5 tools to help legal professionals increase productivity
If you work in the legal field and are looking for tools that can help you and other members of your firm or department save effort on time-consuming tasks, you have come to the right place.
Being able to work from anywhere has become a necessity. It is therefore imperative with these new modes of behavior to adapt to the evolution of the workforce and new practices.
Moreover, given the many digital tools that can be used in all areas of activity and those specifically related to legal tech, it is possible to improve productivity by integrating new technologies into your workplace.
But which tools are the most suitable for legal professionals?
Here is an overview of 5 digital tools to integrate into your workplace:
A secure cloud document storage solution
If you have to work on lots of documents, invoices or contracts, as is usually the case when you are a lawyer or an accountant, it can be useful to centralize all these documents in one place.
It’s a solution that seems obvious. However, according to IDC (the world’s leading provider of information, advice and events on the new information technology markets), workers spend an average of 4.5 hours a week looking for documents, which is more than 10% of their working time in a week!
Moreover, you and your colleagues can access these documents from anywhere as long as you have an Internet connection.
Cloud-based document management systems ensure that files are properly organized and accessible to the right people.
However, in order for such a document hosting solution to be suitable for the legal field, make sure that it is secure enough to guarantee the confidentiality of the information you store there. In this sense, ensure in particular that the solution you choose is compliant with the GDPR standards.
You’ll find a wide range of such solutions that allow you to secure all your documents and contracts in the cloud and access them from anywhere, increasing efficiency and making your organization more agile.
An intelligent document management tool
One of the most time-consuming tasks for a lawyer, an accountant or other legal professionals is drafting documents and/or finding templates and completing them.
Today, it is possible to work with tools that automatically generate documents based on a list of templates. Even better, it is possible to customize these documents in the blink of an eye thanks to a form system which allows you to automatically and easily fill in the data to be modified in the template.
In addition, you can save time by automatically sending an alert to the people who need to validate the contract so that they can do so directly from this tool.
Finally, another great advantage of an intelligent document management solution is that it allows you to know in a few seconds where your files are and which requests are in progress, thanks to a simple and intuitive dashboard listing the essential information in one place.
An electronic signature system
Today, the days of hand-drawn signatures on a paper contract are over.
In order to avoid unnecessary travel or the printing, scanning or faxing of documents to complete a signed contract, the best solution is to work with a certified electronic signature system.
Using such a tool will give you the ability to complete contracts, approvals and other agreements in minutes rather than days.
The value of the contract and the signature is the same as a handwritten signature. This will help you save a lot of time in managing your documents and seize new opportunities (e.g. by expanding your scope of work).
In addition to the considerable productivity boost that such a solution will bring, you will also be able to better monitor your files by knowing, for example, when someone has consulted a document to be signed and by knowing almost instantly when it has been signed.
Task automation software
Finally, when you work in legal or accounting roles, you almost never deal with your files in a segregated manner.
On the contrary, many external parties may be involved in a case.
It is quite possible to automatically send an email to the relevant department or partner (a clerk or notary for example) when a contract has been signed and they in turn have to intervene in the file.
But it is possible to go much further with legal automation software. You will be able to create workflows (“scenarios” in French) that will help you process certain tasks much more quickly, including those that may be essential yet time-consuming and without adding any real value for your clients.
For example, you can define when to publish a legal notice and have it done automatically after a given operation, send emails automatically, invite collaborators to check documents or have your customers pay after a determined step.
Alf: a plug & play solution that combines all these advantages
If you are interested in implementing solutions like the ones detailed above to digitize your firm and increase productivity, you should be particularly interested in Alf.
Indeed, it is a service that offers to create intelligent automated workflows thanks to the use of digital technologies.
Alf is a collaborative legal workflow automation platform for legal professionals wishing to automate their business processes and save time in managing their cases.
You will be able to save a lot of time on the writing of documents, reducing validation times and limiting the sending of emails and phone calls to retrieve information that you do not have.
Furthermore, the collaborative aspect of a solution like Alf will help your collaborators work more efficiently together and reduce internal research time by facilitating knowledge sharing.
As we are in a period where the legal and financial professions are going digital, a large number of opportunities are opening up for the players in these fields thanks to legal tech.
So increase productivity and become more profitable. But above all, by adopting these new technologies now, be a pioneer in your sector and prepare yourself for the medium/long term changes at the heart of your profession. Saving time will help you develop your consulting and advisory activities today, which will continue to grow in importance in the years to come.
A lawyer for 20 years with international law firms and worldwide companies (Canal+, PwC Legal, Nomos, Amazon), I’ve had the experience on the inside: too much time wasted on regularly monitoring recurring tasks linked to files, with low added value. Alf, the first workflow automation platform for the legal files, was designed and developed to respond to this critical problem. Customizable, collaborative and accessible in all languages, Alf is also part of a GreenTech approach that encourages responsible innovation by reducing your carbon emissions. — Sabine Zylberbogen, Registered lawyer and Founder
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