The right software can make running your personal injury law firm easier.
Software tools can lead to increased productivity for lawyers and their teams. They can help you provide a consistent experience for clients. Personal injury law software can even help you make parts of the client acquisition process a breeze.
There are several different categories of software personal injury lawyers can benefit from. Below you’ll find our guide to the major types of tools for lawyers you may want to consider.
Client Intake Software
Client intake software helps record important information from potential clients. Onboarding new clients is fast and simple with client intake programs.
The client intake process is a potential client’s first introduction to your law firm’s organizational and communication skills, so it’s crucial. Nearly 80% of law firms say that intake software helps them get more clients while using time efficiently.
These tools let you gather important data, schedule consultations, and sign documents all from one place. This results in eliminating staff time spent manually entering this data into other systems.
Some of the most popular lawyer client intake software programs are:
- CloudLex
- Captorra
- Clio
- Lawmatics
- Interaction
Intake software is helpful if you struggle to keep up with the administrative aspect of communicating with new prospective clients.
Case Management Software
Once someone becomes a client, you may need a tool to track their case and make important updates.
With case management tools, you can see where a case falls in the process from intake to completion. You can also safely share information like case matter with clients right inside the platform.
Some of the best tools on the market for personal injury case management software include:
- Practice Panther
- CaseFleet
- MyCase
- GrowPath
- Lawcus
For personal injury lawyers, who may be discussing personal details such as someone’s medical conditions and care, it’s best to find a tool with top-level security.
Document Management Software
Any legal case, but especially personal injury claims, involves a lot of documents shared back and forth.
As the name implies, document management software can store these important materials for you. More importantly, it does so in a way that ensures you can easily search for and update your documents.
Popular document management tools for lawyers include:
- Clio
- SharePoint
- NetDocuments
- LexWorkplace
Document management is a feature that might come with case management or practice management software plans. Check that you’re not already using something to cover document management before investing in something separate.
Most document management programs are for storage purposes, which makes them distinct from document automation tools. The latter focuses on helping personal injury attorneys draft common legal documents more quickly.
Practice Management Software
For something holistic that enables you to run multiple aspects of your firm, practice management software covers a lot of bases.
If you don’t want a lot of subscriptions to different tools, look for an option that includes most of what you need as features. Practice management tools often cover the administrative, accounting, case management, and client communication activities you need to manage your law firm.
The most popular practice management tools on the market for lawyers are:
- SmartAdvocate
- FileVine
- Clio
- PracticePanther
Project Management Software
If you have the right practice management tool, you might not need another one for project management. There is a lot of overlap between the two. If possible, choose the one that is most appropriate for your law firm, as using both may be redundant.
Project management tools help you create reports, schedule things, track tasks across your entire team, and send out invoices.
The most commonly-used project management tools for lawyers are:
- ClickUp
- Trello
- Monday
- Clio
- Smartsheet
Customer Relationship Managers (CRMs)
When you get a new lead, you may need to track that person through multiple follow-ups and actions before they become a client. A customer relationship manager can help with that.
A customer relationship manager maintains contact details about each potential client.
When someone reaches out to you, such as through a contact form on your website, they’re added to the tool automatically. This can help you better understand how your law firm marketing efforts are paying off.
From there, you can see exactly where that contact is in the sales pipeline. Using that information, you can see important data about your potential clients, such as when they’re most likely to take action to work with you.
For example, you might learn that your average car accident client hires you after three personal emails sharing relevant details about their case type with them.
Some of the best CRMs for personal injury lawyers are:
- LawMatics
- HubSpot
- Intapp
- Captorra
- Interaction
CRMs are easy to confuse with client intake tools. They actually serve two different purposes. Client intake software helps you bring people on board once they’ve hired you. A CRM is primarily used to communicate with people who are not yet clients or may never become clients (like referral partners).
Timekeeping Tools
If you still use the billable hour, you need timekeeping tools to accurately track what you did for each client. Timekeeping tools can help with this and much more.
These tools give you a sense of how long it takes you to do various projects, such as drafting, research, and communication with clients. You can even track non-billable time to spot inefficiencies.
Timekeeping may come as a feature in an existing software tool for your law firm. If not, it’s smart to choose a standalone one for you and your team. The most common options for personal injury lawyers are:
- Toggl
- Microsoft ToDo
- TimeSolv
- Everhour
Legal Research Tools
Looking up case law, statutes, or other data from courts is crucial for any lawyer. Finding this information, storing it, and getting notified about updates will help you serve clients more efficiently.
Here, the choice is between free and paid options for legal research. Paid tools may come with bigger databases, more frequently updated databases, or other features that make your life easier.
Some of the best legal research tools include:
- Caselaw Access Project (free)
- CourtListener (Free)
- Legal Information Institute (Free)
- FastCase (Paid)
- LexisNexis (Paid)
Other Useful Tools for Personal Injury Lawyers
What’s listed above are the most common tool categories for all personal injury lawyers. There are plenty of other types of tools that are more niche. Depending on your practice, you might also need additional tools for lawyers like:
- Communication tools
- Scanning programs
- eDiscovery software
- Citation generators
- Virtual receptionist tools
Tips For Choosing the Right Software for Your Personal Injury Firm
There are two big considerations to think about when investing in new software:
First is whether the new software is worth the cost. This includes considering the actual price tag for the tools as well as the opportunity cost. Will the additional training time and expenses pay off in a meaningful way for you or your clients?
The second is to think about the features that you need out of the tool and the features you already have in your existing tech toolset.
Your law firm tech stack should all work together to streamline operations rather than make things cluttered or confusing for you, your staff, or your clients. Look for integrations with existing programs before signing up for anything new.
Some tools have significant overlap when it comes to features. You don’t necessarily need to select a different tool for each of the categories below. For example, you may not need separate client intake, case management, and timekeeping software if you have one tool that handles all three.
Get More Time Back with Personal Injury Law Firm Software
As a personal injury lawyer, your time is best spent serving your clients. The right software can clear the path so you can spend more time focusing on providing legal services.
You can also get more of your time back by delegating time-consuming and yet important aspects of your practice, such as law firm marketing. Keep your client pipeline full by developing and executing a strong law firm marketing plan with the help of an outside marketing partner like Rankings.io.
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