The Law Firm’s Guide to Building a Foundation for Success

Your law firm needs practice and project management: why and how?

Practice management brings together the practice of law and the business of running a law firm, from finances, billing, client management, staffing, and regulatory compliance.

There are four areas to cover in regard to the daily practice management of a law firm, including:

• Client management: How your law firm finds leads, manages client intake, and handles communication.
• Case and matter management: Case management handles details related to individual cases or clients. Matter management oversees all aspects of legal work.
• Time tracking, expense tracking, and billing: How your law firm tracks time and expenses for each matter and converts that data into billing and invoicing.
• Payments: Includes processing client payments, managing trust accounts, and handling billing and invoicing for legal services rendered.   

Integrating practice management into your law firm

Putting these pieces together requires careful analysis and planning. Here are nine steps to make sure your law firm is executing a solid strategy for running your law firm:

1. Review your current processes. What are your goals? What already works? Where can you improve right now?
2. Ask your staff for feedback. Gather their answers all at once and see which problems are most common and most disruptive.
3. Set clear and attainable goals for what you want to change. Identify meaningful key performance indicators (KPIs) and share these goals with your staff and set a regular cadence for reviewing progress.
4. Research and select a legal practice management software that fits your goals. Sign up for demos or free trials of your top choices. Consider putting together an internal team to evaluate which ones meet your needs.
5. Schedule staff training for new software. A thorough onboarding, as well as ongoing training, gives everyone confidence using new programs. 
6. Develop a plan for implementing the new software and assign people roles for the transition.
7. Make changes as needed—it’s not going to happen overnight. Ask staff for feedback on the new software.

Best practices for legal accounting

Your firm’s accounting practices provide the foundation of your firm’s profitability. To create a solid basis for how you handle funds, make sure you’ve adopted the following best practices.

Legal Billing

There are ways to make sure your billing operates smoothly, including:

• Automated invoicing: Use software to generate and send invoices at the click of a button.
• Clear billing cycles: Define billing schedules (monthly, quarterly, etc.) to make sure you’re consistent.
• Electronic billing: Your clients want options, like online portals.
• Tracking payment history: Keep an organized record of every invoice, payment, and outstanding balance.

Financial Reporting

Reporting puts a magnifying glass on the financial health of your firm. From there, it’s easier to make decisions based on accurate data.

• Use real-time reporting to monitor your firm’s financial health
• Leverage accounts receivable reports to manage collections more efficiently.
• Run regular expense reports to identify where the firm’s money is going and to spot areas for cost-saving measures.

Trust Accounting

Even though trust accounting is a key responsibility for law firms, it can be time consuming to manage. One way to save time without jeopardizing compliance is to use legal billing software with built-in trust accounting tools. These tools offer features like:

• Separate ledgers: For trust and operating accounts
• Thorough records: Including all trust transactions
• Automatic mistake prevention: Ledger overdrafts and commingling
• Online payments: Applying trust funds to invoices

Efficient workflows are important

Your clients rely on you to be organized at all times. Keep these workflows a priority to stay efficient:

Client intake

Simplify the process of landing new clients.

How?

• Go digital with logic-based intake forms to collect any client information.
• Automate follow-up emails to keep potential clients updated during intake.
• Store every client intake document in a safe, secure location.

Document management

Organize how your firm stores and accesses important documents.

How?

• Use secure, cloud-based storage so documents can be accessed remotely by authorized staff.
• Create a naming system for all documents to stay consistent.
• Try software that tags and categorizes documents automatically based on matter or case, streamlining the search process.

Case progression

Implement consistent workflows for managing legal cases from start to finish.

How?

• Create task templates for each type of case to populate every time you onboard a new client.
• Set calendar deadlines and automatic reminders for them.
• Tag relevant documents and case-related information to each matter.
• Keep clients updated through client portals or automated emails.

A strong foundation for success starts with CosmoLex

After implementing the strategies needed to improve your law firm and its practices, it’s natural to wonder if everything will come together.

CosmoLex is here to help. Our fully integrated law practice management system allows firms to manage their practice, accounting, and billing in one place. Schedule a demo with us today.