At backdocket, we help law firms grow and improve their processes.
Our eBook, The Ultimate Guide to Running a Personal Injury Law Firm, isn’t just based on our experiences; it’s a collection of insights we’ve received from law firms we’ve collaborated with. We guarantee that you’ll find valuable information in this guide. And the great news is that it’s FREE.
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In this guide, you’ll learn:
We hope you enjoy your guide. If you’d like to learn more about how backdocket improves the way firms work, we offer free demonstrations. Contact us today to schedule a demo.
When COVID-19 swept across the U.S., law firms were forced into a new way of working. As challenging as managing a fully remote work environment was for these firms, it also provided an opportunity to become more efficient.
Creating an environment that accommodates remote workers is increasingly important for all businesses, including law firms. Whether you’re simply preparing for unforeseen circumstances (like a pandemic) or expanding your team by bringing in remote workers, there are several strategies that can make your life easier.
Facilitating remote work isn’t a set-and-forget process. You can and should make adjustments to your approach. We have some tips to help you create a productive and collaborative environment for remote employees.
Even if everyone at your firm doesn’t work from home all the time, you might consider a rolling system where people work from home on a schedule. This is exactly what happened as businesses re-opened during the COVID-19 outbreak.
At some firms, one person from each department rotated the days of the week they went into the office. This method offers flexibility and ensures the safety of those working on location.
By including remote workers into your firm’s operations even after the pandemic is over, you’ll notice some benefits. These include:
Managing remote workers also gives you the opportunity to determine which members of your team thrive in work-from-home roles. If you identify productivity metrics for each position, then you can track those metrics and compare them for workers at the office and at home.
If you see a positive variance for a few team members, then congratulations: you have identified a self-motivated employee.
On the other hand, if you see a negative variance in a few workers, then you have identified employees who are potentially struggling in a remote environment. These employees might be better suited for office work, and they might need more assistance when working from home.
Some team members might be veterans working remotely, and they’re likely equipped with everything they need to do their jobs. For newly remote workers, provide any equipment or software they’ll need to do their work away from the office.
If training or onboarding is necessary, schedule meetings to go over how to use the tools you’ve provided. Follow up with your workers to ensure they are comfortable with the technology and workflow.
You’ll need to be able to quickly connect with remote workers. Though you’ve likely already set up everyone’s email accounts and you have phone numbers for employees, sometimes an instant messaging system will be more efficient.
There are several available systems to choose from. Some are paid, and some are free, and each provides different benefits. Determine which one works best for your firm. A few of the biggest names in the work chat business include:
Team meetings are essential for reviewing the status of ongoing cases, setting expectations, and encouraging collaboration among team members. If some or all of your employees are working remotely, these check-ins are even more important.
Regularly scheduled meetings remind everyone on your staff that they’re part of a collective and that each team member plays a role in the success of the firm. When you have in-person meetings with your office staff, always include remote workers via telecommunication.
Though group meetings remind employees of their importance on a team, one-on-one meetings provide a more personal connection. If you manage one or more direct reports, take these one-on-one interactions seriously.
In a face-to-face meeting, even one that takes place over video chat, you can engage your employee on a deeper level. This is your opportunity to listen to your workers. Ask them for candid input about the firm’s operations and how they feel about remote work. Give them feedback to improve their work.
These interactions are crucial to making team members feel more involved in the firm and projects. Do your best to avoid canceling one-on-one meetings to maintain a consistent line of communication with team members.
One of the biggest obstacles facing remote workers is the lack of non-verbal cues. In a group meeting, team members are more likely to be fully engaged. However, without a visual representation, the speaker will feel like they’re just talking into the void.
When meetings take place over video rather than just conference call, each team member has a visual presence and interactions feel more engaged and authentic. Knowing they’ll be seen by their team members also encourages participants to come to meetings prepared and to stay involved throughout the entire sessions.
When you collaborate with your firm’s team members in person, you have endless opportunities to thank and encourage them. Remote work doesn’t always lend itself to expressing gratitude. So, it’s incumbent on you to make the effort.
