There is no denying that collaboration tools have taken the foundation in many firms and the practice of solo practitioners. A generation of technology has arrived that enables people across firms and between employees to connect and work together more efficiently and accurately.
And, it’s showing real results. According to a report, a 20 to 30 percent increase in productivity is realized in firms using online collaboration tools and digital workplaces.
Collaboration tools and solutions are also effective at providing for a better workplace environment and employee retention. Law firms that communicate effectively are 4.5 times more likely to retain the best employees, according to research. Conversely, there are downsides for law firms that are slow to adopt collaboration tools
Collaboration in Claims Litigation
So how does collaboration help organizations and solo attorneys with the difficult process of managing claims litigation? This is an important question for litigation professionals to ask before investing in such tools or solutions.
In claims litigation, there’s no more important need for collaboration than within the relationship between claims executives and therefore the attorneys they keep. And yet, in most current claims environments, no technology encourages or supports a collaborative process.
Claims handlers and their attorneys may collaborate broadly on the phone, on the other hand, they revert to their technology platforms to do their respective work. Communications between the parties are by email and phone calls. They work side by side, but not together, in their preferred technology. They need to frequently “check-in” with one another to ascertain what the opponent is doing.
Collaborative tools like litigation management solutions in this environment can provide an enormous amount of efficiency and productivity including:
- Precise Delegation of Tasks and Workflow System
There was an era when lawyers had no option but to do every minor task manually, the procedure not only took a lot of time but was exhausting,
Automation of administrative tasks can reduce costs of hiring manual labor with work done on time with accuracy. collaborative tools like litigation management solutions are hosted on the cloud, this makes it a much more cost-effective and affordable option for law firms and solo practitioners who want to enjoy increased efficiency with minimum cost. For solo practitioners it becomes a greater helping hand, there is no need for expensive hardware, software, or on-site servers. Everything is managed in a single place and paid through a small monthly subscription fee. Automation with collaborative tools also enhances the accuracy of work. At the end of the day, your practice needs a digital platform for your litigation that you can trust. Hosting on the cloud comes with added advantages. It gives you features like recovery systems and data backup solutions that make litigation going on smoothly with less risk. The results are far greater peace of mind.
Litigation management solutions also speed up the Workflow, nothing is more restful and time-consuming than slow document loading, lagging and frozen applications, and glitchy interfaces. Hosting services on the cloud gives the advantage of having self-service and on-demand services which allow attorneys to navigate millions of data with just a few clicks
- Faster Ways of Communicating Across Multiple Teams
Growth in law firms will cause expansion of offices and a rise in employees will automatically inherit the image with different employees performing on different cases, handling multiple firm branches with heaps of masses is going to be a busy process with collaborative tools like litigation management solution keep track of your with staff and duties assigned to them, about who is functioning on which case, with help of staff management feature have a simple flow of data between you and your employees and simply share details and documents with
In this pandemic we’ve seen a drastic increase in trend of working remotely more and more people want to figure from home with this, the matter arises of, the quantity of paperwork and knowledge one has to access to work with different litigations, not all information and details are often with you or have access to once you are working remotely and handling of paperwork manually, but with ligation management software it becomes easy for each person working remotely, with the software you’ll access to any piece of data from anywhere with just logging in the cloud on any device with stable internet connection and update, access and retrieve information.
- Exceptional Reporting, Analytics, and Tracking
While you’re employed at a law firm or you own one, it’s hard to keep track of the time you spent on non-billable time like client phone calls, noting down information, filing of reports, switching applications, etc. Litigation management software gives you the power to capture time as you’re working. Some capture time spent within applications and other software programs lawyers use throughout the day. With litigation management solutions, every second of billable time is often captured through time tracking timers with easy time tracking to understand where you’ve spent some time once switched application, with this, you can keep track of non-billable time and raise productivity. Time tracking provides great insight and provides their build-in analytics.
- Remarkable Management of Documents and Events
A report has quoted that lawyers spent around 28% of their time arranging paperwork for a case that includes filling up details and maintaining paperwork for every individual case, with this lawyers have to juggle themselves around multiple court events and feel constant fear of missing out on important dates or conflicting with each other. If manually done day to day work can be an arduous task.
Litigation management software acts as a collaborative tool to make litigations more streamlined, maintaining crucial documents of a case from start to end as forms, exhibits, e-discovery, and others come at ease with litigation management software’s feature document management.
Manually arranging and maintaining documents was always a protracted and exhausting process with this there was always a risk of information getting easily misplaced with the litigation management software, Maintain all your litigation related paperwork in a single place, with easy sorting just accessible at typing keywords related to a specific case, keep track of every document and never lose any information.
An attorney has to keep a record of many dates with court hearings, deadlines, events just to name a few, litigation management solution provides features such as legal calendaring with that don’t worry about missing a single date, or with conflict check feature never worry about a date conflicting with each other, get timely reminders and notifications about your litigation that’s how you can stay organized with your hearing and events.
Having attorneys and claims adjusters operate seamlessly in the same unified system, means that necessary information is synced between both parties. Critical meetings, events, and documentation upcoming steps are clear to both parties. Claims professionals and attorneys can pass important documents and forms and organize them for easy access with less risk involved. All parties involved can carry out a series of tasks and workflows, ensuring no time is wasted waiting on the other party or wondering what critical steps are next in the litigation process and streamline the process completely.
Conclusion
As all research into collaborative tools shows, 21 to 31 percent gains in productivity and efficiency are possible. And, as every litigation professional knows, any efficiencies and productivity that can also drive shorter case durations with increased accuracy, less manpower, and cost-effectiveness are opportunities to be explored.
MatterSuite is a complete litigation management solution that boosts up a firm’s productivity by allowing you to easily manage your litigation process with tools and organize your law practice like case facts, hearings, motions, evidence, e-discovery, documents, legal calendaring, and much more for your legal firm.
