Kamron Sanders

A business can’t run smoothly without a consistent process, proper legal project management, and work allocation among staff. In law firms, tasks can originate from many sources — clients, partners, or firm management. How these tasks are distributed typically depends on specialization, skill, and time sensitivity. Unfortunately, what’s not mentioned in this list is bandwidth. Accounting for staff workloads can be difficult in situations where there are too many time-sensitive tasks or limited staff. If your staff is overloaded with tasks the likelihood of items falling through the cracks increases as well as burnout. Both of which lead to a decrease in productivity and disruption of business. 

To limit risking business continuity or your staff’s mental health, it’s essential for law firms to create streamlined, consistent systems to distribute workloads and keep all employees on the same page. 

Here are 3 tips for better legal project management and work allocation of law firm staff: 

1. Plan and Strategize

Effective work allocation requires thorough planning and strategizing with real-time visibility into the staff’s schedules and workloads. This is especially true of large firms with a lot of staff members. If partners or management aren’t aware of how much each associate or staff member is balancing, they may unintentionally overload them. 

Ideally, there should be a centralized task management system that management uses to plan and assign work to associates and other staff members. This system should be updated daily and would provide current information on everyone’s current responsibilities. This ensures that management and partners can monitor their workloads and avoid piling everything onto just a few people.

With this information at their fingertips, partners and management can make strategic decisions to ensure that the appropriate work is allocated to the appropriate staff. 

2. Divide Work Evenly

Overloading some associates and leaving others underutilized can quickly lead to issues of burnout, poor work-life balance, and job dissatisfaction. At a time when firms are struggling to attract and keep talent, proper work allocation is paramount. 

Legal practice management software can help partners and firm management to evenly distribute work. LPMs provide a comprehensive view of the staff and their time, schedule, and skill sets, giving partners and management all the information they need to develop all the staff’s competencies and keep the workload more balanced. Workloads should be balanced across departments as well. Work allocation requires planning, especially so in larger firms with multiple departments or offices. This is all the more reason to make work allocation a strategic and streamlined process. 

Processes for work allocation can be standardized and systemized across the firm, offices, and practice groups. Law firms can set this up on their own with task and time management solutions, but if necessary, a larger firm can hire support staff to handle work allocation and develop systems to assign work to the appropriate parties.

For example, a work allocation manager can manage workflows and monitor skills and availability across all practice areas, departments, and locations to ensure the entire machine is running smoothly.

3. Track Development Needs

It’s tempting to hand off high-priority tasks to the most capable and experienced associates or staff members, but that doesn’t serve the firm’s long-term needs. If the same staff members keep learning, growing, and succeeding, it leaves skill and experience gaps in others. 

Law firms should have a comprehensive view of the qualifications, skills, and proficiencies each associate has, areas of growth, and the skills they’d like to develop in the future. This provides a more democratic method of assigning tasks while keeping the whole team learning and growing together. A law practice management software that has custom reporting functions can help keep track of user activity or where tasks have been historically allocated to simplify this process.

If significant skills gaps are discovered, law firms need to take a proactive approach to correct them. All associates and staff members should have management training, business development training, client training, and communication training. Associates should have ongoing development in areas related to their practice or the firm’s goals. Partners and managers should be available for support and ongoing mentorship to help associates stay on track to reaching their goals.

The Importance of Legal Project Management

Legal project management and work allocation across teams can be a unique, ongoing challenge. However, with the right systems and processes in place, your firm can ensure that work is dispersed evenly and fairly. When done strategically, not only will this help move work forward and support productivity, but it will improve the overall satisfaction of your staff at the workplace. Above all, the livelihood and health of your staff is the true marker of a successful business.

Lawyers often struggle with time management. Perhaps it’s from taking on too much, or lack of resources to keep them better organized. Whatever the cause, adopting effective time management techniques can help lawyers be more productive throughout the day and increase their billable hours. Many tools are available to law firms, like Google Calendar to enhance productivity and time management. This tool helps to track time effectively and avoid wasted time, missed deadlines, and inaccuracies that can lead to discrepancies in the billable hours.

Too many lawyers and law firms shy away from technology, but it’s a valuable tool to help with the day-to-day tasks of a law firm. With the shift to remote work, the demands of clients, and the increasing workloads, technology is a vital addition. Even something as ubiquitous as Google Calendar can go a long way toward improving the processes at a law firm, especially when it’s combined with legal practice management software.

What Is Google Calendar?

Google Calendar is a time-management and scheduling calendar service that’s available on the web and as mobile apps for Android and iOS platforms. It’s part of the Google Suite of office software, which includes tools like Google Drive and Google Meet.

