Law firm growth

Consolidation within the legal sector has meant that larger firms are taking a greater market share. Many believe that in order to grow their law firm, they need to merge with another firm; however, there are many alternative law firm growth strategies that can be used to expand your firm organically. A recent study from Lexis Nexis has indicated that firms who embrace innovation are more likely to succeed in long term organic growth.

According to the study, some of the main alternatives to mergers included “enhanced client relationships, lateral hiring and talent attraction/retention, business development strategies as well as offering technology-as-a-service”.

According to Dylan Brown, editor of the Lexis Nexis report;-

“Whether you choose to empower your employees with a growth mindset, utilise new technology to enhance your services, commit to building longer-lasting relationships with your clients, or take on a more flexible approach to both billing and remuneration, the key to growth seems to stem from investing in innovation.”

Proclaim development to achieve law firm growth

At Legal Practice Support, we have assisted in the growth of many successful law firms by helping them to embrace new technologies. Legal tech should be a vital part of your growth strategy due to the ever changing digital landscape we now operate in.

We have assisted law firms through Proclaim development to help them improve their business processes, as well as improving relationships and building trust with their clients.

Proclaim/ case management software development: Vastly improved profitability and efficiency are two of the main benefits which result from the development and optimisation of your Proclaim or alternative case management system. Development can enable law firms to adapt to modern law reforms, ensures data protection, and helps them keep up with technological changes in the legal world. Case management systems can often be developed by legal technology businesses, such as LPS, to allow for process automation, MI report creation, integration with other IT systems, workflow optimisation, and bulk data solutions.

Proclaim Go: Proclaim Go is a mobile and tablet friendly app which will help fee earners and full time employees access important information whilst on the go. Proclaim Go was developed for legal professionals who find themselves travelling often or requiring access to live case information whilst in client meetings.

Proclaim Touchpoint: Touchpoint is a self-service and communication system which integrates with Proclaim case management system to provide a “device-independent, interactive experience” for legal service providers, their business partners and clients. Touchpoint can be used as an online system (TouchPoint+ system) as well as an app which both provide a range of useful functions for solicitors and their clients. Touchpoint provides clients with a large amount of real-time information which can be accessed at any time. They also have have secure access to relevant data about their case using the “FileView” function. This keeps the client up to date on the progress of their case and reduces the need for them to call requesting an update.

InCase Legal App: The InCase Legal App, created by the firm, InCase, can be integrated with a law firm’s case management systems to keep clients updated on the progress of their claims. The main benefit of using this app is that it can help with your firm’s levels of customer and client satisfaction levels.

Proclaim Securedoc: The securedoc functionality offered by Proclaim allows the client to login to a portal and fill in data / sign docs / change appointments etc and they all feed back into the main proclaim system. This helps to ensure cases move along swiftly and clients have greater control over their legal cases.

Adobe sign: A great feature of Adobe Sign is its ability to integrate seamlessly with a wide rage of third party software and applications. Integration with Adobe Sign works well with applications such as all Microsoft 365 tools, such as Teams, Word, Outlook and PowerPoint, as well as Dropbox, Salesforce, Zoho, Workday and many more types of business software. It even integrates well with legal case management systems, such as Proclaim and LEAP using Adobe document cloud solutions. Integrating Adobe Sign with a case management system will ensure client cases are processed as quickly as possible.

Data science to help grow your firm

As well as assisting solicitors with Proclaim and case management system development, we also provide services to help law practices understand and visualise their data. This helps them to help them identify areas which could lead to more growth and increased revenue streams, as well as identifying these areas which require more attention in order to improve their firm.

Most case management systems, such as Proclaim or LEAP, can be developed to allow law firms to analyse data as they hold endless amounts of business data. Business intelligence tools can be utilised to create KPI dashboards and reports to help you understand your data.

