Firm Central: The On-The-Go Lawyer’s Best Friend

The demands of today’s legal market can be grueling. For small law firms and solo practitioners, it’s hard to imagine running a successful practice without practice management software. Attorneys who run small shops are constantly wearing two hats – lawyer and businessperson – and perfecting both roles is a delicate balancing act.

Thankfully, Firm Central by Thomson Reuters was specifically designed with small practices in mind. They’ve thought of everything you need to flawlessly juggle your roles while meeting your clients’ demands. Better yet, Firm Central allows you to offer your clients superior service even when you’re on the run (and who isn’t these days?).

Firm Central has many great features that make it stand out in the sea of available practice management tools out there. Firm Central’s Deadline Assistant feature calculates your deadlines for you based on applicable court rules, which can be a lifesaver when you’re handling a full caseload. Billing and timekeeping, which has notoriously been one of the most tedious parts of the profession, is streamlined in ways to make your life easier. And being part of the Thomson Reuters family, Firm Central offers a level of integration with Westlaw that you won’t find in any comparable product.

These are just some of the many ways Firm Central helps you present a polished package to your clients. But while the value of a good platform can’t be questioned, no project management tool can be truly useful in today’s digital world if it doesn’t allow lawyers to free themselves from the chains of the traditional office environment, and Firm Central does just that.

Going Paperless

The days when lawyers were buried in mountains of paper files are long gone, and it’s about more than just saving trees. Relying on paper files is not only impractical in today’s mobile world; it’s also no longer cost-effective. For starters, the amount of money you save in paper and ink alone by going paperless is significant, not to mention the reduction in overhead spent on the purchase and upkeep of equipment like printers and copiers.

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And while it may seem counterintuitive, a paperless office also significantly reduces your IT expenditures. These days, going paperless means moving to the Cloud. Cloud-based storage is not only cheaper than physical storage space, it also allows you to rely on the Cloud provider to handle the technical end of things, alleviating the need to have a costly IT staff on-site. You can also rest easy knowing that your files are secure, both when you’re storing them and when you’re sharing them with your clients. Firm Central’s Cloud servers and unique client portals offer the same high-level security that you’ll find at major financial institutions and banks. Chances are, you can’t say the same about your physical office space.

But it’s not only cybersecurity that matters – physical security is a real concern, too. We’ve all heard horror stories of law offices that lost all their files in floods or similar disasters. At a time when hurricanes and other catastrophic events seem to be happening with alarming frequency, maintaining physical files can be a real risk, because they can’t be replaced once they’re gone. By going paperless and moving your files to the Cloud, you’ll know your most important documents will always be safe and accessible, even if your physical premises suffer severe damage.

Going paperless also makes collaborating with your clients and colleagues exponentially easier. Firm Central is designed to allow you to build custom documents right in your platform and share them with your team. With the ability to create different versions and add notes all in one place, you’ll never have to worry about conflicting drafts or missed edits. Anyone who’s ever had to amass comments and edits from multiple parties via emailed drafts of hard copy markups knows how painfully long and tedious that process can be. Firm Central’s paperless collaboration does wonders for both your efficiency and your sanity. And in a world where people are working from everywhere, it’s the only practical option.

Going Mobile

Lawyers on TV may always be working from shiny offices, but the modern attorney’s life often paints a very different picture. Today’s lawyer is mobile – working from home, working on the run between meetings, even all too often working from vacation. While the mobile phenomenon may have started out of necessity once the advent of mobile devices essentially required attorneys to be on call, many practitioners are increasingly going mobile by choice.

Running a virtual or mobile law office can significantly save on expenses. When you work for yourself or run a small firm, there’s rarely a need for permanent physical office space. If you need to impress clients, you can easily rent high-end conference space, or opt instead to hold meetings at interesting locations that you know your clients will enjoy, like over a fine meal or a relaxing round of golf. A few hours at even the poshest of venues will cost you a fraction of what renting office space costs. The rest of the time, you have the freedom to work from your location of choice, whether it’s a coffee shop or sharing space with other small firms, bringing you one step closer to achieving that ever-elusive work/life balance.

Of course, going mobile only works if you have the technological means to create the perfect virtual office, and Firm Central is just that. Firm Central’s Cloud-based practice management platform allows you to access all your files and documents anytime, anywhere. Secure client portals and collaboration tools put your entire team on the same virtual page. The platform offers a mobile shortcut that allows you to access everything from your portable devices while you’re on the go, just as you would if you were parked in front of your computer.

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Practice Law the Way You Want To

Simply put, with Firm Central, you don’t need an office – Firm Central is your office. Your entire firm is at your fingertips 24/7 via your computer, smartphone, or other mobile device. There’s no more waiting to get to the office to look at a file or answer a client’s question. Firm Central goes where you go. When you have better access to your files, your clients have better access to you, and that’s what will keep them coming back.

Going paperless and mobile won’t just make you a happier lawyer, it will make you a better lawyer. You get the autonomy you’ve been dreaming of while your clients still get the full package. It’s hard to imagine a better balance in the demanding world of law.

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