Virtual law firms are becoming more common, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to work remotely. Taking your law firm remote can give your firm a number of advantages when you’re using the right technology.
Here are three tech essentials for becoming a virtual law firm in 2022.
Your Law Firm’s Website
Your website is your virtual office, and when your physical office is not available to clients, your website must work even harder to make a great impression.
Your website is essential to your law firm’s business. In fact, it’s the most critical part of your firm’s marketing. The opportunity cost of failing to invest either time or money into your website will be high – something that is true in both boom times and recessions.
When business is booming, you’ll likely have more money to invest. When business is slow, you’ll have an opportunity to invest your time and effort to set yourself up for sustainable success in the future.
There is a range of options available at many price points and values – but whether you choose a general website builder, a marketing agency, or a lawyer-specific platform like LawLytics, make sure that:
- You can easily access and control your website
- You don’t struggle with your website’s technology
- Your website looks professional
- Your website is user friendly
- Your website is search-engine friendly
Good web marketing software puts you in control of your practice when it adds transparency to your marketing. You should be able to easily create new web pages and content, clearly understand who is engaging with your website, and make it easy for your potential clients to like you, trust you, and contact you. Good web marketing software should make it easy to operate strategically, saving time and money in the process.
If you’re struggling to control or maintain your website, if you’re overpaying and not seeing results, or if you’re not sure what makes a successful website for lawyers, now is the time to ensure that your website infrastructure is set up correctly.
An Effective, Easy-to-Use Phone System
If your clients and potential clients don’t have a great experience when they call your office, it’s time to take action. Your phone system needs excellent sound quality. But it also needs to be predictable, consistent, user friendly, and quick to use.
Callers should be able to easily and intuitively navigate through your phone system and get to the person or information that they want. They shouldn’t have to listen to long messages or listen to someone speaking too quickly for them to understand.
There are lots of tech options available to ensure that anyone who calls your office has a high-quality experience: attorneys can choose from auto-attendants to third-party reception services, as two examples. And, of course, many attorneys are using Zoom to run remote client meetings.
Whichever method you choose, you’ll want to make sure that your callers get excellent service every time they interact with your office over the phone.
Practice Management Software
As more and more law firms go virtual, the need for good practice management software is key.
Good practice management software eliminates things like the in-house file clerk, constant texts and calls to an assistant, or the need to pack files in your briefcase.
Having good web marketing software or good practice management software is a step in the right direction for most firms. But when you have web marketing and practice management tools that work together, it’s a powerful partnership that transforms how you market and run your practice.
Like your website marketing tools, your practice management software should do three things: save you time, integrate seamlessly with your website marketing tools, and add transparency to your practice.
For example, when a potential client submits a form on your law firm’s website, you should be able to easily transfer that information to your practice management software. When that potential client is ready to retain you, your practice management software should help you easily transition that client to the next part of their journey with your firm.
When attorneys use the right web marketing tools — ones that allow them to effectively engage with potential clients — they often see their business grow quickly. And when that happens, it’s important to be prepared downstream to handle all of those clients. That means using the right practice management software.
You should be able to see everything happening at your firm in one convenient location, helping you avoid chaos and confusion.
Good practice management software should be the hub of your firm’s daily practice activities. When you know what’s going on with clients, their matters, and your practice, you’ll get more done with less stress.
LawLytics makes marketing your practice simple.
LawLytics makes it easy to have a robust, lucrative, and fully supported law firm website without overspending with marketing agencies and or struggling with general website builders. Having a compelling website that attracts and converts clients is essential to building a thriving practice. With LawLytics, it’s fast, easy, and affordable.
Plus, LawLytics integrates with popular platforms that attorneys use, including practice management software, live chat, phone tracking, payment portals, and more.
If you’re not a LawLytics member and want to grow your firm’s online presence, LawLytics can help: The platform is built to provide everything you need to have a website that’s optimized to convert your ideal clients and work with tools you may already use. To see it in action, schedule a 20-minute interactive demo.