If a team member does something helpful, send them a quick message thanking them for their work. Use every chance you can to praise top-performing employees so they’ll know that their efforts are appreciated.
Working in a law firm can be stressful, and when clear boundaries about office hours and expectations aren’t established, a remote staff member’s job can feel like it never ends. When your staff burns out, your entire firm will suffer.
If an employee begins to struggle to meet deadlines or shows signs of detachment or stress, connect with them to find out how you can help. In some cases, you might need to mandate a day off. In others, simply communicating about and working to resolve problems will be enough to re-engage a team member.
A late-night or weekend email is sometimes unavoidable, but they should be infrequent and reserved for special circumstances. Because “work hours” become blurry for remote workers, it’s vital you give your employees space and time to rest and recharge.
When employees have the opportunity to disconnect, they’ll be more efficient and engaged when they’re on the clock. So, before you hit send on that after-hours email, ask yourself whether it can wait until the next day.
Working in an office gives many chances to connect with co-workers. Remote work can leave staff members feeling isolated. You want to see your teammates as three-dimensional people with their own personal lives, ambitions, and interests. The best way to do this is to socialize outside of work.
Set up channels of communication with your staff that have nothing to do with work. This will be the equivalent of water cooler talk. Schedule happy hour meetings with remote workers and avoid work-related conversations at these events.
When it comes to the technical details of working remotely, having the right software can make a big difference in your firm’s productivity and success.
Backdocket is useful for both in-office and remote collaboration. Through centralized information, intuitive dashboards, and a host of other tools, teammates can easily tackle tasks with minimal back-and-forth communication, whether they’re working at their desks or from their kitchen tables.
Whether your team is completely or partially remote, we believe our practice management system will save you time and stress. We’d love to have the chance to show you how it works. Contact backdocket today to schedule a free demonstration.
It’s helpful to see how backdocket makes a difference by looking at an actual firm using this software every day. In this case study, we spoke with Caldwell Wenzel & Asthana, PC to find out exactly how backdocket improved the way they operate.
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Like so many law firms, Caldwell Wenzel & Asthana, PC relied on spreadsheets and handwritten notes to keep track of cases and key processes. Backdocket changed that and, as a result, the firm’s efficiency improved dramatically.
Before utilizing backdocket, what was frustrating about intake?
CWA: Everything was captured in a spreadsheet. More specifically, it was written down first, then put into a spreadsheet. You really didn’t know the correct dates and times of correspondence. It was tougher to follow up on a case.
With backdocket, it’s very easy to manage your intake dashboard to know whether you’re chasing a case or to find out its status. The system just makes it so much easier to have everything right at your fingertips.
How has intake improved since you started using backdocket?
CWA: We’re able to make sure we’re getting all the information we need to make the right decisions. Backdocket guides everyone on our team, even newer employees, through the intake process. We see which questions we should ask during each stage of the case management process.
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Law firms often get trapped into thinking that clients’ opinions about their firms, positive or negative, are based solely on the results their attorneys achieve. But customer service in the legal field is about so much more than just dollar figures and settlement checks.
Clients have expectations about each step of their journeys with your law firm. The better service you offer them throughout those journeys, the more likely those clients will be to recommend your firm to others.
Practice management software is an invaluable tool for law firms looking to improve their relationships with clients. It offers new, endless opportunities to wow clients. Let’s look at five stages of a client’s experience with a law firm to see how practice management software elevates customer service throughout the process.
Keeping track of and staying in touch with prospects is fundamental to growing a law firm. Today’s prospects are tomorrow’s clients, so you need a system to ensure you’re not ignoring their needs or slipping from their minds.
Practice management software keeps your prospects front-and-center by offering centralized lists of people who are considering hiring your firm. You can categorize your prospects by their stage in the journey to hiring you, whether they’ve simply expressed interest or they’ve reached out for a free consultation. Some practice management software will even remind you that it’s time to reach out to a prospect.
When you use this system to your advantage, you’ll impress prospects by showing them your interest in and knowledge of their cases, making them more likely to consider you over your competitors.
