In fact, leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a survey from the American Bar Association, almost half of all law firms operating in the United States did not utilize cloud software in management of their firm. This means that nearly half of all US law firms were ultimately blindsided by the unprecedented shutdown of all in-person businesses at the beginning of last year. If this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that cloud computing is the way of the future, something that must be capitalized upon sooner, rather than later. Firms that utilized cloud management of their business were exponentially more prepared for the instant shift to remote work than firms that did not- going forward, it may be wise to consider cloud computing and management as necessary insurance to run a business.

Let’s compare the benefit of the cloud to needing a grocery list for shopping. How many times has something unexpected happened- your child or spouse throws away the list on accident, or you lose said grocery list in some other way. If you only keep a physical, one-copy record of your grocery list, it will be lost to the ages. However, if you happened to jot down your grocery list onto your iPhone notes (thus utilizing the cloud), not only would it be impossible to lose the grocery list- you would be able to continue to add or otherwise edit your list at any time, from multiple different platforms- from your phone, tablet, or computer.

This is the benefit that the utilization of cloud computing can provide. Who knows what can happen- maybe you’re forced to stay home from the office on a sick day, or need to access relevant casework from somewhere other than your office. Having the cloud as a practice management resource allows you to be able to access your firm from anywhere in the world. By using the right type of cloud-based software, not only will your work become all the more accessible at any time, but it will also become more secure than ever.

This is where NuLaw becomes all the more relevant. Powered by Salesforce, and as one of the most all-inclusive practice management software providers on the market, NuLaw is able to handle everything- from intake, prospecting, and matter planning, to reporting, billing, and scheduling. Additionally, NuLaw integrates with a laundry list of third party software while keeping everything under wraps with the same top-notch security measures utilized by the United States Department of Defense. As the working world moves to the future, help your practice stay prepared for anything that may come it’s way, and invest in cloud computing sooner, rather than later.

Indeed, consolidation is one of the most important organizational aspects of our day to day lives. When you make a grocery shopping list, do you make a separate list for each aisle, or do you make one single list for everything you need for your trip? When you’re moving to a new home, do you throw everything into random boxes, or do you strategically fit everything into as few categorized boxes as possible, in order to be more efficient (as well as cost-effective) in the process of bringing everything from point A to point B? When you are running your legal practice, do you want to conduct your day-to-day agenda by clicking in and out of different apps and tabs, or do you want to conduct your business efficiently, through the usage of a single, all-inclusive platform?

This is made possible by utilization of a platform that touts the ability to manage software integrations. Essentially, these integrations streamline day-to-day tasks, and make it easier to not only organize your firm from the top-down, while also improving the cost-effective efficiency with which your firm operates. Think about how much frustration and stress in the day that you can mitigate by not constantly sifting through different platforms just to accomplish one task for one case. Again, referring to the previous analogy- how hard would it be to unpack in your new house or apartment if all of your belongings are spread across multiple mixed-item boxes, when you could’ve just put specific belongings for specific rooms into a single box? With the properly organized moving boxes (properly coordinated integrations), you never have to stress out trying to think about whether you have lost or forgotten something again. Integrations are a proactive measure for any legal practice.

For example, think of a communication integration with a Case Management Software, such as chatter. According to a recent blog from ActiveCampaign, “[software integration] adoption increases the quality of communication between [employees] and managers by 56.9% — meaning less time spent on misunderstandings and more time spent selling.”  Additionally, the blog continues on to state “[Practice management] apps can increase sales productivity by up to 34%. The learning curve can be steep — although a strategic implementation process softens it — but the results are more than worth it and can save your sales team tons of time.” Why continue using a system that continually clutters and otherwise complicates your day, when you can bring in a new system that improves upon finance and efficiency for your practice?