With Google Calendar, users can create and edit events, set up reminders, and add special calendars for events like birthdays. Google Calendar also syncs with Gmail to automatically track events from emails and add them to the calendar, avoiding errors and double entries.

The calendar has some other helpful features, including reminders for to-do activities, recommended titles, contacts, and locations when creating events, and goals to set and track personal goals. Events are tracked in the local time, but users can specify a different time zone for an event.

1. Law Firms Can Access Google Calendar from Anywhere

Lawyers are working remotely or in the field more often, fueling the need for a cloud-based solution. Google Calendar resides in the cloud, ensuring that lawyers and other staff members can access and alter their schedules wherever they can access the internet, whether on smartphones or laptops.

The calendar allows you to quickly change views between a single day, week, month, or year view to get a full-picture view of their schedule. If others have shared their calendars, each user can opt to see the schedule or hide it to keep things more streamlined and organized.

2. Leverage Tools and Features

Google Calendar has many built-in tools for organization and time management. Events have a set start and stop time or the option for an all-day event. Users can enable a recurring function with a set frequency for events that take place regularly, such as continuing education or staff meetings that occur weekly or biweekly.

Lawyers and other staff members can also organize events by color. For example, client meetings or events that fall under billable time could be marked in blue, while meetings with staff members or non-billable time could be marked in red. For individual tasks on the to-do list, they can be marked in purple.

3. Enhance Law Firm Collaboration by Sharing

Like the rest of Google Suite, the calendar improves collaboration firm-wide. Lawyers can send invites to anyone with an email address and they’ll receive it in their online calendar with the Google syncing feature.

Calendars can also be shared with the entire firm, so everyone has access to each other’s schedules and important events. Share settings ensure that lawyers and other staff members can limit who can see calendars and events, and who can make alterations to the schedule. Lawyers and other staff members can invite other people to events as well, which then shows up in the calendar. People outside the Google Suite will have options to answer “yes,” “no,” or “maybe” to the event.

4. Prioritize Upcoming Tasks and Events

One of the best time-management tips is to organize the day’s tasks by priority. This ensures that the most important tasks are done first, followed by the medium- or low-priority tasks. Lawyers should begin with a full list of things that need to be done in the near future. These can be organized in Google Calendar. This provides a full list of everything that needs to be done, which can then be prioritized by importance. Lawyers can use colors, tags, or notes to designate the most important and least important tasks to stay on track.

Another option is to start with the most tedious or difficult tasks first, then work toward the easier tasks. Similarly, these tasks can be tagged or color-coded for organization in Google Calendar. This feature also offers optional notifications, such as push notifications, as a reminder to complete different tasks.

5. Use Google Calendar Integration with Legal Practice Management Software

Legal practice management software has many tools to manage time and track billable hours. Bill4Time’s Google Calendar integration keeps track of important events and deadlines, ensuring that lawyers are always on top of their to-do lists. The integration automatically converts events to a time entry to better manage time and avoid losing billable hours. This is helpful for lawyers tracking meetings with clients or related to ongoing cases.

With bi-directional sync between Bill4Time and the Google Calendar, you never have to worry about double entry. Both solutions update, so you always have the most up-to-date information no matter which platform you use. Having this feature safeguards from the inevitable human error and allows for a more streamlined billing and invoicing process. 

How Law Firms Can Use Google Calendar and Legal Practice Management Software for Better Time Management

Google Calendar has a variety of tools that are helpful for law firms, including collaboration, access from anywhere using the cloud, and organizational tools like reminders, push notifications, and color coding for events and meetings. Combined with integrations from a legal practice management software like Bill4Time, Google Calendar can ensure that a law firm runs as efficiently and error-free as possible, maximizing billable hours and keeping the day-to-day running smoothly.

With all of the sensitive and oftentimes personal data law firms store, it’s no surprise that law firm cybersecurity threats are at an all-time high. No matter the area of practice, law firms maintain a wealth of vital client information, valuable intellectual property, sensitive business information, and other confidential or proprietary data. As the legal industry shifts to remote and hybrid work, cybersecurity has never been more of a concern for law firms. In 2020 alone, the American Bar Association discovered that 29% of surveyed law firms experienced some type of cyber attack, which is a 3% increase over 2019. Unfortunately, only 34% of those surveyed had developed an attack response plan.

Law Firm Cybersecurity Threats

Cybersecurity is evolving. It’s no longer reserved for technology, but it’s now one of the greatest risks a law firm can face. In recent years, massive law firms in the United States have been caught up in major cybersecurity breaches that cost millions. Cybersecurity is not just in the realm of the IT department, or for small firms, a risk that isn’t worth addressing. It needs to be part of the general guidelines for using technology in the firm – or in its service.