Onboarding is essential to the overall success of your client’s case. It’s also an opportunity to cut down on unnecessary follow-ups with clients. Nail your onboarding, and your prospects will know from day one that they made the right choice when hiring your law firm.
Practice management software can also provide your firm’s team members with a list of questions to ask a new client to make sure you don’t miss any important information at intake.
That information can be updated by anyone on your team who has access to the client’s information when new information or changes are available.
Once a case is underway, you have the chance to show your client your firm’s capabilities. The more you stay on top of a case, the less worry and effort a client needs to devote to their own case.
Practice management software can automate key processes of managing a case, such as records requests and appointment reminders. Instead of reacting to a client’s request, you can use reminders from your practice management software to proactively update your client on the status of their case.
Client information can also be accessed easily by anyone on your team with permissions, so a client never has to wait for their attorney to be available if they have questions.
Obviously, results are the core reason a client hired you. The better the result, the more satisfied the client. Practice management software helps you keep cases in perpetual movement toward that result.
When you use a management software, your cases can be resolved more quickly and often with a more satisfactory result for your client. Practice management software ensures that delays in your client’s case are never due to your firm’s oversight.
When your client’s case is resolved, you can continue to deepen your relationship with them by regularly following up. Practice management systems can prompt past clients for reviews and feedback. It can even remind you to reach out to former clients at regularly scheduled intervals.
Follow-up is often overlooked by firms, but you can and should capitalize on the opportunity to leave a lasting impression on your clients. With more positive reviews, your firm becomes more visible online. And with a slew of happy clients, your firm is cultivating word-of-mouth referrals that will help your firm reach even more quality leads.
Your firm has opportunities throughout each phase of your client’s journey with your team. Practice management software offers automation, reminders, and several other features that make it easy to offer outstanding customer service.
If you’ve committed to adding a practice management software, we want to hear from you. Backdocket is a practice management software specifically designed to grow small- to mid-size law firms. We tailor our software’s features to meet your needs, and we are highly responsive to client requests for adjustments to our system.
Happy clients are the best advocates for your firm. Backdocket gives you the tools you’ll need to provide customer service that sets you apart from your competitors.Let us give you a free demonstration of backdocket, so you can decide if it’s the right fit for your law firm. Contact us today to get started.
Many factors determine the success of a law firm: the hard work and dedication of the attorneys and staff, the intellect and talent of team members, and the ability to bring in more clients and keep them happy by providing exceptional results.
But you can take the smartest, most talented, hard-working firm in the world, and they’ll fail miserably if they lack communication skills. Communication might sound like a broad, complicated topic for law firms, but it doesn’t need to be.
By looking at three essential types of law firm communications—internal, client, and third party—a clearer picture emerges of how essential communication is and, more importantly, steps you can take to improve it.
Internal communication within a law firm is one of the biggest pain points team members face. In many cases, team members are so mired in work and outdated processes, they don’t realize how much time and energy they’re wasting.
Why does internal communication suffer? There are several reasons:
Communicating effectively with your clients is the most important part of your law firm’s services. The more attention you devote to client interactions, the more faith they’ll have in your abilities.
To show clients you’re on top of things, keep these five tips in mind:
The more proactive you are with third parties (other attorneys, police departments, doctors, and others related to your business), the more effective you’ll manage a case. In other words, reaching out is better than waiting for a response.
These tips will help you get what you need from third parties.
Backdocket is a practice management software that dramatically improves how team members within a law firm communicate with each other. But our software’s features enable firms to improve client relations and quickly move cases forward through third-party interactions.
We also prioritize communication, which is why we always make ourselves available to our customers. It’s our goal to ensure you understand how to use our software even before the first day you implement it at your firm, and we can adjust our platform to accommodate the way you want to work.
With backdocket, your firm will be more organized, proactive, and efficient. Contact us today to schedule a free demonstration.
Your clients are experiencing a lot of uncertainty in their lives, and you’re their guide through an incredibly difficult period. The more certainty and stability you offer your clients, the better their experience will be.
To provide exceptional service, think beyond just the results you’re getting for them. Focus on the experience they have leading up to, during, and after their cases are complete.
