Everything in this world can be done on the internet, this pandemic has taught us that. Today, you can apply for a mortgage via an app, take your business online order food online and even take classes online. You can submit all of your required details using a mobile device and get the results for whatever you want within minutes. However, the legal sector is way behind other firms when it comes to digitization. 

Why is digitization important for law firms? 

Lately, the law firms are facing problems like legality issues as a result of new digital business models, supervisory variations in some markets. Some of these problems include change in consumer demand, new professionals having a different mentality and approach, problems in financial and insurance fields, cybersecurity, etc. Each of these individual factors, counting several others, have turned the tide and pushed the sector into a corner, where the method of working has become outdated. The new clients demand certain speed and accuracy which the usual procedures and methods in the law firms can no longer follow up with. Although the technological growth in some law firms is not the best, some high-class firms are started to familiarize themselves in technological tools and grown from their outdated methods to the new digital era. 

Today’s reality is that our society is already totally dependent on digitization, and consumers demand fast and easy functioning for everything. To survive in the new world, which is extremely digital, efficient services and the very best technology is required, which can only be provided by legal professionals who can do so and hence, meet the expectations of the clients. PwC conducted a study regarding law firms which stated that 80% of the participants think that a digital strategy is vital for the future of their firms. But this transformation has only been started by 23% of those firms. Hence, it is legitimate to ask why the legal sector is finding it so difficult to familiarize to the new digital era. As the study proves, it is important to know that if you want to reach your client’s expectations, you need to digitize. Not doing so can result in you losing your clients to more technologically advanced competitors and firms. This can make it very hard for you to come back up. 

What do you exactly need to digitize in law firms?

To digitalize means to search and use digital methods of finishing your work and progress which used to be paper based previously.

At the most basic stage, this is digitizing yours records and basic procedures, like signing documents. This comes along with significant time and cost saving advantages alone. But the scope for automation is much broader.

Technological tools that can be used for digitization of law firms:

• Collaborative tools like Google for Business, Slack, Trello, and Dropbox.
• Tools that facilitate communication like Skype, Google Hangouts, GoToMeeting.
• Tools/mobile applications to digitize documents like CamScanner or Scannable.
• Accounting tools like Billin, Quipu or Holded.
• HR departments tools like Factorial or GM Integra.
• Tools to sign documents online like HelloSign, PandaDoc, DocuSign and AdobeSign.

The technology involved in the mechanisation and working of these process is slowly getting more and more powerful and faster. With solutions like machine learning, AI and predictive analytics emerge, your firm could cut 40-60% of the time junior lawyers need to perform due diligence tasks. Contract analytics solutions can make contract drafts for anything and offer suggestions for tying lose ends while AI tools can help you forecast opponents’ arguments by using data of innumerable previous cases. Solutions can stretch far beyond this and will only get better with time.

Why should you digitize law firms? What are the advantages? 

Traditional, paper-based, legal processes are very slow and time consuming. They don’t move with the fast-paced the world we now live in. It’s a mismatch.

Digitization will require a fair amount of money to be completed. You may need to hire new employees, make changes to your team structure or invest in new software solutions.

But the good news is fully digital companies are 23% more profitable than their less digitized competitors. That’s a great return on investment especially when you’re operating in a market where the majority of your competitors are lagging behind.

Hence digitizing legal processes offers these key advantages:

• Increasing efficiency.
• Reducing costs.
• Reducing human error.
• Improved customer experience.
• Increased capacity to attract and retain digital talent.
• Take advantage of shared knowledge
• More trade chances

Conclusion.

To summarise this article, the biggest challenge that awaits the legal sector is the need for digitization. This obstacle is certain to arrive and in the long run, the firms will have to face it.  

The new clients demand a essentially unique and different point of view and approach of consumer experience than they used to before. Most law firms haven’t realized it and hence have significant ground to cover when it comes to digitization. So we suggest to do it now. Your firms can hold more appeal because of faster and better services. Those who don’t act soon risk losing clients and revenue to fully-digitized legal service apps or providers.

It’s not too late for digitizing your Law firm, but it needs to happen now. And we can help. Prabisha Consulting offers a comprehensive and profitable digitization solution by creating archival quality digital images. We can converts data of any kind into a specified digital format for you to go back to and retrieve at any time you like. So you never have to worry about losing your data again. Contact prabisha.com and get your law firm digitized today.