Internet Newsletter for Lawyers |
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Here are some examples of how the
internet is making legal practice more efficient.
Email integrated with case management.
Law Society research shows that 30% of clients are already willing to receive
email advice, increasing to 46% for conveyancing clients. Despite this, many
firms do not ask clients if they want to be kept in touch by email, mainly because
lawyers find it easier to ask their secretary to send a letter than use their own
email! If email were properly integrated with case and matter management, any
fee earner (whether or not they can type) could produce documents based on
templates and could email these to the client, much faster than dictation.
Email templates
It has proved difficult to get lawyers to compile consistent documentation in most
areas of work, but there is much more consistency now than in the past.
However, few firms have yet produced standard email templates, incorporating
data fields in the same way as in template letters that allow lawyers to fire off
routine emails without much typing.
Receipt of instructions from clients and introducers
Used mostly (so far) for conveyancing and personal injury work, this cuts costs
and can get a case moving faster by allowing you to receive and import all
information about the case direct into your case management system. Lawyers
can start the legal work immediately without the need to key that information into
the system.
Automated progress updates for clients
Until now, the availability of progress reports online has proved of most value to
estate agents, lenders and brokers. It seems that members of the public do not
use this information a great deal yet but this may be because of the absence of
meaningful information on the site beyond bland key stages and on failing to tell
clients about the service. To see how this can work, see easier2move.co.uk.
Online management reports for introducers
When you are handling multiple cases for a client or an introducer, they want
regular management reports which have traditionally been delivered on paper
or by email. It is much better if they can log onto their secure area on your
website to take see the live data any time they want. This information can also
include billing information and performance statistics, which are vital to their
business.
Access your own system from anywhere
Being able to access the files in your office from home gives you the freedom
to work where you want, when you want. Wireless technology allows you to use
broadband access from train stations and on trains, from hotels and at
conferences, as well as from any room in your office or house, without obtrusive
cables. Thus, you can check and reply to your emails anytime. To do this on a
Virgin Train, for example, you just need a laptop with built-in wireless capability
or an 802.11b wireless networking card. For more on this, see
www.virgintrains.co.uk/travellingwithus.
Get typing done anywhere
Digital dictation can now be dispatched to or accessed by your virtual typing
pool. High speed broadband allows your typists to work effectively from home
or abroad, letting the staff in the office do more in dealing with clients.
Land Registry
All aspects of processing a conveyancing transaction will be easier if done
electronically in the future. It is already easier and faster to do online official
searches, view the Registry’s day list and to initiate simple changes to the
register online. Electronic charges and discharges take this further.
Conveyancing searches
Conveyancers are integrating online searches through the likes of Transaction
Online and Searchflow. Searches are being returned faster from the authorities
who are gradually getting online and search forms can be completed
automatically from the data already entered in your case management system,
reducing administration and cost.
SMS text messaging
This can be activated automatically through a provider like www.24X.com when
a task is completed in your case management system. Thus, your client or
estate agent can be told immediately that contracts have been exchanged and
a completion date has been fixed or you can tell the broker who introduced the
client that the deal is done.
Collaborative working
This is where you create a secure area on your website or on a third party’s web
site and then upload documents, notes, project plans, images and whatever files
are relevant to a particular project. You then allow multiple parties to access the
area with appropriate rights to view and/or edit documents and to monitor all
activity in this area. These systems are already used very successfully in
commercial transactions, but they could also be used on other types of legal
work provided potential users are consulted, the interface is easy to use and the
right information is included.
Live chat
To improve communication with regular contacts and members of your team that
are not based in your office (or even if they are) there are tools like MSN
Messenger that allow you to stay in contact all day and send each other notes
and messages very informally.
Digital images
I recently tried to buy a 35mm film for my camera in a Cotswold village, only to
be told they do not stock it any more! Photographs of accident and crime
scenes, properties (and just about everything else) are now mostly taken with
digital cameras and can be exchanged online.
Video conferencing
This is now available, but there is still some way to go for general public use.
However, criminal firms are becoming more familiar with this type of technology
as it is being used increasingly in the courts.
Website content management
A lot of market research can be done on your own website by making it more
interactive, with simple registration systems and downloadable documents (free
or paid for). By learning what people are looking at, you can decide what they
are prepared to pay for, which may be your next step, with an online payment
system.
