Embracing social distancing and working remotely is the new normal for everyone, be it an IT company or a distributor. During these pandemic times, legal firms and lawyers are also not spared of the consequences. Although courtroom trials and physical meetings used to be an indispensable part of the lawyers forever, the trend is changing. There are tools that are helping out the legal firms operate remotely, connecting peers with the lawyers, and attorneys with the jury without leaving the safety of their homes.
Today, we shall be discussing some of these tech tools, and maybe you could pick up ideas from some of these and use them in your practice as well.
Embracing The Video Calls
Of course, meeting up with the client, discussing the case scenarios, and possibly discussing the court proceedings- all of these tasks need communication. Or more importantly, a physical presence can help make a stronger connection for the lawyers with their clients. On the other hand, courtroom proceedings also require the physical presence of the prosecutor, defence attorney, plaintiff, and defendant. But since half of the routine activities are still under lockdown, these physical meetings might not be possible. Thankfully, video conferencing has emerged as an accessible solution for legal firms. There have been reports from all around the world about convictions and courtroom proceedings taking place over video calls. This technology definitely deserves to be the one that has maximum significance in remote operations of any legal firm.
Setting Up VOIP Connection
Conference calls and telephonic meetings are common to any legal firm. However, since most of the official telephonic lines are tethered to the office premises of the company, an alternative is needed. Thanks to the internet! While it is helping around with almost everything that remote employees need, telephonic communication is not left untouched. In fact, it is quite a common practice these days to switch to VoIP connections. The technology uses ordinary broadband connection and uses the internet channels for communicating the voices. Surprisingly, VoIP stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol, which means the voice calls are being transmitted using internet connection. And legal firms are surely benefiting from this technology for conducting their telephonic conference and meetings.
Managing The Daily Tasks With PMS
Most importantly, any legal firm needs to manage their daily tasks which would involve documentation, filing, reporting, invoicing, and even contact management. Well, before the pandemic caused the offices to shut down legal firms, which were still not up to date with modern technology usually stored and managed all of this information physically. It means, most of these records were maintained in paper files. Notably, a rather efficient tool a practice management system has emerged out bright and shiny. As it is explained here, https://www.quill.co.uk/Practice-Management-Software/, this tool can simplify the day to day processes of a legal firm, along with providing easy and secure access to the data for company staff. Moreover, the access permissions for each employee can also be managed with the help of this tool. So it should not come as a surprise that legal firms are now opting for such tools more and more for their remote operations.
Cloud Sharing For Easy Accessibility To Information
Cloud computing is not at all a new concept. However, it is becoming more popular, particularly during these tough times. For legal firms, daily task management is not the only thing that needs to be shared with every staff member in real-time. Several other types of data and information also need to be made available to the staff members, including documents and legal forms. Moreover, some documents also require to be shared with the clients and even the authorities. In all of these sharing activities, cloud computing plays an important role. So much so that several legal firms are now purchasing or leasing designated cloud space for their professional use.
Scanning & Fax Tools For e-Filing
Since documentation and information sharing are so important for legal firms, certain other technologies are almost indispensable for their operations, even thorough the work is being done remotely. Scanning real documents and sharing them over fax is one of those practices. Notably, there are several legal formalities that need signatures and attestations, which is preferably done physically. Subsequently, this makes scanning and faxing of documents all the more important, especially when there are e-filing formalities lying ahead.
The aforementioned technologies are not new, its only because of the global lockdown, and social distancing practices that legal firms are now exploring the potential of these tools.
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