Tom Collins over at morepartnerincome has a great post on law firm case management systems. One of the most frequently asked questions from lawyers and law firm is about which case management system to use. As Collins points out, case management software is just the beginning. Most firms don't use their systems to their full capability, regardless of which system they use.
Collins notes,
In many respects, any tool you use for case management is a blank sheet of paper. To successfully implement case management, you have to be committed to training and investing the resources to set up the system to fit your practice areas. You have to continue to invest to keep your system fine-tuned to those needs. It is not something you just take out of the box and start using. What comes out of the box is just the beginning.
Good case management software can be a huge help in automating office systems and in making any law firm more consistent and effective. But the old 'garbage in, garbage out' adage comes to mind; your case management program can't actually manage your law firm for you - you've got to determine what functions are necessary for your firm, what information needs to be captured, what documents need to be generated, what the deadlines need to be met, etc. Essentially, you need to know how you want and need to manage your cases before you can optimize any case management system, whether it's a commercial solution or not.
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