Cybersecurity is a big undertaking and some firms are too small to have the full weight of IT professionals behind them. Medium and large firms may be delayed in preparing for cyber-attacks because of the costs, or they assume it won’t happen to them.

Overall, law firms have been largely analog until recently. Lawyers and staff tracked client and firm information manually, limiting the risk of a cyber breach. Firms are getting on board with innovation, however, and clients are expecting more technologically advanced communications and approaches – meaning that law firms are now open to the risk of a cyberattack that wasn’t present before.

1. Backing Up Critical Data

Data and IP are critical to law firm operations. Attackers often install malicious software to block access to computers or the data they contain, asking for a ransom to return the data (known as ransomware). This is a major concern for law firms since just one ransomware attack could render huge volumes of data inaccessible.

With regular backups, however, a ransomware attack isn’t as critical. All vital data is copied and stored on an external hard drive or a secure location that’s separate from the network, ensuring the information is still accessible and safe during a cyber attack. This also minimizes the downtime a law firm may experience from an attack.

2. Regular Updates and Patches

Cyber attackers are good at finding ways around cyber security defenses. Software and operating systems that haven’t seen regular updates give cyberattackers ingress points to exploit vulnerabilities and gain widespread access to the system and data within it.

Software updates are usually performed to optimize performance or fix a bug, but they have the added benefit of shoring up cyber security. Patches are a bit different and are intended to address security vulnerabilities. These should always be applied as soon as they become available.

With legal management software through a provider, software updates and patches are applied as needed, keeping security in a law firm’s network as ironclad as possible.

3. Access Control and Authentication

Strong, complex passwords are an excellent line of defense against a cyber attack. Passwords prevent full access to accounts and the sensitive information and data they contain about the business or clients.

Unfortunately, law firms often have integrations with services and systems like DocuSign, DropBox, and more. If just one of these systems is compromised, an attacker could gain access to a lot of valuable information.

Throughout the law firm, all staff members should have strong passwords that combine upper and lowercase letters, numbers, symbols, or phrases that are difficult to guess. When staff members rely on weak, easy-to-remember passwords, especially for multiple accounts, it’s easier for attackers to see what other accounts they can access with just one password.

Tools like a password manager and multi-factor authentication add a layer of defense to ensure that only verified staff members have access to the system. This way, even if an attacker gains a password, they have to go through multi-factor authentication to have full control of the account.

Furthermore, legal practice management allows law firms to configure different users for different access. All functions can be configured with specific user permissions and customizable user access. Contractors can have temporary access, and law firms can track logins automatically to see if anyone is using their credentials inappropriately.

4. Virtual and Physical Protection

Data is not only vulnerable to attackers, but it may be vulnerable to external circumstances like natural disasters and local outages. When these occur, valuable data can be lost or vulnerable.

Legal management software has data centers that are geographically distributed to minimize the effects of regional disruptions. They also have redundant power systems and environmental controls to provide 24/7 uninterrupted service. If service or upgrades are required, the law firm experiences minimal downtime or disruption.

5. Cybersecurity Expertise

Lawyers are good at practicing law, not at shoring up cyber security. It’s best for law firms to outsource cyber security protocols and procedures to experts, which can be achieved with legal practice management software.

Software providers work with trusted third-party leaders in data security to meet or exceed security standards, including putting forth policies and practices for world-class information security. This includes possible threats, how to respond to them, and weak points in devices like desktop computers, smartphones, laptops, removable data storage, security cameras, and more.

Legal Practice Management Software Can Limit Law Firm Cybersecurity Threats

Legal practice management software has many benefits for a law firm, but one of its biggest is that it helps with cyber security. Threats are everywhere and expanding as firms add more users and technology, but understanding the threats and implementing the right software solution can help law firms shore up their defenses.

For an industry defined by tradition, the legal profession is undergoing a substantial amount of change and push back on the status quo. This is especially true when it comes to digital processes and client expectations. While it may seem as if client demands have abruptly shifted, they are simply gravitating to what has been a standard in their daily lives for quite some time. The truth is, law firms are actually playing catch up. 

You may be thinking, “my clients are satisfied with the way things are going,” but a don’t fix what’s broken mindset can hinder your firm’s growth. If your law firm is having issues aligning with clients on payment terms, getting payments on time, or just acquiring and retaining clients,  it could be that a lack of modern processes are creating obstacles in the attorney-client relationship and/or deterring prospects from retaining your law firm. Any of these could spell bad news for a business looking to grow.

