As a lawyer, your ability to quickly prioritize and act on information is the difference between a reputation for excellence and mediocrity. Sound decisions require a complete and accurate picture of your legal matters.
But when critical deadlines, everyday tasks, and client expectations crowd your calendar like unruly mobs, all you can see is a colorful blur. Clients, courts, and colleagues continuously demand quick responses, and you’re always searching for more time to deliver quality work.
Using only basic calendar, email, and spreadsheet tools to track cases and matters rarely gives you the full picture, fast answers, or additional hours you need. And, as we explore below, legal practice management software sacrifices your most precious resource—time—at the altar of upfront information overload.
To tame today’s disorderly calendar mobs, you need a smart matter-tracking tool with intuitive features that keep you three steps ahead and in full control of your schedule. With this tool, you can better anticipate and address concerns, allocate resources effectively, and avoid the stress of last-minute scrambling—without changing how you work at all, ever.
Basic tools collapse under today’s challenges.
Many small firms and solo lawyers still use Microsoft Outlook or Google email and calendar applications along with Excel or Sheets to track case deadlines and information. These simple tools may get the job done, but they lack features such as at-a-glance dashboards and automated updates that enable you to see and act on new information quickly.
As caseloads and legal complexities increase, spreadsheets and calendars look more and more like impenetrable walls of crayon scribblings. In the ensuing confusion and frustration, adverse situations arise, such as:
- A paralegal updates a spreadsheet with research findings, but the lawyer isn’t notified and misses the information.
- The firm misses a filing deadline because the staff member responsible for the case is out for an extended period.
- A lawyer cannot access an important document needed at a hearing, and the case is delayed.
Rather than receiving swift updates and resolutions, clients can feel uninformed and frustrated by slow responses.
This is when some firms turn to traditional practice management software, only to find it’s like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Legal case management software sits on the shelf.
Lawyers today need tools that work like Swiss Army knives, not sledgehammers. After a herculean effort, some firms can achieve minimal ROI from their case management software. But often, it becomes expensive “shelfware,” gathering dust, unused. Reasons for lackluster results include:
Practice management platforms require extensive up-front data entry.
It goes like this: You’re a lawyer eager to tackle a new case and impress your client. You fire up your laptop to write a memo. Before you can even start, a document profile form demands a mountain of information—every detail about your client, the case, and even the office coffee budget.
In the real world, case information often trickles in slowly, piece by piece. But, you must slog through the entire form right now (avoiding the metadata fields for tags and taxonomies like they’re gas station sushi).
It can take days to get a new client and matter number into the system. But right now, ruthless validation rules prevent documents, deadlines, time entries, and other information from entering the practice management system unless your details are flawless.
A typo in the zip code? Rejected!
Missing a middle initial? Entry denied!
No new matter number yet? Go swim with the fishes!
From the start, you’re forced to work outside the practice management system, creating redundant files you can never be sure are up to date. Ultimately, even simple tasks like sending an invoice are stalled by incorrect and missing data.
Law firms lack a central authority.
Unlike corporations with clear management structures, most law firms are led by groups of strong-willed partners. There is no central authority to roll out or impose new systems. Standardization efforts and a strict dictate to “get with the program” fall on closed, sometimes hostile, ears.
When considering new software, each lawyer must first be convinced of its value. However, lawyers often pride themselves on their hard-won expertise and established workflows. New technology tools often feel like an unnecessary imposition rather than a way to improve productivity.
Clearly, the people who designed legal practice management software never walked in your shoes.
You need an intuitive matter-tracking tool that gives you more visibility and control than basic calendar tools and lets you avoid the stress and waste of case management software.
Track matters during the natural flow of legal work.
As the iPhone proves year after year, even the most independent-minded lawyers embrace new technologies that benefit them and their clients.
Much like the iPhone’s native intuitiveness, Docket Mob™ captures essential case and matter information during the natural flow of legal work rather than requiring you to fill out an antagonistic form.
You don’t need to change anything about your work routine. Simply enter a task or deadline in your calendar as you typically do, and Docket Mob™ automatically gathers the case and matter details to begin tracking it.
When you enter new tasks and due dates in your calendar, Docket Mob™ automatically adds the appropriate case and matter information to new entries. It does the same retroactively, too, ensuring you can pull up a complete, up-to-date case timeline at any time.
Docket Mob™ doesn’t reject imperfect entries or require specific data points. You can start efficiently tracking cases while gradually updating matter information.
You can also link documents to cases for fast reference anytime, anywhere—a huge advantage we’ll explore more in future posts.
Docket Mob™ creates a thorough and up-to-date picture of all your matters, organizing your information in one place for easy prioritization and swift action.
“If you are ready to gain godfather-like visibility into your matters without changing how you work, set up your free Docket Mob™ demo today.”
— Don Corleone (probably), a guy used to dealing with mobs