NuLaw understands that consolidation is key to running any business more efficiently than ever before. That is why we have so many integrations available with our software. Powered by Salesforce, manage your firm’s day-to-day operations while utilizing software such as SharePoint, Outlook, Office 365, Gmail, Google Calendar, Quickbooks, airSlate, Adobe Sign, Docusign, and NuPay- all from the single NuLaw dashboard! Managing your firm from a single all-inclusive platform has never been easier, or more efficient. With NuLaw, enjoy the time-saving power of software that just works.

Believe it or not, attorneys can employ some key communication strategies that actually reduce unnecessary communications with clients. The key is understanding the root causes of why clients attempt to communicate without any real purpose. Once you figure that out, you can cut down on communication volume.

Here are four strategies for reducing unnecessary communications at your firm:

1. Provide Regular Updates

The number one reason clients contact their attorneys is to get updates on their cases. That is normal and to be expected. However, an attorney does not need to receive a phone call every single day. Rarely do things change that quickly. So how do you put a stop to daily phone calls? By offering regular updates.

There is no black and white rule for how often updates should be provided. But contacting clients every time their cases are touched pretty much heads off most unnecessary phone calls. Such frequent communications do not have to be long and detailed, either. A simple one or two-sentence message is often enough to let clients know what is going on so that they don’t worry.

2. Communicating in the Cloud

It is rarely a good idea to give clients personal cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Doing so is an open invitation to a communication tsunami. Instead, it’s better to give clients access to cloud communications via your case management app. By the way, NuLaw contains a secure communication module for just that purpose.

With chat and other communications tools, our software makes it easy to keep communications within the cloud environment so that clients aren’t calling your cell phone or sending e-mails to your personal address after hours. They will limit themselves to communicating when they know you are in the office.

3. Answer Every Single Contact

Though this next strategy might seem counterproductive, it’s not. One of the big reasons clients continually try to contact their attorneys is that they aren’t getting a response. The more times they have to make a phone call or send a message, the more anxious they become. This only increases the frequency with which they try to make contact. If you answer every single contact with a clear, concise answer, you relieve some of that anxiety and subsequently reduce contact volume.

Note that the attorney doesn’t have to answer every single contact him or herself. Members of the support staff can respond to less urgent contacts that don’t require specific advice. Junior attorneys can also be utilized for contacts that require a bit more knowledge. It is less important who answers and more important that every contact be answered.

4. Schedule Phone Calls

When phone calls cannot be avoided, its best to schedule them. In this day and age of so much busyness, it’s too easy to find yourself entangled in a game of telephone tag that will never have a clear winner. Scheduling phone calls eliminates the game and streamlines communication.

It goes without saying that some of the communicating that goes on within the legal industry is unnecessary. But that’s true in any industry. It’s just more pronounced in law because every unnecessary communication distracts attorneys from working on cases. If you understand why unnecessary communications happen, you can take action to prevent them. Hopefully the strategies discussed in this post will get you pointed in the right direction.

For law firms, working at home can be an option. Attorneys, legal assistants, and support staff can all work from home when necessary. Moreover, giving staff members work-at-home opportunities can enhance the work-life balance and give employees a sense that their employers care about them as people.

We believe that there are a number of essential work-at-home strategies that law firms can employ to make the most of those opportunities they wish to give their staff members. Four of them are discussed in this post.

1. Adopt Cloud-Based Software

Working at home in the legal arena requires access to software. In this day and age that means cloud-based software. The place for every law firm to start is adopting a cloud approach for everything from case management applications to accounting software. You will be happy to know that NuLaw is a cloud-based package.

The cloud’s most attractive benefit is access. From in the office or outside of it, staff members always have access to software, communications, and so forth. Moreover, data can be shared in real-time among team members. With an internet connection and a device to get online, NuLaw is just a tap or click away.

2. Create a Device Policy

Device usage is generally a concern when employees work at home. When a law firm adopts a bring your own device (BYOD) policy, there is not much they can do or say about staff members using their devices for personal reasons at home. But when devices are supplied by the firm, that’s another matter. As such, creating a device policy is a very good idea before allowing staff members to work at home.

