7 reasons why law firms digitise their client matter

The creation of matters is central to a law firm’s operation - the focal point between a lawyer, his/her team and the client.  While many firms still produce paper based matter folders, this is slowly changing with the realisation that the costs associated with this method (the time spent creating and amending documents, searching for lost files, printing, transportation and storage) are high.  
As the use of electronic documents becomes much more widespread, technologies to create digital matters are becoming prevalent.  Some of these intuitive tools closely reflect how lawyers work and interact with documents.  They also integrate with other systems to give a complete overview of the client and matter.  These are just a few of the benefits.  

We have spoken to several client law firms who started the process of digitising their matters. Here is a first-hand insight into their rationale behind going digital.

Don’t let your printing costs get out of hand!

As an organisation, you wish you could give your employees the licence to print freely, print whatever they want, how they want (in colour or black & white, single or double side…). However, this ‘free’ printing strategy can have a staggering impact on print related costs including paper, toner, cost of maintenance and support. In today’s organisations, employees print on average 60 pages a day or 12,000 sheets a year. Multiply this by the total number of employees in a single firm and you can get an idea of the impact. Add the indirect expenses mentioned above and you will find these costs mounting up to 3% of your total profit*.

5 Major Information Related Challenges Faced by Law Firms

The work environment is changing with technology being a catalyst. With the sheer volumes of documents and devices (laptops, smartphones and tablets) from which information can be consumed, documents and workflow processes can quickly turn into a state of disarray if not managed efficiently. Eventually, aside from the direct cost of information processing, it is the competitive position of the firm, through its quality of service, which is at stake.

Here are some major information related challenges that law firms face today 

3 Ways to Secure Your Law Firm’s Information and Reputation

As competition within the legal environment intensifies, law firms are constantly looking for ways to differentiate their services. While many consider their reputation as their greatest asset that took years to build, there are a few key elements that underpin this, one of which is security. It is this robust security that can prevent issues such as data breaches which in turn will destroy your reputation at the snap of a finger.  

It is not only the law firms who understand the need for data protection and security, clients and consumers are becoming much more savvy and are realising that they too, need to protect their own.  With newspapers filled with stories of hackers attacking large multinational companies and mobile devices with sensitive data being lost or stolen, security is fast becoming a top priority for most businesses today.

Here are 3 ways to secure your firm’s information and reputation...

4 new technologies which help speed up the approval process

Matter management is a complex affair.  As a team member working with your colleagues and manager to compile matter folders, you may have experienced the frustration of making last minute amendments to documents or spent unnecessary time searching for a document that has simply disappeared or been saved elsewhere.
…And that’s only the beginning! Next comes the challenge of getting that long awaited stamp of approval from the person in charge of the case. This may take some time. Gone are the days where you could find your managers at the end of the corridor and receive an immediate answer. At best, they are out of the office, too busy dealing with an influx of emails from your peers or other urgent priorities.  Even when you get an answer, it is likely that there will be some toing and froing between you and your manager before you receive that final approval. 
Technology is there to help you. Although it will not support your case in any way and will not work out the psychological path to selling an idea to your boss, you still can use some of it to optimise this approval process and bridge some of the gaps between you and your manager.

Here are 4 new technologies which help speed up the approval process.

Monitoring Social Media Networks? 8 benefits you are missing out on if you don’t

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it". (Warren Buffet)

This has never been so true thanks to the social media network – a complex and rapidly evolving communications ecosystem where millions of us turn up to share, discuss, comment, post, pin, tweet… an open arena where organisations promote their company, brand and products and where millions of people are free to generate content and exchange ideas.  
Just like wildfire, positive or negative information about your company, brands and products can spread over the vast social media networks at impressive speeds. 

What implications does this have? How can you make the most of it?

BYOD and consumerisation of IT in the Legal Industry

With an increasing amount of consumer IT software products infiltrating through the business environment, law firms and IT suppliers are facing a shift in their strategies and working practices.  
Competition is fierce and law firms are looking for new ways to provide clients with value added services at competitive rates. Both lawyers and clients urgently need efficient ways to communicate and collaborate using secure and reliable technologies.  The workforce has turned mobile and more people use their own devices at work due to the advent of smartphone devices. 
Faced with these challenges, what can law firms do to stay ahead of the game?

Fun factor at work! (gamification in business applications)

Gamification: [noun] : the application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to non-game environment: "gamification is exciting because it promises to make the hard stuff in life fun".

In the working environment, gamification is increasingly used to stimulate employees motivation, reinforce retention, engagement, and satisfaction. Ultimately, it results in better sales, higher system uptake, reduced staff turnover etc… Quite often, it is a more powerful way to engage employees than standard monetary incentives alone.
The rationale behind it is really simple: work that feels like play is advantageous to an organisation and because of this simplicity, it can be applied to any function of the organisation. More specifically, gamification can make a significant difference in the rate of adoption of an application  be it a CRM, an ERP, a DMS or simpler tool such as a file sharing system. So how would gamification be translated in a professional application?  

6 essential questions you should ask when selecting a file sharing solution

Collaborative working is making the business world turn faster. File sharing supports collaborative work, reduces business development cycles, reduces your carbon footprint, and there has probably never been a greater choice of sharing solutions available than there are today. 

But not all solutions are made equal and before you rush into choosing your own solution, there are six key questions to consider.

Cloud or on premise? The choice is yours!

When you plan to acquire a business application, chances are you will more and more often have to choose between hosting it in the Cloud or on your on servers. The fact is that from the user point of view, there is not much difference and therefore the choice is entirely yours.

Here are some down to earth and critical questions you need to answer before making any decision.

Nikec Docstore: an advanced secure file sharing solution for professionals

[ News from Nikec Solutions ]
Are your lawyers using file sharing systems that your firm does not approve of? Are they using these because their clients want them to? Nikec Solutions introduces Nikec Docstore as a medium to securely share documents and files with clients and colleagues.

Nikec Docstore is an advanced file storing and sharing application designed for professionals. It sets standards in terms of security and file integrity and can be hosted either as a secured Cloud or On Premise solution.

Read on Nikec Solutions web site