Virtual Legal Services: 3 Changes Your Legal Business Should Implement Right Away
The way that clients want to interact with legal professionals is changing. Most people, including the older generation, are comfortable with technology and a large portion of people would prefer to deal with virtual legal services instead of meeting a lawyer face to face. This is especially true at the moment due to the COVID-19 pandemic but this trend will most likely continue even after things return to normal again.
If your legal business is going to survive, it’s vital that you adapt to this new way of working and start investing in the right technology now, so you can provide virtual legal services in the future. These are some of the most important considerations you need to make.
Creating A Virtual Office
Virtual legal services are not just about giving clients a new way to interact with legal professionals. Creating a virtual office is an effective way for you to cut your overheads and provide a more flexible working environment for your team. Legal professionals have more flexibility to visit clients in their own homes, as well as providing virtual services. People also tend to be more productive when working in their own environment and setting their own hours. Overall this is one of the best changes you can make to your legal business moving forward.
Investing In Communication Tools
Implementing the right communication tools is one of the most important steps if you want to provide virtual legal services to your clients. They need to be able to connect with legal experts from the comfort of their own homes, at a time that suits them. In order to facilitate this, you need to invest heavily in video conferencing tools, VoIP (voice over internet protocol) systems, and advanced scheduling tools. When things run seamlessly, virtual legal services benefit both you and the client. But if you are using outdated tools, the level of service suffers and this has a knock-on effect on your ability to help your clients.
Create Systems For Managing Documents
Managing legal documents can be a challenge when you start doing everything virtually, so you need to think about how you are going to do that and start creating systems. First, invest in the right tools, like cloud storage and software that allows for virtual signatures. You also need to make sure that you have the right security software in place so you reduce the risk of losing sensitive information about your clients.
You also need to have a policy in place to determine access to documents. The more times a document is shared and accessed on different computers, the more vulnerable it is to theft. The good news is, you can easily mitigate this risk if you limit access and only let employees access documents when absolutely necessary. This reduces the chances of data loss and it also allows you to track the flow of information so if important documents are lost, you can identify where the breach came from, allowing you to boost your security in the future.
The future of the legal industry is virtual and if you want to stay relevant, you should start implementing these changes now.