By Chris Stock
LEAP is a NJSBA sponsor. Chris Stock is the CEO of LEAP, USA.
Let’s go back in time for a minute...
It’s 2001. The small law firm is a booming business on the main street of suburbia. The partner is a key business person in the local community. Years of hard work have allowed the small law firm to gain many long standing loyal clients in the local area.
Walking into the office you can hear the hum of a server, whirring away under the receptionist’s desk. The family lawyer walks out of their office and calls out to the receptionist to restart the server so that he can access his emails. All staff share one email address. The server restarts and the real estate lawyer comes out and asks for the server to be restarted, so that they can access their documents stored on a shared drive. Two server restarts by 11 AM and business has returned to usual. It’s a great day.
The real estate lawyer has a large development closing next week. The lawyers’ assistant is frantically filling in a spreadsheet and creating a Microsoft Word mail merge. Each Word document is slightly different, so the assistant is changing each of the hundred letters one at a time. Finally, by the end of the day, the mail to send out is complete and ready to go. The assistant proceeds to fax each letter one by one and meticulously attaches each send receipt to the file. Each letter is then placed into a tray for mailing by the receptionist.
The receptionist proceeds to record the addressee’s information on the contents of each letter in a book before folding the letter and placing it in an envelope. One...By... One.
The family law assistant puts a new tape of dictation into the tape machine. Head phones on, foot pedal frantically rewinding and fast forwarding to different points on the tape. Prepare affidavit. The assistant opens a file on a shared drive and finds an affidavit they prepared yesterday. It was for a different client, but that’s okay. They proceed to scroll through the document, replacing the former client’s details with the new client’s details. Let’s hope they have the same date of birth, as this change was overlooked. Not to mention the previous version has now been lost due to the careless use of the save option in Word.
Meanwhile, the accounting clerk has received a check for a retainer from the family lawyer. They open a new packet of trust cards and fill in the client name and case details. They then record the entry on the card and prepare the check for banking. The accounts clerk takes the next item out of their tray. It is a request for a check. The clerk opens the filing cabinet, finds the relevant trust card and carefully makes the entry. A mistake could mean the partner losing their practicing certificate. They then get the check book from a locked cabinet, manually write out the check and place it in the partner’s tray for signing.
The loud whirring noise at the front of the office coming from the server starts to get louder and louder. Suddenly, a puff of smoke comes out the back of it. A visit from the local computer guy confirms the worst fears. The firm needs a new server. It is going to cost thousands of dollars. The IT guy needs to order the server and then retrieve the backup. The firm could be down for days.
The litigation lawyer phones from court. He has forgotten to take an important document to court. He needs it faxed to him urgently.
This was the legal office of 2001.
Over the last 7 years, I have had the pleasure of visiting hundreds of law firms in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. It has been surprising that many of those firms have been quite happy continuing to operate as the firm from 2001 did. There is a number of reasons for this. Usually there is a fear of new technology. Why should I change something that has worked for 20 years? Sometimes there is a fear of investing in new technology. My son is good with computers and he says my $10,000 server will last another 5 years. Other times there is a mistrust in technology. I heard that cloud thing is risky! Let’s break down the challenges faced by the firm of 2001 and see how they can be solved using tools available to the firm of today.
1. The need for a server
For a long time, a server was needed to:
a.) share documents between staff
b.) save documents to a central location
c.) receive emails and share calendar
d.) back up all the work the firm does
Servers are powerful expensive machines. The reality is that for the small law firm, they are simply a cash cow for an IT consultant. For the average law firm, they are over engineered and not needed. Modern technology allows all the functions previously performed by a server to be done on the internet. This is called cloud technology. You can now pay a modest amount of money, usually per month, to have someone else host your data. By moving your firm onto the right cloud platform, you also ensure your data is backed up and you never have a situation where you cannot work.
2. An email address for everyone
In the modern world, most people have an email address. In addition to having an individual email address, most email is hosted in the cloud. Email hosting allows for email to be accessed anywhere on any device. There is no longer a need for a small business server that was required for people to share email addresses and calendars. This functionality can be easily purchased from most internet service provider’s or Microsoft for a negligible monthly amount. Software targeted at law firms should allow emails to be saved to an electronic case so that they can be easily found.
3. Document automation
The practice of law at its absolute simplest level is about the right paperwork being used for the right purpose. Any mistakes on the paperwork can cause costly problems regardless of the type of law a firm specializes or generalizes in. In today’s world, there is no need for an assistant to take the risk of working with spreadsheets and generating mail merges. There is also no need to manually work through a document to replace key information so that it can be used for the next case. Every time a document is manually amended there is a risk that human error can occur. Most firms have a standard checklist they complete when they take new instructions from a client. If you find the right software, you will be able enter this information into a database once and it can be used to generate all the documents for the case. This will eliminate the risk of costly typographical errors. Imagine the time you can save not needing to sift through large documents to retype them.
4. Accounting
In a society where compliance and insurance mean that everyone is one mistake away from losing their license, manually recording transactions simply cannot be done anymore. Software is the key to keeping your license to practice. Great software will alert you to errors, help you balance and ensure you reconcile.
Maintaining your books should be as simple pushing a button. Over the years, systematic manual clerical errors have caused many firms to go out of business. They simply haven’t had the right systems in place to make sure they got paid. How do we solve these problems today? The simplest answer is to find a great practice management and legal accounting system. There are many types of software in the world that can solve each of the above problems on an individual basis. The biggest problem is many firms find themselves paying several software providers every month. A document management provider here, an accounting provider there. Throw in a forms provider and time recording software and things start to get confusing and expensive. Solve the above problems by finding a software provider who can provide everything you need in one application for one low monthly amount.