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Engagement Farming: Automating Fee Agreements Should Be a Priority for Law Firms

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Document automation for law firms, can become pretty complicated – especially when you’re dealing with tiers of logic, as is common with estate planning documents , for example .  But, there are simpler operations than that – more like find & replace – where you can just slot language into a predetermined s p ot .   This is the easiest sort of document assembly operation there is, because you simply need to draft/update language + determine where it goes .     This is how invoices are built in case management & accounting softwares : you create an invoice template, and billable items are added, usually automatically.   Law firms can do the same with fee agreements – most just don’t .  Lots of softwares have the capability to generate engagement agreements from templates – like customer relationship management software, case management software, accounting software, etc.  For the most part, those contracts are all boilerplate, save for the ...
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Laying the Groundwork: Socializing Metrics Is Important for Law Firms

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Setting business goals is immeasurably important, for lawyers .  Business goals supported by data are measurable .  But, you may not be ready for that latter part right away – that may also be true of your staff.   While it’s exciting to discover new datasets, and reports – you don’t necessarily have to utilize those to build mandates within your law firm . . . at least , not right away .  If you’ve never set data-based metrics before, that’s gonna be a big change for both you and your team .  So, it makes more sense to ‘socialize’ the idea of these KPIs (key performance indicators) first .  Just run your reports, and make those available for people.  Do that for a year, if you have to.   Then, once folks are used to looking at law firm numbers, across various categories, you can align team and individual goals for your staff , with those numbers .  That’s when you begin to hold people accountable, and/or potentially tie goal-ba...
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What You Need: Default Reporting May Not Cut It

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Most software products these days contain reporting features, which often include default reports, sometimes with the ability to customize, to build your own reports.     Now, if you’re not using the default reports in your system on a regular basis, test them out – you might be surprised by what you learn, about your own operations.   But, if you’ve used your default reports, and pine for more – there is an option .  Lots of softwares allow you to build ‘custom’ reports – reports that you generate using data of your own choosing, selecting the fields and information you most want to see.     Every law firm is different, so each law firm requires unique reporting.     And, if you can’t get what you need from the primary reports included in your software tools, and you don’t have the customization option, sometimes integrated programs can allow you the flexibility you need – including accounting products, like Quickbooks , which are often (and...
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