Lessons learned in 2020: why having a competent PMS is vital

Alex Williams, P4W product manager at Advanced, says SME law firms are waking up to just how important having an agile and efficient practice or case management system is in order to navigate these troubling times.

So far, 2020 has been an exceptionally challenging year for law firms. The global pandemic has now forced many firms to bring forward the plans they had to digitalise their practice.

And mobility and accessibility have become essential in navigating government social distancing guidelines. Choosing the right practice and case management software is vital now more than ever – especially if firms want to operate through these exceptional times and build on these foundations to survive in the new working world.

Your case management system should allow you to scan documents, or post into it directly, and then allocate those files out to fee earners for review – thus creating a fully digital process. Something like this is critical right now, and we’ve had a lot of clients heavily utilise our feature within our own practice and case management solution, Postroom. During the pandemic where many of us, if not all, have been working from home – firms may have had a skeleton team attend the office who scan post and allocate accordingly. Many paper-driven teams are now giving it up all together. This solution is not only more efficient, but also saves a lot of money.

Something else that’s important to make use of right now is the use of e-signatures, which are even more prevalent now with the latest news from HM Land Registry. Being able to email documents to clients and receiving a signature back within minutes, if not a couple of hours, not only saves a huge amount of time, money, and resource but also demonstrates to your client-base that you’ve modernised (something the younger generation actively seek out in businesses). Since many people aren’t in offices right now, this ensures less post has to be monitored too, with the result being filed automatically back in the digital case file and notifying the responsible fee earner of the receipt.

Communication of case progress remains the top complaint from clients, so by ensuring that your practice and case management provides the ability for instant chat and notifications to update your clients is vital – even more so where attending offices is at a reduced level. Consumers are becoming increasingly used to logging onto apps and getting information quickly, so this again meets the efficiency they desire.

Choosing the right PMS

Advanced listens to what your clients want and provides you with the tools to meet their demands, with an efficient, integrated practice and case management solution. Advanced is hosting a panel discussion on 30 September at 12pm, with key industry experts and some of our own practice and case management software users to explore in more detail why choosing the right practice and case management system in 2020 is so important for law firms. Sign up now.