Examples of data that can be analysed and reported upon include:

• KPIs
• Fee earner performance
• Client feedback
• Client and matter inception data
• Profit and loss data
• Marketing data
• Amount of work in the pipeline

Law firms possess large amounts of data which can be used for process improvement and data analysis. If you utilise a case management system, most of this data will be right at your fingertips, making it easier for you to access, extract and analyse. Some examples of the use of data science within a law firm include:

• Progression Reports – Are administrative tasks being completed on time, are files being progressed as quickly as they should be?
• Age Reports – What is the age of your caseload?
• Inactivity reports – cases where no proactive steps have been undertaken on a case within a defined time period can be flagged e.g. writing to existing clients, calling defendant.
• File Review Report – Cases where a supervisor has not performed a review of the case within a set period of time can be flagged to ensure compliance.
• Fee earner reports– Are fee earners completing their delegated tasks on time- how many billable hours are being completed by fee earners?
• Profitability – Who is generating the most profit overall/per file, per claim type or per department? Which types of cases are generating the highest profits? Which types of cases should firms focus on within their marketing in order to obtain the highest levels of profits?
• WIP – Calculate the total firm WIP for reporting purposes, or in relation to certain case types or file handlers.

Working digitally to improve growth

Going paperless can be a difficult transition; however, the benefits of working digitally are endless. A digital case management system will increase the efficiency of all staff by reducing the need for file handlers to rummage through mountains of paperwork to find particular documents. With all your documents in one place, this will free up the time of case handlers, allowing them to focus on more complex areas of litigation and settle cases more efficiently.

LPS offer a fully paperless law costs drafting service, helping your firm to manage and negotiate your legal costs in the most innovative way possible.

Digital marketing to attract more clients

The key to your business plan for growth is to have as many clients or customers as possible. Brand awareness is extremely important to the growth of your law firm; if no one knows you exist, how can you attract potential clients? Legal Practice Support offer a range of digital marketing services to help get your law firm website and social media pages noticed online, whatever your practice area.

The incorporation of a good marketing strategy for lead generation is essential in the current legal climate as the increasing competition in a crowded market, and from larger law firms with significant resources, can make it difficult to make your firm stand out from the crowd.

Some of the main digital marketing services we offer include:

Search Engine Optimisation – SEO is an essential tool for legal marketing. It is a type of technique used to place your business website pages in an optimal place in the unpaid results section returned by a search engine such as Google. If a potential client were to search the term “personal injury solicitor” into a search engine, they will return a large amount of results. Web users usually believe they have sufficient options on the first page of their search and will therefore disregard any results found on the subsequent pages. For this reason, it is of utmost importance that your business is ranking high in search engine rankings, such as Google, for keywords and phrases which would be used by potential clients.

Social Media Management – Social media marketing has become increasingly popular with the ever-growing number of the web users using platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn as their primary means of reading new content. It can be a great way of increasing brand awareness and targeting potential clients.

PPC Ad Campaigns – The use of Pay Per Click advertising can be an effective and cheap way of getting your business noticed instantly. Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and many other social media platforms offer PPC Ad campaigns. Our team have vast experience in using this type of advertising and this can be included in your marketing package.

Email marketing – Email marketing is an effective method of improving your firm’s brand awareness. It can help keep past and current clients updated on company updates and will ensure they return for all of their future legal needs.

Why choose Legal Practice Support?

It is clear that law firms must adapt to modern technology and utilise more innovative practices in order to achieve substantial organic growth.

Utilising Legal Practice Support to assist with your case management and software development gives you the technological expertise without the cost of bringing it in house, as well as ensuring you have continuity.

We can also assist your team in making those important decisions which lead to law firm growth through use of our data analysis and reporting services, helping you to easily visualise your important data.

Focusing on digital marketing will ultimately lead to more customers and increased brand awareness, making your growth inevitable.

If you would like to speak to an expert about how our team can help your UK law firm grow, we can be contacted via e-mail at enquiries@legalpracticesupport.co.uk, or get in touch with us via Live Chat or the contact form, below.