A device policy determines exactly how firm-issued devices can and cannot be used. It stipulates how data is transferred and protected. It might stipulate certain websites that are not allowed, as well as how users protect their passwords and usernames.

3. Practice Time Tracking Diligence

Since the home environment is not always conducive to productivity, it is imperative that staff members be encouraged to eliminate distractions while working at home. A good way to make sure that happens is to be diligent about monitoring time tracking. This is one area in which management needs to be especially diligent until good work-at-home habits have been developed. Even after that, routinely checking time tracking never hurts.

4. Insist on Secure Communication

We are proud to say that NuLaw has a built-in communication module that offers secure communications for the entire legal team. When attorneys and staff members work at home, they should avoid using personal communication methods to conduct business. Everything should still go through the secure cloud platform.

Secure communication is essential to both client privacy and law firm integrity. It can be essential to the integrity of any case. To be as succinct as possible, working from home is never an invitation to use less secure means of communicating with clients and between staff members.

There is a lot to be said for working at home. With the right mindset and a few key strategies, law firms can allow staff members to work at home from time to time without any loss of productivity or service. It all starts with NuLaw.

Use your laptop at the courthouse to logon and file documents. Use your cell phone to communicate remotely with clients in NuLaw’s secure communications portal. Simply put, NuLaw brings mobility to legal case management by giving you access to your data 24/7.

Mobility is Important to Modern Law

SEO experts have been telling their clients for years just how important mobility is. They cite annual statistics that show growing numbers of internet users relying primarily on their cell phones to do what they do online. Unfortunately, we do not hear these sorts of things as they pertain to the legal industry. We should. Why? Because mobility is particularly important to modern law.

According to an ABA study, 95% of attorneys working for firms with 100 or more lawyers telecommute to some degree. In addition, 66% of solo practitioners telecommute as well. Those numbers may not be surprising if you are among the attorneys who work this way.

Here are some other interesting stats from the study:

• The average attorney telecommutes 40 days annually
• Nearly half of all attorneys use a tablet when working out of the office
• Laptops and smartphones are the most used devices for telecommuting
• Most lawyers who telecommute (78%) do so from home.

It is clear that the modern attorney doesn’t always do his or her work from the office or courtroom. Attorneys work from home. They work while on vacation, enjoying a cup of coffee at their favorite coffee shop, etc. The only way this is possible is to have access to one’s legal case management application remotely.

Built with Mobility in Mind

Here at NuLaw, we have gone to great lengths to make sure our legal case software is mobile friendly. You might even say it was built with mobility in mind. NuLaw is a case management application that relies on the popular Salesforce CRM app as its foundation. That app was mobile friendly long before NuLaw was built on top of it.

NuLaw is cloud based. That means all of your data is stored in a secure cloud environment on our servers. It is not stored on your laptop or mobile device. This offers both security and convenience. You have access to NuLaw and your data around the clock without having to worry about someone hacking your device and stealing stored information.

NuLaw is also responsive. What does that mean? It means the application works seamlessly regardless of the device you are using. All the same functionality and visual acuity you enjoy on the desktop or laptop is experienced when you use NuLaw on a tablet or smartphone. The application has been designed that way for a reason: we understand that working remotely is part of a lawyer’s job.

We do not have to tell you how important mobility is. You experience it every day in your work. What we can tell you is that mobility is a lot easier to embrace when your legal case management software is mobile friendly. NuLaw is.

If you still use legacy software that doesn’t fit your mobile lifestyle, it’s time to change things up. And if your firm is using a cloud-based application you are not happy with, you have yet another reason to consider NuLaw.

Lacking in business acumen is nothing to be ashamed of. After all, you do not have a degree in business management. Having said that, you still should not make business decisions based on gut instinct or your best guess. You would not practice law that way. Don’t run your business that way.

