Like any other industry, law firms hope to keep up with peers in the course of business operations. This applies to more than just serving clients.
Older law firm technology and outdated workflows are inefficient and cause lost revenue.
Following compliance and using technology for attorneys will simplify back office operations and keep firms positioned for the future.
Your law office can’t afford to ignore the benefits of more efficient trust account payments, esignatures, and document delivery software.
What Can Law Office Technology Do?
It can be tempting to think that current workarounds, or a patchwork of software and plugins are good enough for your firm.
But the more functionality you can get from a single tool, the better your office will run. Here are some of the many things you should be able to do with your law firm technology:
- Send contracts for electronic signing via email or SMS
- Take IOLTA compliant payments (both one-time and through recurring schedules)
- Request photo and file uploads
- Send messages to many recipients at once
- Send several documents in a single message
- Monitor transaction trends or drill down to a single workflow within reporting
According to the American Bar Association, it is a bank account that lawyers are required to open and use in the United States after changes to federal banking laws were passed by Congress in 1980. This change allowed some checking accounts to bear interest.
IOLTA or Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts is a way to raise money for charitable purposes, mainly for programs that provide civil legal services for lower income people.
Benefits of Law Firm Technology
Most attorneys find their top priorities are to take more cases and make more money to keep business strong.
Finding technology for attorneys that can accomplish your business goals will raise your firm up without disrupting your caseload.
The trick is to be intentional about assessing your law firm technology needs. Evaluate what your office needs for document management. Questions to ask:
- What do I want to accomplish with communications, documents, client signatures, and payment workflows?
- How can law firm technology make daily processes more efficient?
- Where are contracts getting stalled and how can my office improve?
- Are clients asking for digital communication or self-serve payment options I don’t offer?
Once you understand where your processes are falling short, you can identify what benefits will impact your firm the most.
What do I want my firm to accomplish?
How can technology make my work better?
Where are the weak spots in how my office operates?
Are my clients asking for things I don't currently offer?
Increased growth and scaling with your client base
Taking on more cases is central to growing a law practice but client workflows can be complex.
With technology for attorneys, create easy, repeatable processes for:
- Legal wet signature collection
- Sending payment requests
- Sending automated reminders
- Tracking the status of a contract or payment
- Communicating with a large list of clients
Paperwork and payment workflows should be quick and easy for clients and fast for your firm to replicate.
Law firm technology should come with unlimited templates, so you have common workflows ready to go in your system.
Bulk messages are great for legal professionals that send documents to a large list, or need to collect many unpaid invoices. These features let you communicate with more clients without the extra work.
Boost payments and decrease non-payment
Encourage on-time client payments (and decrease non-payment) with more channels and self-serve options.
Payment and document technology for attorneys will help you:
- Comply with IOLTA by setting up as many trust accounts as you need, so payments are deposited wherever you need them, without extra work for clients.
- Send an invoice and link directly to your online payment portal through an email or SMS request.
- Send automated payment reminders to nudge clients before their payment is overdue.
- Send a retainer agreement and take your payment in one workflow, so clients pay for legal services right away.
Lower operating costs
Digital signature and document delivery software reduces the cost of printing, postage, and letter vendor services.
Law firm technology makes digital contract management possible, so there’s no need to pay to manage physical copies of paperwork.
Streamline internal processes
Most legal industry professionals don’t want to spend time worrying about office operations. Technology for attorneys:
- Simplifies workflows with unlimited templates
- Lets your whole team track where a recipient is in the contract or payment process.
- Helps accounting or other back-end staff access reporting they need for reconciliation or follow-ups.
PDCflow for Law Practices
With PDCflow’s technology for attorneys, save time and send legal documents in a secure messaging environment via email and SMS.
Keep data secure, improve your client experience, and take secure trust account payments.
PDCflow Law Firm Technology for Attorneys
PDCflow payments are a native function of our software, not just available through a plugin.
- Set up as many trust accounts as you need
- Create custom branded payment portals
Receive legal esignatures on contracts or other essential paperwork.
- Send to one or multiple recipients
- Control signing order
- Add payment requests or other requests for a single workflow
Add required disclosures and your law firm’s logo and brand colors for a cohesive look and feel.
Send from your company’s email domain for greater brand recognition.
Email and SMS requests make it easier to know when a client has received, opened, or completed your requests.
Receive automated notifications as your workflow moves through each stage.
Create templates for all of your common contract, payment, and signature workflows.
Lock down access with administrative controls. Reduce human error by limiting who can view and send certain templates.
Simplify essential payment and privacy compliance:
- Set up payment trust accounts for IOLTA compliance
- Use payment portals and digital payment requests for simple PCI compliance
- Get payment authorizations in minutes via esignature for fast Regulation E compliance
- Send private documents (even those containing personal health information), knowing our messaging is secure and HIPAA compliant
Automated email reminders give your customers a second nudge to complete a request before it expires.
Set up reminders when you create a workflow, and our system automates the rest.
PDCflow has an award-winning in-house support team that offers:
- Free training and onboarding for all customers
- Email and phone support options
- Help center articles for easy self-serve support
Monitor email delivery statuses:
- Know whether an email is delivered
- Know when an email is opened/clicked by the recipient
- Track recipient progress through the request, so you know when it has been completed
Embrace law firm technology to grow your practice. Talk to PDCflow today about our legal esignatures, payment trust accounts, and secure document delivery.
Sign up for a demo today.
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- ABOUT THE AUTHOR -
Hannah Huerta, Marketing Specialist
Hannah Huerta is a Marketing Specialist at PDCflow. She creates content for the accounts receivable and payment industry.
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