Ben Deverson, Founder & Director, Lawganised.
As a consultant that specialises in the practice management of legal firms, my conversations with managing partners of law firms will often move quickly to discussing technology and its ability to facilitate far greater efficiency for law firms.
Practice management software is obviously in this space and the common theme I hear during these conversations on various practice management systems is words to the effect of: “….our system is good, but….” Their narrative continues to discuss one of a number of, what I call, pebbles in their shoes; issues that cause bottlenecks, inefficiency and additional burden for practitioners and their support teams.
Issues like two software systems performing critical functions in the firm, yet not being integrated. Such a lack of integration causes delays as data is extracted from one and uploaded to another. Or when a firm has grown over the years with an uncoordinated approach to their broader IT and software environment, characterised by a series of ‘bolt ons’. What results here resembles a Dad’s Army of clunky, disconnected systems with ineffective, human activated, processes in between them to make them all ‘talk to each other’. As a former partner of a law firm myself, such an approach to critical infrastructure and systems would literally keep me up at night and create a level of uncertainty so pervasive that one could never trust the numbers they are looking at.
Wouldn’t it be better for one source of truth?
Implementing a system that integrates all your client service (client engagement and matter management), WIP, billings, document management, reporting, debtors, finance, balance sheet, P&L, payroll, trust accounting and so on forth, creates one data entry point for every item. Be it recorded time, an outlay, a leave day taken or a bonus paid, it will all be in one location. Yes, you can have expensive “APIs” developed to integrate systems, but when it comes to practice management, my strong recommendation is to create your single point of truth.
How is your level of certainty about the data you receive, where it originated, and how many sets of hands it passed through before it hit your desk?
LawMaster is one such system that delivers all this and the clients I work with that use LawMaster experience absolute certainty with, what LawMaster suggest is the: “One place for the truth.”
Whatever system you use, seek the certainty you need to run your firm with confidence and make decisions backed by reliable real time data.
About the Author
Director and Founder of Lawganised, Ben Deverson, has had a 24-year executive career of which over half has been managing and leading professional services firms. Prior to launching Lawganised Ben was the Principal and Managing Director of a boutique law firm based in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane. Whilst not being a qualified lawyer, Ben is a management specialist and has gained an intimate knowledge of the challenges that law firms face day to day. Ben’s career has been unique in that he has held leadership and management roles from very early in his career including an Australian Army Officer, Chief Operating Officer and Practice Manager for two global accounting firms, a senior commercial manager of a major Queensland infrastructure project and General Manager of an independent Statutory Body.
