, and you have a recipe for productivity. Some softwares even include advanced analytics and business intelligence tools to help you discover and fix common bottlenecks in your workflows.

Just think of all the minutes you could have saved on your last workday if you spent less time on organizational busywork. Now think of how many extra billable hours you could have filled in a week. Practice management software can be your first step toward achieving the kind of lean, mean, profit-boosting workflow you’ve always wanted.

Ready for lift-off?

If you’re ready to take your law firm to new heights, Rocket Matter’s here to give your practice that momentum. Our best-in-breed practice management solutions are built with today’s busy attorneys in mind. To see what we’re all about (and get a taste for some of our features yourself), try us for free or schedule a free demo.