NuLaw is a legal case management application built on the Salesforce CRM platform. We chose this platform because it allowed us to incorporate solid business tools with legal case management. We believe our software can help you make better business decisions.

Data and Analytics

The place to begin is with data and analytics. The truth is that modern business runs on data. Any business that is not data-driven is not competing to the best of its ability. That is true whether you practice law or operate a home contracting business.

NuLaw has built-in data and analytics capabilities designed around the legal industry. As just one example, you can have a snapshot view of your firm’s entire financial picture just by customizing your dashboard. You will know at a glance what your future billing looks like. You can instantly see past billing, how much revenue your firm is generating, and so forth. That is the kind of information you need to make smart decisions.

Automation Capabilities

We’re especially proud of NuLaw’s data and analytics capabilities. However, we haven’t stopped there. Our software also makes use of the latest automation technologies to help keep things on track. We can use financials here as an example yet again.

By embracing electronic billing, your firm will be taking advantage of a number of automation technologies that keep billing moving. You will always know exactly where each bill exists within your system. If a bill is being held up, you’ll know who in your office is holding it up. Electronic billing also guarantees bills are published and sent out on time, meaning you get paid faster and every penny your firm is due.

Automation improves decision-making in everything from billing to calendaring and case acquisition. You and your team members will have a clear understanding of what’s going on in your firm so that you don’t have to guess. That always makes for better decisions.

24/7 Access to Data

How many times have you or one of your attorneys been faced with an important decision but lack the data to make that decision intelligently? With NuLaw, such scenarios are a thing of the past. That’s because NuLaw is a cloud-based application that is accessible from virtually anywhere. With your cell phone, tablet, or laptop, you can login to NuLaw anywhere you have an internet connection.

What does this mean? It means you always have access to data no matter where you are. Get your data at the courthouse or while you are meeting with clients. Access it while you’re at lunch, during your commute, or even at home when you suddenly think about something you hadn’t thought of before.

Access to data is critical for sound business decisions. Along with automation capabilities and NuLaw’s built-in data and analytics, it will help you be a better business owner capable of making decisions the same way you do when you’re working a case.

By non-billable time, we mean that time put in by your attorneys and support staff that isn’t included on your bills. It does not include work done by employees whose tasks do not relate directly to the cases your firm is working on. For example, IT and marketing staff. Though their time and effort should be tracked as well, tracking non-billable time is about getting a better handle on what goes into the cases your firm takes.

Here are five reasons to track non-billable time:

1. Understanding the Total Cost of a Case

Law is very similar to most other businesses in that there is always expended time that does not show up on customer invoices. In law practice, there are all sorts of matter management issues that do not get counted for billing. Yet it still costs the firm real money to do those things. Each of the matters contributes to the total cost of working a case. Therefore, you need to have a handle on how long it takes to complete them.

Understanding the total cost of each of your cases will help decision-makers better understand whether or not your rates are high enough. And who knows? A good analysis of total cost may allow you to reduce your rates for some clients.

2. More Efficient Use of Time

Another reason to track non-billable time is to give your entire team opportunities to manage whatever time they do have. In this regard, time tracking is a lot like budgeting. You don’t really know where waste is occurring until you start tracking how resources are being spent. Also like budgeting, tracking non-billable time makes it a lot easier to understand where precious time could be saved.

3. Better Planning for Attorneys

Keeping the budget analogy going, tracking non-billable time makes it easier for your attorneys to plan ahead. Just like a budget allows for better financial planning, tracking all the time spent on individual cases gives your attorneys a better understanding of what to expect in the future. This helps them plan accordingly. Attorneys who plan better are those who are more efficient with time and resources.

4. Fewer Write-Downs

Failing to keep track of non-billable time can create certain conflicts that do not show up until bill preparation begins. As bills are being handed from one team member to the next, write-downs become an issue. There can be so many write-downs just to get a bill to fall within agreed constraints that your firm ends up doing far too much work for free. This is never good position to be in.

