THE LAW PRACTICE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

A law practice management system tailored for legal professionals ties it all together for a brick-and-mortar or virtual law office. This application can coordinate these important functions:

• Client portal to easily, securely share documents/drafts with a client.
• Contacts database for sharing and collaborating with colleagues.
• Court calendar system that syncs with email.
• Legal document management repository, sometimes with collaboration features.
• Time and legal billing system.
• Real integration (more than links) with other legal programs, enabling tasks such as online legal research, form building, and legal case management and analysis – without time-consuming importing and exporting from one program to the other.

Legal practice management systems give law professionals one place to go for an overall view of their law firms, plus the ability to drill down to specific client files for a review of all events in a particular case. It’s very difficult for solo and small-firm attorneys to build and update an effective working case management system themselves. While some use email to track and archive activities on various cases, systems designed specifically for attorneys can offer robust features that are easier to use and more efficient.

Online practice management tools have an initial cost roughly on par with those of their physical counterparts (on-site, server-based systems and banker’s boxes). The ongoing cost of ownership for a virtual law office system is much lower – with no need for handling repair, replacement, or upgrades yourself. You can also factor in the convenience of access, the ability to scale up easily, and automatic updates that virtual systems afford law firms.