All legal leaders are hoping and researching effective ways to increase their revenue by some or the other means. I mean, why now? Like the pandemic and its deep drive effect has made people Google out all the ways out there to cope with the finances and increase their revenue by all means. With the pandemic rising and the physical workplace not being an option, thinking about alternatives is the highest need of the situation, not just for lawyers but for other businesses as well.
Attorneys need to deal with many unseen challenges that came with this pandemic. Finding a perfect solution was not hassle-free; it required a huge amount of time investment and proper planning. The cloud-based solutions came up with many exceptional features that allowed the flow of law firms’ revenue in a cost-friendly and effective way, serving relief to the legal professionals. It was not that seamless for the law firms to invest a high amount of revenue in these legal software or tools; lawyers needed a one-stop solution that required less cost and gave good output. That’s where the most affordable solution for lawyers, CaseFox, came up and, with the robust features and the affordable pricing, emerged to grow and expand, targeting the solos and the small law firms in general.
Revenue was a topic to be studied and analyzed, especially when the operations of the legal sector closed down. Courts were closed, no hearings were conducted, lawyers’ employment was imbalanced, and finding work became difficult. With so many deviations coming up, the need to find a solution was the need of the hour.
This blog will give you deep insight into how you can increase your law firm’s revenue through some effective strategies in this pandemic situation.
Cut Down Overheads
A law firm incurs many expenses, some of which can be eliminated if researched properly. Make a report and jot down what expenses can be reduced and which expenses are not giving you any output. Once you are done with getting what expenses are not important, try to cut them down and manage the saved money in something worth giving.
For example, now in the time of the pandemic, every lawyer knows that practice can be continued virtually from their respective homes. So rather than operating physically, lawyers can easily operate from their home and cut off expenses related to paying office rent, investing in maintenance, buying a new office, and many other high costs.
Make Billing Standardized
A lawyer needs to keep a check every hour and minute on their work. An attorney must keep a proper check on timekeeping with some organized timekeeping software to generate effective billing reports in seconds.
For example, when a lawyer connects with a client, the analysis of time spent in calling, emailing, or doing face-to-face interactions should also be noted and entered in the billing report. Both lawyers and clients need to know the exact details of billing, with each time being jotted down and addressed. Using legal billing software to bill your time is a time-friendly solution.
Plan Your Marketing
Investment in marketing activities is required at every level. But many firms lack in maintaining a proper marketing plan, which makes them face a huge amount of unnecessary loss. Exponential profits can only be earned if there is a perfect base for marketing and reach. An attorney should focus on effective and cost-friendly ways to promote their brand and should invest wisely after proper research and analysis.
For example: If a lawyer invests in a marketing tool under peer pressure and invests a huge amount, thinking to earn huge profits, but due to a mismatch between the tool and the domain in which the lawyer’s work doesn’t match, then the lawyer may suffer huge money and goodwill loss.
Escalating Billing Rates
Increasing revenue is painless when you increase your bill rate simultaneously with your business operation. By providing the best services to your clients, you can easily charge them. Once they are satisfied with your work, they will be willing to pay you more. Choosing a profitable solution involves thinking about how to increase revenue in bits and make a huge profit from it.
For example, A lawyer increases the rates when the lawyer is confident that clients are happy with the work. So now clients are content in paying even more because they are fully satisfied with the lawyer. Perfect timing and proper decision-making are a must to have a successful boost in your billing rates.
Effective Decision Making
The decisions you take once implemented affect your organization in both positive and negative ways. The lawyer has to keenly study all the reports relating to invoices, time entries, and billable and non-billable hours to know the exact financial position of the firm. Many times, wrong reports are prepared, which affects the decision-making power, and the decision does not serve any positive change in the law practice.
For example, due to some negligence, a lawyer misinterpreted the billable hours, and the whole report was prepared on an incorrect basis. Now, at the time of decision-making, the lawyer kept this report as a reference and a tool for decision-making and made investments to correct deviations. This decision will result in capital and time wastage. Substituting a lawyer’s manual report prepared for professional invoices and reports with the use of legal billing management software is more apt.
Review Clients’ Views
Just adopting some method is not enough to gain goodwill. Keeping a proper check on your clients and the view of your work is equally important. From your client’s views, you can easily get to know what updates and changes are required to make law practice more comfortable and flexible for your clients. Ignoring the client’s point of view can lead to high-end loss and misunderstanding between the lawyer and client.
For example, your client reviewed that the billable time is not accurate and some entries are duplicated. You, as a lawyer, need to take responsibility looking forward to solving the mistakes and present a clear report to your client, thereby making him feel more satisfied.
Explore Cloud-based Solutions
Minimizing cost and gaining a lot of advantages is made possible through the emergence of cloud-based software in the legal world. Legal software helps lawyers and law firms boost their productivity just by working remotely from anywhere and anytime. This flexibility was not available with physical and ground work.
For example, A solo practitioner faces difficulty in managing everything on their own. Being the owner is not easy. But automating some administrative yet important tasks in the legal practice management software can act as a great help. It would set a long-term success base for lawyers and attorneys in managing and balancing their work-life, even in a pandemic.
Pre-plan Finances
You can only invest and earn if you have ready money available at the time of need. Preplanning of finances is vital as it ensures the smooth running of a law practice without any financial hindrance. One can easily purchase and invest at the right time and can earn quick benefits only if the money is managed from the start.
For example, the Pandemic came without any predictions, and it affected the whole economic state of the globe. Law firms that use legal accounting software deliver all financial reports accurately. It’s important to pre-plan all your resources and finances to let your law firm gain productivity at any point of crisis.
Work Flexibly
Many reports have stated that lawyers have faced huge mental illness and depression issues due to heavy workloads and hectic schedules. The legal sector needs to be simplified with the proper use of resources. No lawyer or attorney thought of remote working before this pandemic started. But when everything went on a standstill, all courts closed, law offices were not opened, no one-to-one interaction with clients, the law firm thought of new ways to start working again.
For example, managing documents of different cases is hectic as storing, updating, and retrieving those documents takes a huge amount of a lawyer’s time. So rather than doing document management manually, attorneys can easily use document management software, which can help them in managing all document-related activities and will assist them in saving a lot of time, thereby making them less stressed and worried.
Conclusion
The pandemic has induced many law firms to switch towards cloud-based solutions to cover up their past losses. The use of Cloud solutions isn’t something negative, rather it provides a great hope of success and increased revenue for law firms in a shorter period. Most of the money was used in outsourcing the legal work, but with legal technology, a little investment can just make all your work look automated and professional in a few minutes. Casefox legal billing software is a best-in-class solution to run your law practice in the flexible way you want it to be.