How Law Firms Can Leverage Technology to Better Meet Client Needs

By Jane Trombly, Sr. Director of Global Sales, Knowledge Management at Aderant

It is no secret that all clients, regardless of size, expect to receive key-client treatment from their law firms. In recent years, one expectation in particular has risen above the rest: greater transparency. Requests for access to key matter and financial information have quickly become a central theme from clients across the globe.

Most firms struggle to deliver this information in the secure, self-service manner that their clients are accustomed to receiving from other service provides (think about your bank, or utility providers). In order to fulfill this request at the most basic level, lawyers must typically visit multiple data sources and platforms within their firm’s tech stack to compile and deliver this information. Firms without a tech solution in place are cobbling data and information together and sending it via email or Dropbox. This disorganized approach presents an unnecessary security risk, and concern over this risk is gaining momentum.  According to the recent Aderant RFP Survey, 71% of clients are concerned about how their firms are maintaining a secure environment and protecting their data and information. This concern manifests itself in increased delivery times, security risks like exposure to data breaches, accidentally disclosing confidential or proprietary information, or working from old or outdated documents.

The same Aderant RFP Survey also shows that 88% of clients want firms to provide secure collaboration portals for real-time communication and data sharing. While some firms have attempted to address this by providing a legal client portal built in house, it is typically implemented via an expensive extranet solution that requires customized connectors to various data sources. These one-off portals are extremely cumbersome and resource-intensive and are therefore reserved for only top-tier clients. In this day and age, all clients expect and deserve accessibility – but even when firms do have a solution in place, it is too cost prohibitive to scale.

So, how should firms step up to meet the challenge that their clients have posed? Today’s best-in-class firms understand that their solution needs to be scalable and cannot rely on a significant effort by their IT departments. Many have implemented a client portal solution like Aderant Drive that leverages all of the existing benefits of their current tech stack (including built-in and trusted security in Office 365 and SharePoint Online) to ensure that all clients have access to the information they want in the secure environment that they need – without the burden on lawyers and firm IT departments.

Improving client trust through transparency means providing a consistent and high-touch level of service. Legal client portals should be a simple and secure way to share, manage and interact with matter-related content, resulting in happier and more efficient clients.

The demand for access and transparency is the new standard. It is in the best interest of all firms to implement a self-service solution for clients to access the data that they need sooner rather than later. Not only does this benefit the firm-client relationship, but it streamlines daily operations to allow the firm to focus on what it does best.

Learn more about providing a simple, secure, and scalable collaboration solution here.