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The success of law firms relies on a steady flow of billable revenue,
much of which is driven by individual lawyers servicing customers.
But lawyers are often burdened by administrative paperwork, over-heads
and inefficient processes that limit the time they can actually
spend on billable client work. So, given the opportunity to cut
out some of this waste and focus more time on generating revenue,
wouldn’t you jump on it? Many law firms are doing just that.
Law firms such as Allen & Overy, Clarke Will-mott, Eversheds, Freshfields
Bruckhaus Deringer, Linklaters and Shoosmiths have jumped on the
business process management (BPM) bandwagon — using the latest in
BPM software technology to eliminate paper forms, reduce overheads,
automate processes and reduce risk.
Real-time process changes
So what is BPM software? It is a set of capabilities that allow
you to model, automate, integrate, analyse and improve human and
system-intense processes. BPM differs from the workflow capabilities
in your existing records management and case management systems
because it is designed to allow modelling and automation of unique
processes and delivers the flexibility to make real-time process
changes to many different processes across your organisation.
In fact, BPM software actually integrates with your existing document
and case management systems and makes them more valuable. For example,
BPM allows you to utilise data and records across multiple processes,
ensures that records management and case management systems are
updated immediately, and enables multiple people to collaborate
on cases simultaneously.
All actions taken in the process along with the associated content
are logged for auditing, and process statistics and data can be
analysed and displayed in a graphical format for presentations and
reports. The increased visibility that BPM provides into what is
happening across critical business processes can be leveraged to
model changes and apply improvements to the process.
As any business trend grows in popularity, there emerge both advocates
and sceptics, and the BPM trend is no exception. However, even the
sceptics have to take notice that more and more law firms are proving
that BPM software not only solves critical process problems, but
also delivers a fast return on investment and helps them get more
out of the assets they already have — including their lawyers. So
how can you do the same for your organisation?
The first step is to choose a BPM solution — but since BPM can
be applied to many different industries, be sure to find one that
has established and proven itself in the legal sector. Then identify
those core processes that are critical to the business but are paper-intense
and inefficient, or are a source of increased administrative overhead
for lawyers, and use the software to model and automate them.
The New Client Matter Intake process is usually the first critical
process that most firms tackle, as reviewing and processing new
business is one of the most important but challenging and time-consuming
activities within a law firm.
A variety of manual procedures and paperwork are required to check
for potential conflicts of interest, validate the business value
of the matter, establish credit worthiness of the client, gather
marketing data for cross-selling and ensure that the firm’s accounting
systems are updated with the information required to generate accurate
monthly billing statements.
Using a BPM solution to automate new business intake enables firms
to dramatically reduce the time required to move a new matter from
the initial request to a billable client matter.
By applying BPM to new business intake and conflicts management
processes, firms can quickly achieve measurable results in many
areas. These include faster intake of new clients and matters, elimination
of duplicate data entry errors and omissions, reduced administrative
overheads, process compliance across global operations and centralised
re-use of existing data, systems and technologies through seamless
integration. Creating greater efficiency in this process frees up
lawyer time for billable work, while at the same time lowers the
risk to the firm by ensuring a thorough review and capturing an
online audit trail.
Other opportunities for applying BPM include anti-money laundering
precautions, audit letter response, collections, accounts receivable
write-off, file closing, prospective search records management,
travel and expense and cheque requisition.
BPM technology helps law firms achieve competitive advantage by
increasing efficiency and reducing costs without sacrificing the
superior client service that is so critical to success.
In addition, firms are finding that they can leverage BPM software
to achieve regulatory compliance and lower risk and ultimately save
hundreds of thousands of pounds on annual liability insurance premiums.
And if that value is not enough to persuade you, then think about
the hundreds of extra billable hours your lawyers will generate
each year when you free them up from all of the administrative overheads
that currently plague them.
Laura
Mooney is senior director of Metastorm.
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