5 modules legal and law firms should have in their information systems

Legal and law firms are faced with increasingly complex and competitive environment. The challenge for them is in setting policies, processes and tools that will enable them to monitor and document their activities, and the time they spend with their clients. Unfortunately, the old methods that are used even today, have failed to develop in a sufficient speed, necessary to address the modern demands of society and the business environment.

With aim to solve the problems these firms are facing, there is a need to develop an information system to support the work of law firms. Such system could offer a great advantage, both in financial terms and in terms of time management. The basic idea is to establish centralization of all data and processes which provides better organization of the firm, and that will lead to the achieving efficiency level required by today’s standards.

The system should be designed using web technology in order to be accessible from any location using any kind of Internet device (desktop, laptop, tablet, smartphone or public computer). The data would be hosted on the remote server fully supporting field offices.

This is the minimum of applications that are required for efficient system:

1. Meetings Calendar – one of the most important modules of the system providing tools for managing meetings, time schedule and participants. Meetings can be tied to single user, group of users and client. This module must also provide good search capabilities on user and client level.
2. Internal messages – independent (closed) messaging system, stored in a database, with ability to alternatively deliver messages through email and, in some cases, short text messages. It must support attachments, full text search, messaging multiple recipients, making recipient groups based upon case, group, etc. Messages would be permanently archived, although users would be able to exclude them from the list.
3. Clients – module for maintaining clients’ data (CRUD operations – Create, Read, Update, Delete). It should be connected with all other modules to avoid incorrect and/or duplicate entries. Connecting this module with others also simplifies regular activities, since all tasks in law firms are always client-related.
4. Tasks – module that would provide better coordination and monitoring of tasks and better usage of the resources. It would also be used for coordinating personnel assigned to the task.
5. Lawsuits – this is the module that actually distinguishes this system from other similar systems. This module tracks every single case from the very beginning and it can be a kind of simple document management system, but also a virtual law office, depending on the size of the firm and its actual needs.