Let’s start with six ways you can show your clients they chose the right firm to handle their cases:
These are the building blocks of great client service, but we need to dig deeper to show clients how competent your firm really is.
You never want to be unsure about a case’s status, especially when a client calls for updates. Your first priority is reaching out to a client before they feel the need to contact you. If they do contact you, the last thing you want to tell them is that you “don’t know” or “need to check” on the status of their case.
Case information should be frequently updated and available to many of your team members. By keeping this information current and accessible, you’ll know that whenever someone at your firm speaks to a client, they’ll be able to tell them exactly what’s happening in their case.
This doesn’t mean feigning interest in your clients. They should feel that you genuinely care about them. You already care about how your services will improve your clients’ lives, and you shouldn’t consider your clients’ personal lives off-limits. Aside from clients that don’t want to discuss anything personal, most appreciate someone taking a real interest in their lives outside of their case.
In addition to making your clients happy, there’s an added benefit to really caring about them: the more three-dimensional you see your clients, the better work you’ll do for them.
If you want your firm to improve its services exponentially, you need feedback, and the responses you receive should prompt action. You should frequently be asking your clients for their feedback. When you receive criticism in reviews, don’t ask yourself if the criticism is true, but rather how that criticism is true and what you might do to address it.
Make it a practice to regularly ask your clients to leave reviews of your firm. Though online reviews are good for your visibility, they also give you invaluable insights into how clients experienced your firm. Use those insights to look for weak points in your service, so you can find key areas to improve upon.
It’s tempting for firms to look at their competitors for inspiration. After all, they’re vying for the same clients you are. However, remember that great ideas can be found in any industry.
Consider the experiences you have at some of your favorite businesses. Do you have a favorite restaurant or coffee shop that goes above and beyond to keep patrons happy? Does your dentist or eye doctor do small things that impress you?
Make notes whenever you have a loyalty-inspiring interaction with a business. Ask yourself if there’s any way you can replicate that experience at your firm.
When you’re thinking about customer service, don’t restrict yourself to the legal field. Look for advantages by incorporating ideas from all industries.
Automation is one of the most powerful yet underutilized benefits of business technology. You can use automated processes to perform several tasks, including:
Automating these tasks frees you up for other important work and offers your clients guidance throughout their experience with your firm.
The many tips above provide actionable advice that you can use to improve your customer service starting today. You might have a list of your own ideas that you’re eager to implement, too. Now that you know what you can do to improve your clients’ experiences at your firm, sit down with your team and map out a client experience plan.
Look at the entire process, from onboarding new clients to staying in touch with former ones. Identify what your firm should do to make your plan a reality, then begin implementing it immediately.
Start simple and build from there. As your team becomes more familiar with the system, you can adjust and refine it for optimal results.
Pro tips:
The creators of backdocket noticed the same obstacles repeatedly facing small- to mid-size firms. Disorganization, miscommunication, and overly complicated software made their jobs harder.
These law firms needed a practical, flexible, intuitive practice management software to help with all aspects of their practice—and there simply wasn’t a tool that helped them meet their goals. Backdocket was designed to be that tool.
Law firms using backdocket are quick to tell us how much happier their clients are since the firms started using our software. Backdocket allows team members to always be moving cases forward. It reminds them when it’s time to reach out to a client. It centralizes information for easy access, so your team can more easily convey to clients all the work you’re doing for them.
We’d love to show you how backdocket works, so you can see the benefits for yourself. Contact our team today for a free demonstration.
Growing your law firm means bringing in clients. For some firms, this means bringing in more cases. For others, it means bringing in cases more closely aligned with their goals.
Turning prospects into clients is equal parts art, science, and craft. You’ll refine your process as you gain experience, but it’s crucial you have a process. You and your team can then revisit what works and what doesn’t, enhance correspondence with prospects, and collaborate on innovative ways to reach out to potential clients.
