Legal Practice Management Software - A Checklist for Medium to Large Law Firms

All Australian law firms have differing needs when it comes to selecting a suitable practice management software. Mid-tier firms, or firms with 20-100 practitioners operate in a way that requires their legal software to be flexible and accommodate existing practices, precedents, and workflows. We've compiled a number of the key features and functionalities that are key for medium to large law firms who are considering a new practice management software.

It is not uncommon for law firms to be using multiple systems for varying tasks, including matter or file management, document production, accounting and more. The problem with combining multiple systems, however, is that they often create inefficiencies and subsequently increase non-billable time. Having a system like LEAP that seamlessly combines matter management, legal accounting, precedent automation, reporting and CRM can significantly increase a law firm's productivity.

Learn more about LEAP's legal practice productivity solution here

The need to consistently maintain, back up and upgrade servers can be both timely and costly. Server hardware becomes quickly outdated, requires consistent maintenance from a dedicated IT professional and does not allow you to effectively work remotely.

A cloud-based legal practice management software, LEAP not only allows you to work from anywhere with data synced between devices in real time, but ensures you can save money on IT and on-site server costs. No servers means that you don't need to worry about creating back-ups, server maintenance or the amount of data you have. Cloud-based software also ensures that no downtime is required for updates.

With LEAP for example, no on-site servers are required as it is a cloud-based solution. All your data is securely stored and backed up on servers by AWS, giving you peace of mind when it comes to the integrity of your data.

Download the Simplify Your IT guide to learn more

The time saving benefits that a comprehensive document automation system can offer should not be overlooked. Having your documents automatically populate with client and matter information as well as execute complex calculations for a range of court forms can save a considerable amount of time that would otherwise be spent on repetitive manual data entry.

With 38,000+ automated and up-to-date precedents and court forms available globally and the ability to automate your firm's own precedents using LEAP's in-built Document Customisation Engine, your firm will always have a standard method for creating documents. Highly customised documents can also be quickly and easily created by non-programmers with dedicated precedent training from LEAP.

Read more about the Document Customisation Engine

Whether you and your staff are working remotely or your law firm has multiple offices, having the ability to work on your matters and collaborate with your colleagues is vital. A modern, cloud-based practice management software will recognise this by offering integrations with Microsoft Teams and Zoom as well as offering mobile and iPad applications that allow you to work from your device of choice.

LEAP allows you to manage your law firm from any location while collaborating with your team in real time using Microsoft Teams and Zoom. Management of multi-office law firms will also enjoy the ability to view fee earner and firm overview reports alongside up-to-date accounting and billing information from any location.

Discover strategies for working remotely in the The Lawyer's Guide to Working Remotely

Having multiple ways to record time is key to ensuring a law firm not only reaches its billable hours targets but also bills accurately. Whether you're taking a call, working on a document or responding to correspondence, your legal software should allow you to easily account for this time.

LEAP's advanced time recording tools ensure you'll never miss a minute of billable time. With a dedicated 'time, save and close' feature, you can allow the timer to record in the background while you work in Outlook and Word. Once you've finished, the documents and emails are automatically saved to the corresponding matter and the time entry is instantly recorded on the timesheet, eliminating the risk of under-billing owing to forgotten or inaccurate time entries.

Learn more about time recording in LEAP

Even law firms who practice in similar areas of law or who have a similar number of staff will operate differently to each other. Day-to-day processes and workflows will vary from one firm to another. Opting for a practice management solution that recognises this will go a long way to easing any stress or resistance associated with changing systems.

LEAP recognises that not all law firms are the same, this is why the LEAP Marketplace was introduced. Offering a wide range of apps that add functionality to matters, cards and more, the LEAP Marketplace allows you to extend LEAP's capabilities to suit the needs of your firm. With a wide range of apps accessible from one location, the Marketplace makes it easy to increase your firm's efficiency and profitability. With apps catering to payments & financial services, productivity, property, real estate, searching, VOI, document sharing, reporting and more, you can add functionality to LEAP to cater for your firm's existing workflows.

Discover the LEAP Marketplace

The transition process from one practice management solution to another may seem like a daunting task. If your firm has been using a server-based solution for some time, you may be hesitant to transition your data to a cloud-based solution. This is why ensuring you select a practice management software provider that is experienced in transitioning you data and documents is important.

LEAP is the leading legal practice management software in Australia. Backed by 30 years of research and development, you can be confident that LEAP has the knowledge and experience to successfully transition your data and documents from your legacy system. In fact, LEAP has conducted over 5,000 conversions of legacy data, having developed the intellectual property and expertise to electronically convert data and documents accurately and safely from more than 70 competitors.

Learn more about the transition process with LEAP