In our on-demand world, it’s important for firms to incorporate modern digital processes, like online payments, to remain profitable. This blog will cover the importance of having more than one payment method with a focus on online payments and how this simple service can both save you time and increase your law firm revenue. 

1. Law firm clients are also consumers — and they want options
2. You’ll spend less billable time chasing invoice payments
3. New technology gives you higher visibility into your law firm’s revenue
4. There’s more risk to law firm revenue in not having limited payment options

1. Law firm clients are also consumers — and they want options

It’s easy to think of your clients as just that, clients. While this is true, your firm is limiting itself by not realizing they’re also consumers. Long before your client secured business with your firm, they were a prospect; scouring the internet for legal services, reviewing your law firm and attorneys’ social media accounts (yes, you need to update your LinkedIn), your website, and whatever else Google could crawl. Consciously or subconsciously, during this research process, prospective clients form an opinion about what your law firm has to offer. This may come as no surprise, but more times than not, the services you promote, like your payments methods, can be the deciding factor in a client’s decision to secure business with your firm. 

Having multiple payment options at your firm is a form of customer service that also benefits your billing and in turn, your bottom line. Clients are more likely to pay faster and on time when they can pay online or through a method they’re most comfortable with. It’s nearly impossible to discern what payment method a client prefers, making it imperative to have multiple options so you’re not excluding a subset of clients. 

Bill4Time has made accepting multiple payment methods seamless to adopt with the built-in payments processor, Bill4Time Payments, which allows you to create custom payment links through Link2Pay. Simply add the secure payment link to invoices, your website, or other correspondence to allow clients to pay by credit card or eCheck payment in just a few clicks on any accessible device. To make collecting payments even easier, enable the client portal for clients so they can easily access and pay their invoices in a secure place. 

2. You’ll spend less billable time chasing invoice payments

It’s easy to point the finger at clients for late payments, but let’s take a look inward. If your law firm’s payment process creates more obstacles than solutions for what should be a simple task, you could be detouring clients from making on-time payments and creating more work for your firm to chase down payments. For example, if your law firm only accepts paper checks, it’s time-consuming for a client to obtain checks if they don’t already have them and coordinate getting the check in the mail. This doesn’t account for the time it takes to be delivered by the post office and finally deposited by your accounting department. 

This scenario poses a risk for your law firm’s revenue and the ability to accurately predict cash flow and for the reported 78% of consumers who prefer to pay online, an inconvenience that could make the attorney-client relationship unsustainable. This brings us back to why accepting multiple payment methods with special attention to online payments are crucial to client satisfaction, retention, productivity, and the overall financial health of your firm. 

With Bill4Time’s Link2Pay, your firm can easily accept online payments by placing unique links on invoices, the firm website, or email correspondences. Link2Pay allows your clients to make direct payments to your firm no matter where they are. When clients can pay in a way they’re comfortable with, it makes paying your firm hassle-free. This directly impacts your firm’s productivity and cash flow by freeing up time spent chasing late invoices and allowing clients to pay you faster.

3. New technology gives you higher visibility into your law firm’s revenue

If you’ve caught on already, online payments come with a lot of perks for both you and your clients. One especially important benefit is the enhanced visibility of your firm’s revenue that an Excel sheet simply can’t provide. With Bill4Time Payments, you’ll gain access to exclusive payment reports that allow you to take a deeper look into your cash flow and make informed decisions that will increase your law firm revenue. Quickly review open invoices, retainer payments, refunds, track which client generates the most revenue, and more so you can make informed decisions to scale your business growth. 

Another advantage of having a cloud-based billing solution is that you can access it wherever you go. Whether you’re in the office or the courtroom, you’ll always have a pulse on the inner workings of your firm.

4. There’s more risk to law firm revenue in not having limited payment options

As mentioned, a paper billing process poses several technical challenges for both the client and your firm. But, it also raises concerns about safety and compliance. With a paper billing process, checks can easily get lost in the mail or during the exchange of hands at your firm. This isn’t to say your firm is careless, however, in a world of uncertainty, human error is almost inevitable. And, while human error may be inevitable when it comes to compliance and closing your books each month, a lost check can quickly become problematic. 

This is where having an online payment solution becomes more than just a nice-to-have. ​​Bill4Time Payments was designed for the legal industry and is 100% compliant with IOLTA, the ABA, and lawyers’ online payment rules in all 50 states. The built-in payments processor is also trust account compliant, keeping earned and unearned fees separate and never pulled from trust accounts. 

