You might agree that the legal field is one of the slowest to use modern technologies. Because of this, some companies use paper records to keep track of legal cases, recent client documents, and even accounting. This makes it much harder for people to access legal cases and talk to their lawyers. At the same time, law firm apps can make all these documents easy to access with just one click. This can improve the legal client experience, build transparency, loyalty, and trust in your law firm, and make it easier for clients to work with you.
According to a survey of 300 law firms in the U.S. and U.K. in February 2017, 80% of the legal applications that are already in use were made between 2016 and 2017. A study also found that 91% of lawyers cannot imagine running their business without a mobile applications (or web) app.
Here are some of the key features the best mobile app for a law firm must have.
Keeping track of time and money
Every lawyer knows how hard it can be to track time. With a time-tracking app, lawyers can automate and speed up the process of keeping track of the billable hours they work. It will lead to more money for the business and less time spent tracking time by hand.
When it comes to expenses, the Law Practice Management App makes it easy to enter them and assign them to the right customer or case. There are a lot of applications for law firms that let you track time, stop timers, and use multiple timers simultaneously. The app has a feature that lets lawyers decide how much time they want to spend on each case. This will make it easy for them to make accurate and easy-to-use invoices with just a few clicks.
Case Management for lawyers on the go
Nowadays, there is no reason lawyers cannot handle their cases on their phones while they are active. With the app, lawyers should be able to look at their case files anytime. Lawyers can use the app in courts, police stations, or jails to move cases forward, keep track of time, and get important case information. A lot of help can be given to lawyers by an app that can do all of this, even when the user is not connected to the internet, and then synchronizes with the live system when the user’s device connects to the internet again. Lawyers should also be able to use the app to look at documents related to cases on the main system while they are out in the field.
Calendaring
Lawyers should be able to use the app’s calendar to plan activities, meetings, and hearings with their partners and set reminders if they need to.
Lawyers must keep track of a lot of dates. The best calendar tool can help them stay on top of all their meetings, court dates, and client meetings. So, lawyers will not have to worry about missing deadlines and appointments anymore. Some law practice management apps let lawyers share their calendars with other people, make changes to their calendars when they are not in the office, and directly add billable hours to events.
Also, a calendar like that could be helpful if it could be linked to the local court’s planning system. This would let lawyers figure out dates on the go and keep track of them.
Image and Document Scanner
Paperwork can be cut down with the help of mobile apps. This also makes it easier to turn an image file into a PDF file, which lets lawyers store the files in the right case folders. CamScanner is one of the best ways to use this technology. Try out all the on-demand options to find the best app for a law firm.
- Helps scan any document, whether it has text or pictures.
- Automatically cropping the scanned picture.
- Helps with scanning documents with more than one page.
- You can even change the size of the pdf page.
- It helps scans automatically crop their edges.
- Emailing each other the scans
- Helps put scanned documents into groups.
Laws Comparing
Based on complicated algorithms, a smartphone app lets users look up and compare a U.S. law to one from another country. This can be helpful in some professional situations. Still, the functions available to the user are easy to understand. A search is started when a U.S. law and a country of interest are entered. On the screen of a mobile device, two legal papers from the same piece of legislation appear next to each other. This helps lawyers understand the case and better prepare for it.
E-Signatures
Electronic signatures are a part of the legal app for smartphones. This lets lawyers confirm information and instructions from clients, witnesses, or interpreters, enter them directly into the cases with the app’s help and sign off on them.
Database of the Supreme Court
The laws and rules of the U.S. Supreme Court set the rules for any case in the United States, so having electronic versions of all laws is helpful. But if a huge amount of data is stored locally, it can be challenging for an app to load. To avoid this, keeping electronic documents at the office is best, then connecting them to a mobile app.
Case Registry Search
Lawyers can learn from what happened in the past, figure out how likely they are to win a similar case, or even find a strategy that has worked in a comparable situation. The important thing here is to find such cases. To help with this, a legal app can offer smart ways to search for cases, so lawyers can quickly and easily look through a database of cases and find the ones they need.
Case Notes
This is a simple but essential feature that lets mobile devices take notes. There can also be a “scan” or “snap” button that turns on the camera on a smartphone or tablet so a lawyer can take a picture of a printed document, a handwritten memo, or anything else. Texts or images can be saved in their case folders, which is helpful when an employee works on multiple cases simultaneously.
Educate Clients
It is important to give your clients educational content, whether they are already your clients or people you want to attract. A client who knows more is better. When a client comes to you with a basic understanding of their legal problem, it makes your job as a lawyer much easier.
Summing Up
If industries change, new ways of doing things will require new enterprise mobile applications. Recent growth in law apps is proof of that. Management, reference, and client-focused apps for law office employees are new, but their complex type of structure and well-thought-out features are all but inspiring for the whole mobile enterprise industry. From Jumpgrowth, you can hire mobile app developers.
Amit Tiwari is a digital marketer, blogger & writer. With over 5 years of experience in web industry, he has helped his clients to launch their marketing campaigns successfully. He also likes to explore various online tools and share that knowledge by writing useful blog posts.
