Practice Management Software What is it and how do I choose it? By Charity Anastasio Practice Management Advisor American Immigration Lawyers Association Practice and Professionalism Center 202-507-7624 | [email protected] Updated December 10, 2018 1 AILA Doc. No. 18052166. (Posted 12/10/18) Practice Management Software What is it and how do I choose it? Contents What is practice management software?.......................................................................................................... 2 Do I need practice management software? ...................................................................................................... 2 Does my practice management software need to be immigration-specific? ................................................... 3 What are the benefits of practice management software? .............................................................................. 3 How do I pick the right practice management software? ................................................................................. 4 Where should I start? ........................................................................................................................................ 6 Resources ........................................................................................................................................................... 8 What is practice management software? Modern practice management software generally manages matter or client files (becomes a complete record of every action on the case), engages the client through a client portal, does a conflicts check, assigns tasks, maintains a calendar, helps with document management and generation, tracks time and generates client invoices, sends the invoices, and permits everyone in the firm to access the appropriate information quickly and efficiently. A few practice management systems have made inroads into website development and light customer relations management, and just a few have more robust accounting infrastructures. (Most products sync with Quickbooks and/or Xero for the robust accounting features.) The majority of modern products are a “software as a service” (SaaS) solution—or online, cloud-based. Do I need practice management software? Yes. Less than 50% of lawyers are using practice management software and the percentage is about 30% in solo and small firm practitioners. But I will hold firm that being competitive and effective in the modern legal world requires practice management software. I am a convert, by the way. I can cobble together a system and a workflow without new tech with the best of them, but if I did it again I would get a practice management solution from the very beginning, and I would work hard to learn it and build out the features available to me. But do not take it from me. Read What are the benefits of practice management software? below and see if any of these things would help; or be better if they happened faster or were more easily accessed in your law practice. 2 AILA Doc. No. 18052166. (Posted 12/10/18) Does my practice management software need to be immigration-specific? It depends. What are the goals of the firm? What problems are you solving for? Most of the current immigration-specific softwares are case management, without the full suite of features of a practice management program. They usually offer immigration forms and compliance monitoring, but may not have time tracking and invoicing features, for example. (See Where should I start? below.) That said, there is a potential benefit to having immigration workflows predesigned and available to you, instead of having to build them out in a generic practice management program. And of course, not all immigration practices are alike, so you will want to find an immigration-specific software that was built for and tailored towards the firm’s niche. The decision may also depend on what infrastructure you are currently in and how much of that you want to keep. For example, maybe you have been doing your invoicing with accounting software and you have that workflow mapped. You identify timekeeping and case management as the missing components you want. Then you might look at an immigration specific product that includes a timekeeping feature. Or you might take on a case management program and do the timekeeping a different way in another product. You will want to ask how many products you want to use and whether it makes sense to have these different products together, before you buy. For example, do they sync? If they sync, is it a one-way push of information to another that doesn’t solve all the problems or is it a two-way push that is truly integrated? Ask if they work together, but also how they work together. Considering these factors, one firm may decide to go with a program that integrates with their G-Suite platform and adds the immigration forms, time tracking, and invoicing. Another may decide to go with a general practice management program and input their forms and workflows into the platform, then sync it with the accounting software they already use. A third may decide to get the general practice management platform and another program for case management that interacts. All three are viable solutions and I have seen successfully implemented in immigration practices. What are the benefits of practice management software? Most practice management software system include these benefits, but a few are exclusive in certain products. The mix of features available can depend on the level/version of product purchased, whether that feature is built out by the firm, and how the feature functions specifically in that product. And it is an everchanging kaleidoscope of features, especially with an Saas product. For this reason, it can help to start with what the firm wants to do/accomplish and work backwards from there to find the products that check the most boxes. This is an inventory of nearly all the benefits practice management software can offer: ● Ensure information is shared across the entire history of a client’s case with all lawyers and staff that need to know the information, be responsive to the client. ● Promote accessibility and collaboration among employees and clients. ● Decrease friction in day to day actions for employees and clients. ● Streamline processes and automate, for increased efficiency and reduced errors. ● Simplify and automate some aspects of time tracking in a mobile environment. 3 AILA Doc. No. 18052166. (Posted 12/10/18) ● Firms that use practice management software report a reduction in lawyer non-billable time used by four to eight hours a month on average. This results in greater profits realized. ● Simplify billing and permit division of labor and manager oversight to reduce fraud and error in billing and payment procedures. ● Filter searches of certain events or tasks by matter. ● File management and document assembly. ● Decrease client communication burden when the client checks her status of her case online instead of calling the firm. ● Offer a basic system for Customer Relations Management (CRM) for marketing. ● Increase data security of client confidences by taking confidential information and putting it on a protected client portal and removing it from unprotected email systems. ● Enable the law office to easily pull and analyze data regarding business performance, segmented out by lawyer, practice area, client demographics, etc. ● Simplify updating and maintaining accounting records for IOLTA and operating accounts. ● Implement an effective conflict check system with screening capabilities that comports with the rules of professional conduct. ● Streamline the calendaring of a series of events, especially one with rules-based calendaring that permits all deadlines to be inputted (and changed) into the system based on the trial date alone. ● Online payment processing through LawPay integration or internally. How do I pick the right practice management software? There are many practice management solutions out there. Choosing the right one comes from researching a few products and asking the right questions of the vendor, and internally. Here is a list of questions to get you to the best practice management solution for your firm: What are the goals of the firm? ● Does the product scale to the current and future goals of firm size? ● Does it work well for the firm’s practice areas? (Some packages are practice area specific design, like immigration, personal injury while others are generalized. Both may be further customizable, but to varying degrees and that customization takes time and/or money.) ● Mobility/accessibility goals for the lawyers. Do they want to work from home and access everything in court or not? ● Can it do what we want it to do, technically? ● Does it solve the problems we have? ● Are firm stakeholders cloud-adverse, or do they want to take advantage of cloud-based hosting? The wave of the future is cloud-based, but there are a couple non-cloud tools remaining for firms with clients with special secrecy concerns or needs, or firms not prepared to transition to a cloud-based system. The general expert view is that cloud-based systems are more secure than unsophisticated, 4 AILA Doc. No. 18052166. (Posted 12/10/18) unmaintained, or aging systems, so think through the adversity very carefully and make sure it is soundly justified. ● If the firm prefers a license on premises solution (non-cloud), does it have the infrastructure to host and maintain a traditional premises-based package