Doug Sawers, Managing Director at Access Legal, takes a look at how digital solutions can support law firms.
Every business has experienced the impact of Covid-19 and realised just how important technology is to functioning efficiently. It has been crucial to ticking over day-to-day, the customer experience, boosting customer loyalty, attracting and retaining staff and looking after their wellbeing.
And like every business law firms are facing new challenges from a fluctuating economy, to a market that is seeing an increasing number of specialist firms cropping up. Traditional practices are finding themselves up against commodity providers, so the focus has to be on maintaining standards while increasing efficiency. Detailed, immediate insight into business and operational performance are more important than ever and firms need solutions which provide a platform not a barrier to this.
This is where innovative technology comes into play and finding solutions that tackle one of the biggest pain points of a practice - having multiple fragmented systems for case management, compliance issues and financial solutions - is now vital to the overall success of a firm and its business goals.
The need to move away from various providers and consolidate all the data and information into one system has only been accelerated by the pandemic. Law firms who have moved entirely into online working, with staff and clients in different places have had to change their working practices while also maintaining efficiency and making sure they are still providing the same level of service.
How can digital solutions help law firms?
Legal leaders are now changing their mindsets to rethink how they use modern solutions in their practice to make sure their firm is embracing the digital world, or risk being left behind by competitors as client demands evolve. I believe it’s never been more important for essential elements of a legal practice to be easily accessible and usable, wherever your staff are based.
One central place with a view of all crucial operations saves legal practitioners time switching from different solutions, ensures accuracy and compliance and can help them make better data-based decisions because they have accurate data and insights from across their firm in one view. Ultimately, legal leaders want to be able to sleep at night knowing that everything is still being recorded and compliant within their firm and one solution can help do just that. These are the reasons why we launched Access Workspace for Legal.
The importance of adapting
I keep using the analogy of firms embracing a digital solution like them turning onto a motorway after driving down a single-track country lane for a long time. Where they were once slowly making their way down winding roads to get to their final destination, they can instead accelerate their growth by using innovative technology, overtaking competitors and smoothly steering their business performance further into the future.
In my opinion, if firms invest in their tech and have the right digital solution in place, it can help practices become more cost-efficient and work smarter and this can only help firms become more competitive, more successful and stand out from the increasing competition.
[ymal]
