Small Law Firms, Sponsored Content

Under Pressure: How to Overcome Increasing Litigation Challenges

We’ve all heard the old adage of the crow and pitcher. A crow is flying around on an abnormally hot summer day looking for water. As the pressure and challenges in your law firm increase, it can often feel as if you’re the crow without a solution. Your time and energy become depleted while pressure persists and increases.

By Thomson Reuters  
on

Integration_TAC_300x250We’ve all heard the old adage of the crow and pitcher. A crow is flying around on an abnormally hot summer day looking for water. He comes across a pitcher of water, but when he tries to stick his beak in he can’t reach the water. He repeatedly tries, slowly getting more dehydrated. He’s about to give up and accept his fate when he has an idea: he drops small pebbles in the pitcher until the water level rises to the point where he can reach it.

As the pressure and challenges in your law firm increase, it can often feel as if you’re the crow without a solution. Your time and energy become depleted while pressure persists and increases.

The nine most pressing challenges firms are facing are:

  • Acquiring new client business
  • Increasing complexity of technology
  • Clients demand more for less and rate pressure
  • Lack of internal efficiency
  • Information overload from growth in legal documents
  • Spending too much time on administrative tasks
  • Cost control and expense growth
  • Keeping up with changes in the legal market
  • Succession planning

It can often feel impossible to manage an overwhelming amount of information and administrative tasks while keeping your clients so satisfied they refer you. Clients are changing, case information is continually growing, and it is a constant seesaw balancing business management with practicing law.

So how do you accommodate demand and rise to these challenges? Much like the crow, if you don’t change your strategy, you won’t get the results you need.

Blue Hill Research observed the emergence of solution suites and the results just might be the figurative stones you need. Based on their survey of 272 smaller civil and criminal litigation firms, “smaller litigation firms that adopt integrated workflow solutions improve overall efficiency of the practice, reduce internal overhead costs, better manage growing volumes of case documents, and can better meet client expectations.”

Sponsored

So what exactly is included in an integrated suite? Blue Hill says the components of an integrated solution typically include:

  • Automated Drafting Tool
    • Create documents with standard content components and automated formatting
  • Case File Analysis and Management
    • Use electronic case files in a specialized litigation workspace to improve analysis and collaboration on case documents
  • Document Management
    • Maintain version control over all documents in a sophisticated storage solution to ensure accuracy and consistency
  • Legal Research Platform
    • Access to primary and secondary legal research, practice guidance and additional support from a hosted database
  • Matter Management
    • Manage client and matter data, deadlines, and processes on a centralized platform

Unlike standalone offerings, integration allows the tools to build on each other and enhance the efficiencies of the other tools.

Does implementing an integrated suite of litigation technology pay off, though? Long answer short, yes.

“Litigation firms that used a full suite of integrated legal technology had, on average: 14% more billings, a 6% reduction in IT costs, and handled 10% more matters with a ‘very high’ rate of client satisfaction,” according to Blue Hill. With stats like that, it’s easy to make the case for deeper integration in law office technology.

Sponsored

Topics