When you’re a solo practitioner or running a small law firm, juggling roles comes with the territory — you must be a lawyer and a manager at the same time. Running your own law firm is a balancing act between your practice self and business self. Finding the right practice management software is key to pulling it all off.
Enter Firm Central by Thomson Reuters. Designed with small and solo law firms in mind, Firm Central offers everything you need to achieve the ultimate balancing act, and then some.
Tools That Will Change the Way You Run Your Practice
As anyone who’s ever started up a law practice knows, there are seemingly endless options out there when it comes to practice management software. While most will offer you different variations on the same features, Firm Central has some truly impressive features that make it stand out from the crowd.
- Professionalism and Accessibility
Firm Central not only makes your life a lot easier, it also sends a clear message to your clients that you’re willing to invest in the technology necessary to provide top-notch legal services. Because Firm Central is cloud-based, you can access everything you need, anytime, anywhere. You have better access to your files, and your clients have better access to you. Improving your workflow while better serving your clients? That’s a win-win situation.
- Secure Client Communications
Sharing documents and files via email is not only a thing of the past, it’s a sure-fire way to compromise the security of sensitive client information. That’s why Firm Central offers a secure client portal, providing a convenient and safe way to share case files with your clients and other members of your team.
For each matter, Firm Central allows you to create a unique client portal, where you can share documents, notes, comments, deadlines, and anything else to keep your team on the right track. Better yet, Firm Central’s servers offer SOC2-level security — the same high-level security at major banks and other institutions requiring top cyber protection. You can rest easy knowing your files are secure.
- Unrivaled Integration with Westlaw
Westlaw has long been a staple of almost every law practice. Firm Central allows you to incorporate the power of Westlaw into your everyday law practice in ways you won’t find with any other practice management tool on the market. With a single username and password, you can access not just Firm Central, but all Thomson Reuters products, including Westlaw and Practical Law. For starters, this means you can run your Westlaw searches right from your Firm Central homepage and save them directly into your personalized matter folders.
By far one of the coolest perks of Firm Central’s unsurpassed Westlaw integration is what is essentially an automatic cite checking feature. Upload any document containing citations into Firm Central, and the system will automatically scan it and add links to the cited cases, complete with Westlaw’s handy flags indicating negative treatment.
That’s right, what once required manually entering countless citations is now done for you with a single import. Whether you’re working on your own document or uploading your opponent’s brief, you get automatic and nearly instantaneous cite checking. Even better, this perk is included regardless of whether you have a Westlaw subscription; without one, you can’t access the cases, but you still get the flags. It’s hard to imagine an easier way to capitalize on Westlaw’s capabilities.
Learn more about the integration between Firm Central and Westlaw here.
- Deadline Management
Fewer tasks are more stressful or more crucial for lawyers than calculating court deadlines, and rightfully so — missing a deadline can be fatal to your case, your client’s livelihood and your good standing in the legal community. Have you ever wished something would just calculate them for you? Well, wish no more.
Firm Central offers an amazing feature called Deadline Assistant that does just that, regardless of what court you might be in or what your applicable rules are. Simply select which rules apply to your case and the type of action you’re working on, and Deadline Assistant does the rest. For example, if you’re working on a motion to dismiss in federal court, Firm Central will calculate your relevant deadlines under the FRCP and tell you exactly when all your relevant filings are due.
It even takes holidays into account, and it syncs the calculated deadlines with your calendar. With Deadline Assistant, keeping track of federal, state and local rules has never been easier. You can finally live without the fear of missing a filing date.
- Simplified Timekeeping and Billing
While it may not be the most exciting part of the job, we all know that invoicing clients and getting paid is what allows law practices to stay in business. Timekeeping has notoriously been a painful chore, but Firm Central Time & Billing makes it easy. With a time and expense widget right on your matter screen and the ability to have multiple timers capturing your hours as you work, there’s no excuse for not having every minute of your day accounted for without having to retrace your footsteps. Your time entries can then be added to invoices with a simple click.
Having an easy way to bill your clients means that you get paid faster — and who doesn’t want that?
While these are just some highlights of Firm Central, the platform has no shortage of features designed to make your life easier. From customizable widgets to calendar syncing and comprehensive search functionality, Thomson Reuters has thought of nearly everything a small law practice could need to keep things running smoothly.
Firm Central helps you present a polished, professional package to your clients. It’s time to let technology handle the management side of things so you can focus on the legal side and use your time to serve your clients. With Firm Central, you can give your business side a rest so your practice side can excel.
Start a Free Trial of Firm Central today.