Categories
technology

How is Technology changing the legal profession?

technology innovation in law firms

Technological evolution, specifically artificial intelligence, is rapidly changing the legal industry and legal profession. Modern software can now scan legal documents, streamline communications, and find relevant casework for lawyers.

In fact, about 39% of the work done by lawyers can be automated by technological advancements according to McKinsey Global Institute.

Software revolution in the legal industry

In the early years in the 21st century, law firms began streamlining the document review process by experimenting with software. During this time, gigabytes of data were collected, were reviewed, and lawyers were asked to run search terms.

Over time, the algorithms became popular and sophisticated. Humans are setting the parameters but computers are breaking down those millions of pieces of information to be readily available.

Integrating the back-office with the front-office

A firm grouped together back-office specialists by practice area. Each practice area has devoted marketing and financial professional which directly translates greater proficiency in business development and pricing for that area of law.

It’s like a billing specialist working directly with a partner to reduce rejections and appeals by resolving e-billing issues for that practice area.

“No touch” law firm invoicing could be enabled by AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) in law firms holds lots of potential.

Systems that are being used by law firms already are “familiar” with what is being done.

As an example, if a lawyer had a phone call, attended a meeting, or worked on a document, traces of that information is already embedded in the system.

AI then stores the data, provides a timesheet at the end of the day, gathers up into an invoice on a specific day every month, and then billed to the client.

Big data used to predict litigation pricing

Time entry is hard and almost all timekeepers dislike the task⁠—⁠but AI brings new benefits to pricing.

Time entries are considered to be a huge data set and a panelist envisions applying AI to hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of time cards and building a budget for the most complex litigation matters with 80& probability.

The firm then could offer the client a fixed fee and price in the remaining risk.

Innovation must be initiated from the top

Leaders who are taking innovation seriously and who are actively involved in development are typically in firms that are successfully improving how things are being done. Implementing innovation must always be initiated from the top.

Categories
marketing

Review of the Sanders Witherspoon LLP Website

sanderswitherspoon homepage

Sanders Witherspoon LLP recently revamped their website resulting in a 70% increase in traffic year on year.

Focus has been on a mobile first audience by making contact details readily available on both mobile and desktop including click-to-call functions and accessible contact forms.

You can visit sanderswitherspoon.co.uk here and see for yourselves.

In the words of the senior team at Sanderswitherspoon, the website is designed to help users do the following:

  • Easier contact process
  • Faster access to information from experts
  • Improved editorial content

Liz Barnett a senior partner at Sanders Witherspoon LLP  said

“We needed a website that not only helps visitors to find information and make contact with us, but that was structured well enough to start ranking higher in Google for some of our key services.”

Before we revamped the sites our traffic was stagnating a bit and we could see competitors appearing ahead of us and search engines and wanted a piece of that traffic.

Our new site to give us a flexible content management system whereby weekend improve update and add new content as we wish as well as quickly make updates for example when covid-19 happened and we needed to communicate things quickly with customers”.

The home page

The homepage has a clear message that this is a page about solicitors in Billericay, Essex. People in the SEO industry might be sceptical of this as there probably isn’t a need to tell people that you are a solicitor in Billericay and most visitors would probably rather you got to the point and tell them how you can be abuse. However it is useful to support the fact that you are local if people have searched specifically for that term. 

They have however provided clear calls to Action just underneath the opening sentence guiding visitors to either the service page where they can choose or at least see if the service is available and an option to see who works at the firm.

Structure

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. The structure of the website follows the normal pattern of most law firms websites. In fact it’s a common pattern in most business sites. About us then services then blog then contact.

The new blog section is structured to allow users to find relevant information. For example each category page seems to direct you to a landing page where all of the relevant blogs are hosted or linked to. 

Mobile experience

The site works well on mobile and most importantly (for Google anyway) it loads quickly. The telephone number has been replaced with a click to call option and the construction of the top of the page follow you down. Particularly useful if you are looking for urgent legal advice.

Ways to get in touch

The forms are flexible and in some cases there are separate contact forms for different services. For example the form for making an enquiry about family Law Services gives you an option to make a quick enquiry under the assumption that you may be under some stress at home and need to make a sharp exit.

The form for the Wills service  is slightly bigger and reinforces some of the brand messages and reasons as to why you should enquire.

Good to know

Sanders Witherspoon also now track all calls from a website using call tracking software. This is a handy way of seeing which channel drove the call and you can even segment by first-time callers and people who have called your business before. All the stats appear in Google Analytics.

You can see out other legal website reviews here.