Bill4Time understands the importance of security and has a dedicated compliance team keeping a watchful eye to keep your firm’s data secure. Our team specializes in fraud prevention and actively keeps up with varying risk and compliance trends that impact our customers. 

Increase your law firm revenue in a few steps

Your competitors are using online payments, why isn’t your firm? It’s not just jumping on the bandwagon — it’s making an investment in the success of your firm and providing top-tier experiences for your clients. While we only listed the top 4 reasons to have multiple payment methods, the benefits are endless. 

Bill4Time’s Link2Pay feature covers all of your firm’s bases when it comes to closing gaps in your billing process and meeting client expectations. Incorporating Link2Pay into your billing process is seamless and can easily be embedded into emails and invoices, email signatures, or documents. 

Pro Tip: We recommend adding Link2Pay as a feature on your website, incorporating it in onboarding documents, or marketing materials as an added convenience to working with your firm. An important aspect of offering online payments is actually showcasing that you have them. For example, if you’re incorporating the use of Link2Pay during client onboarding, it allows you to kickstart the conversation about your firm’s billing process in a natural way. Or if you’re adding Link2Pay as a feature on your website or marketing, it could act as a tactic to strengthen your lead generation strategy by highlighting the modern processes prospective clients are looking for. 

Increase your law firm revenue and take control of your firm’s financial health by scheduling a demo of Bill4Time to see how the easy-to-use platform can simplify your processes and get you paid faster with Bill4Time Payments. If you’re already a Bill4Time customer, getting started with Bill4Time Payments is simple and the application can be accessed in your account today.

The recording for this live stream is available. Register here to access it for free! 

We recently released our built-in payments processor, Bill4Time Payments. Whether you’ve already activated online payments in your Bill4Time account or simply looking for more information on how it can support your business, these best practices will help you get the most out of Bill4Time Payments and reduce your struggles with accounts receivable. 

If you missed the latest virtual event with our Manager, Customer Success, Kris Holz, you can view the recording below to gain more insight on how Bill4Time Payments can simplify your billing. 

Online payments are more than a nice-to-have (3:05) 

In today’s world, it’s almost impossible to run a business without relying on some form of technology or online software. Utilizing technology allows your firm to sync with today’s “on-demand” lifestyle which your customer’s have come to expect when conducting business. This makes having online payments an essential part of your business and customer experience. In fact, many consumers have already agreed that digital payments are their preferred payment option. 

What separates Bill4Time Payments from the rest? (4:03)

Our built-in payments processor cuts out third-parties and gets rid of the middle man. Simply put, we can offer industry-low fees and transparent, flat pricing that other processors can’t. Bill4Time Payments is accessible right within the Bill4Time platform meaning your payments are secure in one place. Did we mention, we’re 100% compliant with ABA, IOLTA, and all 50 state bar associations for accepting online payments?

Customize your client portal (6:44)

Before you get started with online payments, you’ll want to set your clients up for success. This is done by customizing the client portal and activating the appropriate settings. Admin users can easily set up automatic invoice notifications for clients, control the client dashboard to make certain items viewable to the client such as payment history or current balances. Taking just a few moments to customize your client’s experience with the portal will allow for a more secure experience and enable them to pay you faster. 

Sending invoices and your client’s experience (9:00)

Sending an invoice to your clients has never been easier! With Bill4Time Payments, you can easily create customized invoices that will display a “Pay Now” button, giving your client the prompt to securely pay online. If they’ve already set up their client portal, they will receive an email notification to login and pay with a new or previously stored payment method. Clients have the option to pay with credit card, eCheck via bank sign-in or eCheck via account and routing numbers. 

Access a high-level overview of your payments (13:00)

Once approved, you will notice a “Bill4Time Payments” tab within your Bill4Time account. In this tab, you can quickly monitor what payments are coming in and out. You’ll be able to see the status of individual payments, the amounts, and which project they originated from. 

Easily request electronic retainer payments (14:33)

Bill4Time Payments takes it one step further by offering electronic advanced fees or trust payments. Simply send any client in Bill4Time an email containing a link which will direct them to pay their retainer or advanced fee payment to any bank account connected to Bill4Time Payments or operating account. 

Getting started with Bill4Time Payments is simple

In just a few simple steps, your company can be on its way to offering hassle-free online payments. Our 3-step application process is easy to complete and can be found right in your Bill4Time account at no additional cost. 

If you’re not already a Bill4Time user, you can get a free custom demo to learn how our practice management software can help you better manage your business. 

Learn more about how Bill4Time Payments can reduce accounts receivable and exciting upcoming feature releases by watching the recording below.