Let’s face it: a law practice makes money only if the client pays their invoices. Too often, manual time-tracking and billing leads to disputes between client and attorney, leaving the law firm’s assets tied up in accounts receivable. Yehuda Oratz New Jersey developer suggests that law firms adopt enterprise software that automates the billing and invoicing processes, mitigating disputes with clients and shortening payback periods.
From personal experience, I know that lawyers who deliver value to their clients will be rehired by those clients. To increase the chance of both initial and repeat business, minimizing cost to client while delivering good legal services is a must. While enterprise software cannot provide legal advice, it can automate administrative tasks. Legal documents need to be transferred over a secure network, both in-house and between client and attorney. Time-tracking is among the more critical administrative tasks within a law firm. Lawyers have a reputation for being expensive, so improper time-tracking can show up as a potentially large cost to the client, or a loss to the firm. According to Yehuda Oratz New Jersey developer, law firms can dramatically increase productivity by operating under a business management software infrastructure that automatically tracks time per project, per attorney, and also provides the cloud-based encryption to safely transfer important legal documents. This last point, by the way, can give way to lower insurance costs for the firm. By minimizing the human error of time tracking, legal offices can deliver greater value to clients, build trust, and position themselves for repeat business.
Business management software can also streamline routine processes within law offices and organize cases more efficiently. If a law firm is expanding, training new associates can be costly in both time and money. Having standard operating procedures outlined on an easy-to-use software platform can enable law professionals of all levels to get their questions answered quickly, reducing time spent on assignments (and therefore, cost to client). Furthermore, per Yehuda Oratz New Jersey developer says, law firms can benefit from digital architecture that sorts client online queries by topic, case, and even by assigned attorney. Time spent sorting through client inquiries is not billable, so, naturally, it makes sense for a firm to work with a software developer to reduce such tasks and focus on litigation. Altogether, by minimizing time spent on administrative tasks, law firms can maximize profitability by spending more time on client service, thereby expanding the per-attorney client limit and enabling a reduction of cost per client.
While some firms may not be ready to use software to manage their entire business, different tiers of billing-only software can be custom-fit to meet a law firm’s needs and budget, obfuscating the human error of manual records-keeping and facilitating client electronic payment. Yehuda works to understand the legal and business requirements for its clients, and then delivers software packages customized to fit those needs. Many software developer offer tiered solutions to accommodate budgetary constraints, as well as trial periods for law offices to acclimatize to automated practices and experience the benefits of business management software.