In the current state of the legal market, the demand for legal
services is high, but clients are looking to pay less. This plays
out in a number of ways. For large law firms, companies seek
reduced rates while holding firms accountable for practice
inefficiencies. Take, for example, the Casey Flaherty Legal Tech
Audit. Former general counsel to Kia Motors Casey Flaherty designed
a legal tech audit to vet potential outside counsel. When
disseminating the audit, he found that across the board firms spent
too much (billable) time on tasks that a machine (i.e. computer)
could handle (and handle better).
Large firm inefficiencies aside, there is an entire middle
market not currently being served and priced out of traditional
legal services. This is why products like LegalZoom and Rocket
Lawyer have become wildly popular and successful. For the price,
most people seem content with the end product they receive (at
least in the short term). Could law firms emulate the efficiencies
created by LegalZoom and Rocket Lawyer? Yes, and they should.
Lawyers even have an advantage - the human element; an essential
piece that will save these folks loads in time and money down the
road.
What does this mean for you? It's time to get in the game and
find ways to commoditize your services and create efficiencies in
your practice. You need to churn out products just like LegalZoom
and Rocket Lawyer to make time for customized solutions that
require your training and knowledge, experience and specialization,
problem solving and analysis. Even if you aren't the one doing the
churning, someone in your office is; and thus creating efficiencies
will then open up space for your staff to focus on something else
that does require human attention.
So, how can you commoditize services and create efficiencies in
your practice? Automation is the answer!
Whereas automated cars (i.e. "self-driving cars") aim to reduce
traffic congestion and minimize accidents through more effective
driving, automating legal processes does the exact same, saving
your time and minimizing mistakes through more effective legal
practice.
What exactly should you automate? Anything you handle more than
once is capable of being automated. But, here are three examples to
get you started:
1) Text. Most attorneys spend a great deal of
time drafting. When you write, you should never type the same thing
twice. For example, any time a potential client emails you, you
should have a form email ready for response. You might have a
variety of responses to potential clients depending upon their
inquiries. If you have Microsoft Outlook, you already have a tool
available to automate your responses. Next time you respond to a
potential client email, type your response, highlight the text and
save it to Quickparts. Then, when you want to use that response
again, open a new message and click on the Quickpart. You've just
saved five minutes in your day, and that's only based on one email;
imagine if you did this with multiple email responses. There are
numerous additional products that can help you save time when
writing, including a popular tool called TextExpander. This tool
removes the step of having to click to insert text (with
Quickparts) by instead using keyboard shortcuts. It even tracks how
much time you've saved by using the tool.
2) Documents. Beyond basic drafting, document
generation makes up a huge part of most law practices. Hopefully,
you've already started to build a document database for your
practice - documents that you use repeatedly. These might include
letters to opposing counsel, intake forms, contracts, estate
planning documents, and much more. To automate document generation,
first, you need to take those documents and turn them into forms.
You'll need a central repository to save those forms as well as
additional clauses to tailor documents to individual clients. After
you've established your forms library, you'll need a simple process
to then input client/contact information into individual documents.
This is called document assembly and it's become easier with the
advent of products that do just that. There are tons of products
out there (such as DirectLaw, DocMoto, DraftOnce, HotDocs, LEAP,
Pathagoras, Smokeball, TheFormTool, TurboLaw and XpressDox), all
with variations such as inclusion of state-specific ready-made
forms, prompts for building customized documents, and case
management features for storing client and contact information.
3) Scheduling. This is another area ripe for
automation. Think about how many times you've participated in
never-ending email correspondence between multiple parties trying
to schedule one convenient meeting date and time. If you are not
already using Doodle or TimeBridge for these situations, you should
start now. These services allow you to input (and, in some cases,
sync with your calendar) times when you are available and then
create a poll for other parties to input their availability, thus
resulting in one winning date. Now, how about scheduling with
clients? Try using tools such as Calendly, ScheduleOnce or
Microsoft Bookings, which allow the client to book an appointment
with you electronically. By syncing these services to your calendar
and embedding them in your website, you (or your staff) don't have
to do any work. Your client books the appointment, receives an
auto-confirmation, the appointment is automatically added to your
calendar, and the client receives a reminder email sometime before
the appointment.
By taking advantaging of those automation tools, you've created
efficiencies in your practice and thus made your services more
attractive for clients because you can do more in less time. You're
on your way to creating an empire that will rival the likes of
LegalZoom and Rocket Lawyer!
Heidi S. Alexander, Esq. is the director of Practice
Management Services for Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers, where she
advises lawyers on practice management matters, provides guidance
in implementing new law office technologies, and helps lawyers
develop healthy and sustainable practices. She frequently makes
presentations to the legal community and contributes to
publications on law practice management and technology. She is the
author of the forthcoming publication by the ABA's Law Practice
Division, Evernote as a Law Practice Tool
and serves on the ABA's TECHSHOW Planning
Board.