Legal matter management can end the struggle for work-life balance
You’ve likely been seeing more articles talk about finding the perfect balance between your work and personal life. But is it possible to achieve that work-life balance? We started talking about the struggle to find that elusive balance in the first blog of this series.
Instead of just providing tips like scheduling downtime and outsourcing tasks, we discussed how the right tool, like Legal Files legal best matter management, can help you stay organized, save time and reduce stress–all key components of achieving that balance you’re seeking. We gave a few examples of how Legal Files Software is just the tool for the job. Now we’re diving a little deeper to look at a few more features that have helped real-life customers work smarter, not harder.
Staying on track with Legal Files workflow
As just one example, the most-effective legal departments and law offices have established procedures for handling requests for legal software in an appropriate and timely fashion. When you receive a request for legal services, each team member should know how they can help complete it. Mapping out processes and workflow is the best way to make sure team members know their role and the job stays on schedule. This is where Legal Files legal matter management can help—and, once again, not just in a legal setting.
The workflow feature in Legal Files allows you to create and define processes—regardless of your type of organization—that you can then assign to employees to keep the work moving along. With just a few clicks, you can launch a customer-defined workflow that automatically launches tasks and to-do’s regarding what needs to be done, and user assignments regarding who is responsible for completing those tasks and other steps. As an added benefit, Legal Files makes this process easy to customize, so you can include as many steps as your team needs to get the job done, and you can create a customized workflow for each process This means that Legal files adapts to your current procedures to allow you to become more organized and efficient; you don’t adapt to it.
One Legal Files customer handles commercial real estate management. Before implementing legal matter management, the team would manually review hundreds of files for properties every day to determine what they needed to do. Once Legal Files came into their lives, they were able to build a workflow that could easily and quickly determine, based upon each type of file, the tasks that needed to be completed and deadlines that needed to be met. This resulted in massive time savings and a more streamlined process.
Existing team members aren’t the only ones who can benefit from Legal Files’ workflow functionality. It can also help new hires learn their roles during training and onboarding. What was once a cumbersome process become simple and intuitive. New employees know exactly what they need to do and can hit the ground running using the team’s specific processes and procedures.
Never miss an email or appointment, thanks to seamless two-way integration
Today, the vast majority of business professionals rely heavily on programs like Microsoft Outlook for their email and calendaring needs. Legal Files has offered integration with Office since the late-1990s and have since added three more email programs to this list (Gmail, IBM Notes and GroupWise) so our customers can work seamlessly.
Email integration is one of the most popular features of Legal Files because it allows you to create, track manage AND easy retrieve all relevant emails, calendars, contacts and documents in one centralized, electronic file or case. Because Legal Files offers true two-way integration, you can easily save both the email message and any attachments directly to the file or case in the Legal Files legal case management system saas and vice versa. Best of all, it takes just a few simple steps to make this happen.
The Contracting & Compliance group at the University of Connecticut appreciates the ease that Legal Files’ two-way email integration has brought into their lives. According to one employee, “Legal Files serves as our centralized repository, but it also links to Outlook which makes it easy to move documents and emails into Legal Files.” You don’t really appreciate Legal Files until you search through a ton of Outlook folders to try to remember where you put that really important email.
Legal Files does more than just help with email integration. It also integrates with your online calendar. You can create an appointment or task in Outlook directly from Legal Files. In this way, every Legal Files user in your office, who is working on that same file, case or project has access to the most up-to-date information at any time.
Keeping your desk clutter-free with legal matter management
Most workplaces have made the push to go paperless, but many offices including legal professionals are still finding themselves buried under a mountain of paper. This arrangement can turn an organized space into an overwhelming pile of paper clutter. The result is reduced productivity and increased stress, which do not help with work-life balance at all.
Thankfully, Legal Files legal matter management can take a mountain of paperwork and transform it into a useful, collaborative database with all the information your entire office needs to be more efficient and productive. Legal Files stores all important documents, contacts, research and correspondence in one convenient digital location. You never have to waste time looking for a lost file because it’s always right where you need it—any time, anywhere.
Many customers appreciate that they no longer need to print documents. Instead, they can save them electronically in Legal Files. When physical papers do make their way into the office, team members can simply use a desktop scanner to add them to the legal matter management system, or, at the very least, easily track the location of those physical files that must remain in a paper format.
The City of Pasadena loves that Legal Files helps the office stay organized and helped them “go green.” One employee said, “We have identified several file types that we designate as ‘E-files’ within Legal Files, and all materials are scanned into them. Hard copies, for the most part, are discarded unless it is necessary to keep a ‘wet’ signature. However, even in that case, we are now able to reduce the paper file to a minimum.”
Finding your work-life balance with Legal Files
From faster and easier reporting to an intuitive workflow that helps you stay on track; Legal Files offers features and functions that help you become more organized and efficient in the office. When you spend less time on these administrative tasks, you’re able to complete the rest of your work more quickly, leaving you with more time for family, friends and fun. It’s the ultimate way to achieve work-life balance.