Managing a law firm could be stressful. Sometimes clients do not receive the best from your legal team because important messages are not conveyed to everyone on time, associates spend hours getting up to speed on assigned tasks, and multiple drafts are sent back and forth through email. This ruins client’s trust, and expectations in your firm, and they turn to your rival. A case management software (CMS) system can help manage and grow a law firm business in a more efficient and cost-effective way, resolving many of the critical issues.
What is a Case Management Software (CMS) system?
Every law firm has their own unique way of serving clients. When it comes to achieving success and retaining clients, every firm needs to deliver something that its competitors cannot. But if any law firm lacks consistency and competency in managing case operations, it would be impossible to deliver on clients’ expectations. Only, a legal case management software (CMS) system can provide solution to all these problems. It helps law firms keep track of many distinct aspects of case operations.
Functionality wise CMS system comes with many different and unique features, not all software equally effective at performing each function. Different case management software has different capabilities, each comes with its own strengths and weaknesses. Latest CMS system comes with unique features, customized development options, and cloud-based so that you can access to your CMS from anywhere in the world using internet and access to your real time reports of case operations, expenses, share files, monitor associate’s activities, and case progress.
Any software solution that comes with combination of below features are considered a CMS system: –
- Document Management
- Contact Management
- Time Management
- Calendar Management
- Workflow Management
- Docketing Management
- Case Database Management
- Accounting & VAT Management
- Consultancy Services Management
- Client Testimonial Management
Why every law firm needs a Case Management Software (CMS) system?
Successful law firms know their resources and profitable practice areas. They also keep an eye on those resources and practice areas that are not producing the best in return. They know all this information because they are keeping track of all their operations and expenses through technological solutions and tools like Case Management Software (CMS) system. CMS is the ultimate solution for law firms. CMS is a better and more efficient way to access recent legal information, communicate, and share case-related documents. A proper CMS system can have a significant effect on your firm’s core, and they are certainly worth the investment. By investing in the right legal case management software (CMS) system, a law firm can increase productivity, efficiency, real time collaboration with team, monitor activity, and provide an outstanding experience to both employees and clients.
What are the benefits of a Case Management Software (CMS) system?
Easy Team Collaboration: Almost every law firm faces a common issue with organizing a meeting with clients, partners, and associates. With the help of CMS system, no need to look for everyone’s availability manually. Your CMS can automatically find and book a suitable time for a meeting and send automated notifications and meeting reminders.
Get Reminder for Meeting/Deadlines: Manually tracking workloads is insufficient to keep up with a busy schedule. In legal world, meeting deadlines are indispensable for a law firm. With CMS system, it is much simpler to see which deadlines are coming up so that you prepare accordingly. Any changes of deadlines will be automatically updated by notification/alerts. CMS will immediately notify you for any upcoming events. You can also select any date or time for a particular event from CMS calendar option. By using a case management software (CMS) system, you will never miss an important date.
Keeping Your Data Safe: Law firms who are handling case related and firm’s data manually often are at risk of losing it. With CMS system you do not need to worry about it since all the information is stored in an electronic format that cannot be lost, especially when it comes to a cloud-based data storage.
Billing & Time Tracking: Only an accurate time tracking system can give you an accurate client billing information. Using CMS system you can enter your billable hours into the system, automatically links them to a case, and allows your firm to provide transparent and accurate billing. You can also keep track of your firm/associate expenses for each case they are handling. This way you will be able see the performance of their cases and the expense associated with it.
Search using Keyword: The ability to search long legal documents quickly is vital to an efficient practice. CMS system allows you to input metadata for each document, i.e., the topics and other relevant information about the case document. Case management software (CMS) system uses given inputs as a keyword making a search faster and easier for any case related information and document. Through this in-document search, you will be able to get all case related information by one click, this way you can save a lot of your time and effort than looking through the records manually.
Fast Communication & Document Retrieval: In traditional way, looking for an old email or file to get someone’s contact information takes a lot of time. The right case management software (CMS) has a client tracking system that allows law firms to pull up relevant files whenever needed. Just by typing in clients name, case number and given keyword, CMS will open all information relating to the client case. Quickly access to all information like case description, deadlines, contact information of parties and participants, notes on the case, and many more using CMS and retrieve exactly the information when you want.
Work Remotely: At this global economic race time is money. And all legal professionals need to be able to access documents, file documents, check client records and notes remotely. With a cloud-based case management software (CMS) system legal professionals will be able to access the digitized documents securely and work remotely. Most of the Case Management Software systems are available online. When you are traveling or in vacation, using internet connection from anywhere, you can simply login to the CMS website and start working. Be productive regardless of where you are based for the day.
Manage Regional (Branch) Offices: As the latest CMS systems are available online, they allow you to manage regional (branch) offices from head office. Branch offices will be able to share files, documents, case information and ask for consultancy support through the CMS system. Some case management software (CMS) system has in-app activity approval management system as well. That means, you will be able to see regional associates’ case related document preparation files, approve them or send back for a revision. A centralized monitoring system is built inside the CMS system, which will help you to assign case related tasks to individual associates, track their activity, time, and case related updates.
Legal Case Management Software (CMS) system is the ultimate solution for law firms. Every CMS system comes with unique features. You should choose a CMS that best meets the specific requirement of your law firm, and which also fall into your budget plan. Cloud-based case management software (CMS) systems like CaseTrack are affordable than you think. CaseTrack can help you to consolidate all the case related information in one simple and easy to use platform.
Contact us today to learn how CaseTrack can help you manage and grow your law firm business.