Categories
ediscovery law

cyber security in ediscovery

Cybersecurity should be prioritized by litigation lawyers handling confidential computer data. There have been hundreds of documented extent to which law firms are a prime target for frequent cyber-attacks because of electronically stored information (ESI) they are housing. Criminal hackers have figured out to access data from law firm computers that they cannot get from a company’s well-defended data directly.

With the development of cybercrime activities over the years, many top law firms have taken steps in the past decade to strengthen systems focusing on the protection of client ESI.

Confidential client ESI can also sometimes be hacked by unethical competitors who are engaging in illegal eDiscovery. For example, those trying to crush a competing business or those trying to win a lawsuit.

Cybercrime activities are intensifying and increasing every year, and so is the amount of confidential information stored in computers.

All of this confidential information has a value to criminal hackers. Any law firm that does not realize that it is subject to cyber attack is naive.

Forward thinking law firms involved in ediscovery projects, are aware of security threats and proactive in protecting their computer systems, especially their clients’ confidential data. 

Every lawyer has a duty to maintain client confidentiality in today’s world of cyber attacks requires much more than legal knowledge and legal skills.

It requires sophisticated computer knowledge and skills far beyond traditional legal practices.

That is why cybersecurity experts should be used to assist in any law firm’s data protection efforts.

Are you a law firm that is doing all they can to improve cybersecurity and taking the data of clients’, cases and any sensitive information seriously. Drop us an email and let us know what your priorities are, email ediscovlaw@gmail.com.

You may also be interested in:

Predictive coding and scientific research.

Categories
ediscovery law

Predictive Coding & Scientific Research

Law firms can reduce the cost of review in large e-discovery projects by using advanced search technologies such as active machine learning, known as Predictive Coding, TAR (Technology Assisted Review) or CAR (Computer Assisted Review). For medium to large law firms looking to cut the costs of admin, this will become more and more important over the next 10 years.

Predictive coding helps firms save on admin and system costs by finding relevant documents in a large collection, faster than traditional methods.

It’s estimated that  70 percent of total e-discovery production costs are taken up by outside counsel according to Rand corporation.

Machine learning is a type of artificial intelligence that involves programming a computer to find relevant documents in a large collection and it is generally accepted by most courts and has been for a number of years. 

Machine learning is now a big part of most people’s lives without them realising, from Amazon recommendations to watching movies on Netflix of listening to music on Spotify. The computer learns what our preferences are and this is the same with legal software.

During the last 10 years, there has been an increase in great studies and explanation of predictive coding software. Including that of Jason Baron.

Scientific research and AI has made great progress over the past 10 years, so if you are working on ediscovery projects, bear it in mind.

Categories
marketing

Great UX, what about the appearance?

nh-law.co.uk

The next in our “review of legal websites” series and we’ve been asked to take a look at  Natasha Hall law, a small law firm on the Wirral in the UK.

Natasha batty the principal solicitor at the firm says:

“We were persuaded to update our site because previously we had no control over editing or adding new content as well as not having access to any sort of Analytics. we didn’t know whether we were getting 10 website visitors per month or 10000. Let alone knowing what they did when they visited the site.”

Natasha Batty, Principal Solicitor

Mobile experience 

At first glance the site looks good on mobile. it loads fast and tells you exactly what the site is about as well as what each service page is about. some of the images on the service pages are a little dreary… But hey, it is the legal sector.

The background image on the homepage is nice and clean letting people know instantly that this firm deal specifically in the local area ( the image is of the Wirral).

The branding

The law firm are keen to let you know that they are local however it would be good to see Natasha featured more even on the homepage as this will help the brand to be different to competitors. This would be particularly useful when dealing with local clients.

While branding isn’t all about colours some of the combinations with grey and dark blue are also a little on the tired side. Luckily the information is all there and easy for customers to find.

The content

The content, particularly on blog pages Is in depth and demonstrates a real level specialism particularly for things like housing disrepair and legal services for tenants.

This content is also nicely laid out and looks good on mobile, there aren’t just reams of text as some of the blogs reach over 1500 words! 

Ways to get in touch

The website has some generic looking contact forms and the phone numbers are always visible. the click-to-call feature on mobile is a particularly nice feature and likely to reduce friction from potential clients.

Could do better?

The content goes into real depth and would be a great value to a client looking for information on a particular service. which of the personal injury information is widely available elsewhere so would be good to find out more about Natasha and how she particularly helps in these instances.

Aside from that is a nicely structured site that is likely to cater for your needs if you don’t know where to start with legal services in that local area.

Have you had a website revamp or want to tell us why your legal site works? Get in touch here