5. Better Billing Practices

The fifth and final reason to track non-billable time is to improve your firm’s billing practices. For example, you may have a junior associate who comes on board and is not familiar with how your firm does things. What that associate deems non-billable time might actually be billable. You wouldn’t know his work was being done for free if your firm is not tracking non-billable time.

Every minute spent on a case equals money being spent by your firm. That’s why you need to track non-billable in addition to billable hours. Your firm needs to know how all of its time is being spent so that nothing is wasted.

Your typical law firm with more than just one or two attorneys sets a minimum quota of billable hours. Management expects attorneys to meet this minimum even if it means putting in extra time away from the office. This creates a scenario in which attorneys are forced to work harder just to maintain the status quo.

Wouldn’t it be better for those attorneys to increase efficiency instead? Increased efficiency produces more work in the same amount of time. It can mean producing more billable hours without necessarily having to work a lot harder.

Start with Software Integration

One of the biggest time killers in the modern law office is legacy software. This is software that is old, outdated, and unable to integrate across all of the firm’s operations. Offices still using legacy software tend to have separate packages for case management, matter management, billing, accounting, and marketing.

Combining all of them into a single legal case management application instantly improves efficiency through functional integration. A good example to illustrate the point is calendaring. Integrated calendaring saves a lot of time that would otherwise be spent sending e-mails, answering phone calls, and searching documents.

In a legal case management application like NuLaw, calendars can be integrated with client matters so that everything is kept updated automatically. Automation can be employed to calendar new events as certain deadlines are met. All of this syncing and automatic calendaring happens in the background so that attorneys do not have to spend time doing things manually.

Legal Documents and Research

Spending time reviewing legal documents can cut into billable hours. This is especially frustrating when attorneys are dealing with standard documents, like contracts. They would rather be producing billable hours then checking contracts for appropriate language. They do not have to when their firm’s case management software includes a module that automatically reviews documents using artificial intelligence.

While the software handles document review, the attorney can build a library of research materials that can be linked and crossed referenced. The larger the library grows the less time attorneys spend doing research for upcoming cases. A comprehensive law library makes the attorney more efficient.

Planning to Be More Efficient

Unfortunately, state-of-the-art case management software cannot make attorneys more efficient all by itself. Efficiency is as much a mindset as it is a set of tools. This is where planning comes into play. Attorneys need to plan to be more efficient instead of expecting efficiency to occur organically.

Planning to be efficient involves a number of different things. For starters, it means creating an environment that minimizes distractions so that attorneys can stay focused. Hand-in-hand with minimizing distractions is making a plan for the day.

A good example is planning a certain amount of time each day to address e-mails. If that period is purposely set aside at the same time each day, attorneys can handle their e-mail and then forget about it for the rest of the day. They will be better focused on their work rather than constantly being interrupted by new messages.

The corporate world tells people to work smarter rather than harder. The same principle applies in law. By being smarter and more efficient, attorneys can increase their billable hours without having to work harder than necessary.

The original acronym stood for “keep it simple stupid”. History suggests the phrase was first coined by an engineer at Lockheed Skunk Works. It just so happens that Skunk Works is Lockheed Martin’s program for developing some of the most advanced military hardware in the world. If it is true that this engineer coined the phrase, it’s no surprise the Navy adopted it as an official design principle.

With that said, the KISS principle has been expanded in the modern era. With that expansion has come a number of different acronyms to replace the original. We don’t like to call anyone stupid, so we prefer to see KISS in a different light. Below are three ways to apply the KISS principle based on three new acronyms.

1. Keep It Short and Simple

This first acronym certainly applies to law. But it actually applies throughout business and industry as well. Keeping things short and simple is the best way to do everything from designing legal case management software to introducing a company or law firm to new clients.