When you approach prospect outreach as seriously as you handle your current cases, you’ll notice exponential returns. So, let’s start at the beginning…
Finding potential clients is a long-term campaign, and it’s all about making yourself visible. That means:
We’ll go into more detail about improving your online presence below. Starting out, however, you will need to focus on establishing yourself both online and offline.
An often-overlooked step of finding new clients is keeping track of your prospects. If you’re currently doing this on paper or (gasp) in your head, you could be missing valuable opportunities.
The best way to keep an ongoing list of your law firm’s prospects is to create a shareable, accessible list of names, contact information, and other relevant data.
When determining how many of your firm’s team members should have access to your prospect list, err on the side of more. For example, receptionists, paralegals, and attorneys could play unique roles in bringing in clients. Be sure that anyone who might need a prospect’s information has access to it and can view, edit, and update this list.
Pro Tip: Reassess your firm’s prospecting strategy every three months. The busier your staff is, the more selective you can be about potential clients. Too many firms maintain a feast-or-famine mentality even when they should be focusing on the quality of leads that they’re getting.
Now that you have a centralized list of prospects, it’s time to start a dialogue. However, there’s a fine line between cultivating relationships and overcommunicating with prospects.
You don’t want a potential client to forget about you, so set reminders to reach out to your prospects at regular intervals.
Though you’re obviously looking to sign a client, not every communication needs to be solely focused on legal services. Fortunately, you already know the problem your prospect is facing, whether it’s an injury, bankruptcy, or whatever challenge has prompted them to look for legal assistance. Focus on their problems when you check in, rather than simply offering your services.
How will you know what to say to a prospect? Be sure to keep extensive notes of your interactions, which will give you valuable topics of conversation. This information should be updated with every communication and entered into the prospect list you’re sharing with your team.
If a prospect gives you information about their life, it’s worth remembering and including in your notes. This includes information about:
By having these insightful, easily accessible notes in front of you during your next interaction, you can better connect with your prospect by following up on the topics most important to them. You’ll show you’re genuinely listening to the things they say. This is a practice you can start using with your existing and former clients, too.
When a prospect is considering hiring you, they’re likely using all available information to make their decision. That means they’re not just relying on communication with you or your staff; they’re also visiting your website or reading online reviews of your firm.
You want to make sure that you’re putting your best foot forward on all available platforms. Your website should include verdicts, settlements, and testimonials that your firm has achieved for clients. It should make a compelling case for hiring your firm.
Online reviews are equally important. If a prospect sees only negative reviews of your firm, they’ll believe them. The best approach to getting better reviews is to ask existing and former clients to give you a review on Google, Yelp, or other platforms. If this feels awkward at first, remember that your firm will benefit exponentially from positive online reviews, and many clients will likely be happy to give you a review.
Lastly, respond to all reviews you receive. Be respectful to anyone who took the time to offer their feedback, even (and especially) reviewers who aren’t kind to your firm. This is best practice for letting former clients know you hear their feedback, and it lets prospects know you care about everyone who comes to your firm for help.
To make sure your staff isn’t wasting time and energy, walk away from a prospect who is no longer interested. Once a prospect stops taking your calls or becomes short in their responses, the best thing to do is back off.
Even if a prospect doesn’t decide to hire you this time around, they might remember you when they need help down the road. But they won’t be eager to hire you if they had bad memories of their interaction with your firm.
Be respectful and gracious, even when you’re frustrated by an interaction with a prospect. Today’s missed opportunity could be tomorrow’s second chance, so always leave the door open for future interactions. Maintaining a positive line of communication could make a lost prospect more likely to recommend your firm to friends, family members, or coworkers in need of your services.
We’re here to help you grow your firm. Hopefully these tips will give you actionable steps to turn prospects into clients, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t take this opportunity to tell you how backdocket makes converting prospects even easier.
We’ve built our practice management software to help small- to mid-sized firms with all aspects of running their businesses. Our software makes it easy to not only track open cases, but also keeps all your prospects’ information in one centralized location where everyone on your team can access it. You can keep notes of your calls and set reminders to follow up with a prospect.
If you’ve been looking for a better way to run your firm, backdocket has the answers. Contact our team today for a free demonstration.