Legal research
There is greater availability of more up-to-date material, precedents and other
tools from legal publishers who are now providing much more support than could
ever be found in a hard copy of a book.
Forms updates
Forms can be kept completely up to date and published on your intranet.
Remote backup
This enables you to store copies of your computer files at a secure server off
site and to recall any documents at will without having to worry about changing
and replacing tapes or taking them home every night.
Online newsletters
You can work collaboratively with other colleagues and contacts to produce
frequent newsletters, bulletins and alerts and then send these out by email. You
can work on the stories any time, wherever you are, because they are stored
securely on the web.
Hosted practice and case management systems
Because high-speed access to the internet is now affordable, it is beginning to
make sense to use, for example, a case management system that runs outside
your office through the internet. It can make maintenance and administration of
the system easier because the supplier has more expertise than a legal firm and
it can make it easier to put these services online. However, these types of
system are still in their early days.
Routine responses are by email, using templates incorporating any information
already in the system, so you don’t have to type much at all, unless you want to.
If you want to dictate, you do it digitally and tell your typist working from home
that it is ready. It can then be picked up through online access to your office and
the completed work delivered back to you for approval.
There is less paper (and less scanning) because your clients contact you by
email. Documents are sent as Word files and PDFs that you can save onto your
system, or data is sent on a new matter that you can import into your system
(photos and all) to open a new file immediately. Not far down the road, PISCES
data in consistent XML format will be sent both ways through the internet, from
lenders and the land registry to lawyers and back again, getting rid of paper and
manual administration.
When you draft an agreement, you can post the document on the secure area
that has been set up for the project and send a message to your client and all
parties to tell them the document is there. Each has different rights: some can
only view the documents and others can amend and save a new version, but the
amendments are recorded.
The client has their own secure access to reports on all the cases and matters
you are handling for them. You use that when appropriate; so when you are
doing legal research on the web and you find material that might be of interest
to them, you drop it into their area and send them an email to tell them it is
there, building up a bank of relevant material for them without cluttering their
desk (virtual or real). Provided you give them good material, you are developing
a relationship they will not want to break.
While you are working from home in the evening, you can see from MSN
Messenger that one of your colleagues or clients is also online, so rather than
call them for a snippet of information, you can ask them for it online to get the
last piece of information you need to finish off an advice. They point you to the
file on your system or on the LexisNexis website, so you cut and paste the
information you want to finish off the advice. Then you email it to the client so
it is on their desk when they get into the office in the morning.
The same general ideas apply to higher-volume work. Incoming information can
be viewed on screen, prompted by entries in your online diary and routine
responses can be produced using template letters which pull in data and
attachments that are already on the system.
With this type of flexibility and culture in place, a firm can comfortably increase
revenue by plugging into any online source of new business that may come
along, for example servicing enquiries generated from the Sainsbury website or
responding to videoconference enquiries from the employees of a corporate
client that recognises the value of helping their employees on legal issues.
After 10 years in private practice, Allan Carton moved into management
consultancy in 1990 and launched Practical Solutions
www.inpractice.co.uk in 1992.
Practical Solutions are business development consultants, working
exclusively with law firms and legal organisations. They identify and target new
business opportunities by introducing innovative ways of marketing legal
services and using technology.
Email acarton@inpractice.co.uk or tel 0161 929 8355.
Back to Contents.
Be More Efficient, Using the Web
Widespread, reliable and affordable broadband access to the internet at home
and at work has created a host of opportunities for better and easier ways of
working and for communicating with others.
By Allan Carton, Practical Solutions
A vision of the future
Your desktop, wherever you are, is your point of access to all the information
you need from your own systems and from external sources. Incoming paper is
scanned as a matter of routine and allocated to the right place, so you can now
deal with it as you wish.Getting there
Over the past 20 years, we have learned that it is not the technology itself that
creates a competitive advantage, but the way people use it. You need a vision
of where you are going and how fast you want to get there. You need a good IT
and communications infrastructure and good keyboard skills throughout the firm
(but structured templates and digital dictation should help here). Talk to your
clients about what they would like you to do for them, particularly as they
become more familiar themselves with internet-based services and report back
to clients and employees about new initiatives and successes (and problems)
to keep the momentum going.