There really is no reason to use complicated verbiage and industry jargon. There is no reason to complicate messaging in the marketing department. Trying to impress people with flowery speech and complicated design principles not only fails to accomplish the desired goals, it turns customers off. If customers do not understand what you are talking about, how likely are they to buy your product or service?

2. Keep It Simple and Smart

The principle of keeping it simple and smart is very appropriate to software development. When we designed NuLaw, one of our goals was to make it simple enough to use without requiring a degree in software development. Yet we also wanted NuLaw to be as smart as the attorneys and support staff who use it.

To accomplish this, we started with the Salesforce CRM platform. Salesforce is already built around simplicity and smarts, so it was a logical foundation for NuLaw. If other software developers more closely followed the Salesforce model, they would find that their finished products are a lot less confusing and a lot easier to learn.

3. Keep It Short and Sweet

Last but not least is the principle of keeping it short and sweet. There is a whole lot we could say here but we want to honor the KISS principle in this blog post. Simply put, keeping things short and sweet eliminates redundancy, bloat, useless information, etc.

In the legal sector, keeping things short and sweet is very difficult. Attorneys tend to be extremely thorough in everything from discovery to presenting a case. Trials can go on for weeks simply because attorneys are tending to leave no stone unturned.

We get it, but we don’t have to apply the same kind of thinking to NuLaw. We can utilize the latest in automation and artificial intelligence to keep things as short and sweet as possible for users. That’s the least we can do to help them make the most of our software.

When the Navy adopted KISS as an official design principle, they were telling Lockheed and other contractors to not overcomplicate matters. Today, that same principle applies throughout business and industry. We just alter the acronym slightly to bring it into modern terms.

Our question for you is this: is your law firm being left behind? Are you so married to the old ways that the future has already passed you by? If so, you have two choices. You can continue moving down the road at a snail’s pace while the future continues to accelerate until it is out of sight. Or, you can put the pedal to the metal and catch up.

Here at NuLaw, we believe the future is now. We have positioned ourselves and our case management application to help drive the legal profession toward whatever tomorrow holds. We do not want you to be left behind, so we put together a list of three signs that suggest your firm might already be in that position.

1. You Can’t or Don’t Foresee the Future

Eastman Kodak was the photography king of the world from the late 1950s into the mid-1980s. The Kodak of 2019 is but a shell of its former self. What happened? Company management failed to see the future of photography when digital imaging began to show itself in the late 1980s. And because they failed to see the future, they also failed to prepare for it. They were left behind by competitors who fully embraced digital photography.

If your law firm is not looking toward what the future might hold, you cannot possibly prepare for it either. By the time you finally catch up with the future, your competitors will already be years ahead.

2. You’re Not Looking for Real Solutions

Solving problems is part and parcel with running any kind of business. In the legal profession, there are problems that affect everything from filing documents to maintaining ABA compliant billing. How is your law firm addressing those problems?

Looking for workarounds to keep things going without really solving the underlying problem will not help your law firm transition into the future. You need real solutions that solve real problems once and for all. Getting back to our previous analogy, you are never going to catch up on the road to tomorrow if you simply pull the spark plug on a blown gasket. You have to fix the engine to restore maximum power.

3. Your Technology is Outdated

The most telling sign that your law firm has been left behind is found in your technology. So, how old is your legal case management software? Does your law firm use separate applications for case management, billing and accounting, HR, and calendaring?

Half-a-dozen legacy software packages may have been the only way to do things 20 years ago. That is no longer the case. You have options today. Moreover, your best option is a cloud-based case management application that combines all of your other legacy packages in a single app.

Keep in mind that technology is the single biggest driving force in the modern world. It affects everything we do. If your technology is outdated, your law firm cannot possibly keep up.

Practicing law in the internet age is not what it used to be 50 years ago. The future is here, and law firms unwilling to adapt to it will be left behind. We don’t want that for you. That’s why we created NuLaw.