In the best of times, finding ways to be more productive and remove rote tasks from your day is important for the success of an attorney. This is even more true during the COVID-19 crisis. As firms figure out how to navigate remote work, systems that used to be easily handled in an office setting become more burdensome with a diffuse workforce. If we choose to look on the bright side of this scenario, we are presented with an opportunity: now is the perfect time to embrace automation that will pay dividends well past the end of this crisis.
Collecting and processing payments are tasks that can be easily moved into the automated realm. Allowing your clients to navigate to a payment portal from your website will help streamline the process and ensure a higher rate of payments on time.
This program is as close to an industry-standard as you will find. It is developed to be in compliance with ABA and IOLTA guidelines and was specifically built with attorneys in mind, with a user-friendly interface. ONE400 has set up and installed LawPay with many clients and will be happy to walk you through the process if you have yet to take this step.
This program is specifically created for recurring payments. This will not make sense for all firms. However, if a sizable portion of your business is on retainer or if you have a legal subscription plan, Recurly will allow you to set up clients for automatic payments with ease. This means you don’t have to worry about missing invoices or payments – a crucial function of your business can operate without your active management once set up. Again, this is a program that ONE400 has deep experience with.
Simply organizing a call can be time-consuming when handled manually. Emailing back and forward about availabilities, only to perhaps have to do it again when someone’s day changes outside of their control, needlessly takes up valuable brainpower and time. Thankfully, there are automated systems to help with this.
This program allows clients and others to schedule calls/meetings through a very simple online interface. Attorneys can specify types of meetings available for booking, including the standard duration of that meeting type. The system integrates with most standard online calendar systems so that users can only select times that are truly available.
Growing the client base is crucial to the survival of any firm. Unfortunately, gaining and fostering leads can be a painstaking process. Thankfully, there are ways to automate some intake processes to lessen the burden on the firm while also helping ensure leads don’t fall through the cracks.
We mentioned these systems in a past newsletter, but they are worth listing here again. Both offer features allowing lead intake through a webform with some ability to then follow up in an automated fashion, or provide tasks for attorneys and/or staff to take over follow-up. Once a lead is converted into a client, these programs have CRM capabilities and task management systems to help with smooth client management. Furthermore, both were designed specifically for lawyers. Finally, ONE400 are certified consultants for both platforms so we can help support your adoption of either of these solutions.
This system is not built specifically for the legal industry, so it won’t be the right fit for many firms. However, if you have more complex intake needs for potential clients, the automated systems in ActiveCampaign go much deeper than ClioGrow or MyCase. For this reason, if you do have the need for more extensive and/or complex lead intake automation, it is a powerful system to use. It also contains a CRM and some marketing tools for clients, once signed. In fact, this email came to you straight from ActiveCampaign!
We are advocates of the above three systems and will happily help you pick the right one and integrate it into your firm’s workflow.
The above are just a few of the many programs available to you for automating aspects of your work. The more you remove these small, but crucial, tasks from your day, the more time you have to delight your existing clients and do the excellent legal work they are expecting from you.
ONE400 is here for you, to help you integrate automated systems, particularly during this crisis, when being a digital-first firm has never been more important.