They have trained all their people on it and continued to pay the vendor an ongoing maintenance fee over the years. Over time, however, their vendor had little motivation to upgrade the product or show the system owners how to leverage its features for more efficiency and data-based decision-making. If you are like most people, you will get easily frustrated with a tool with limited uses. If you run the practice, you will likely appreciate a better system that can help you manage your caseload without spending too much time on computing tasks, many of which are manually performed in older legal management systems. We're here to offer hope. Don't limit yourself to a prehistoric legal PMS when there's something better out there for you.
Reasons Why You Aren't Maximising the Use of a Practice Management System
You went to the initial PMS training but never learned how to use every component of the software. For example, you just learned how to perform basic transactions such as adding a new client, making case notes, and billing hours to the account, but you never learned how to run reports on missing paperwork or actions that need to be performed on the case.
You were told that your firm had already received the level of training and support the vendor agreed to in the original contract. This could be a truth that occurred somewhere along the way, but you can always open a new dialogue with the vendor. Your firm isn't limited to how the relationship was, and you are also free to form a new and better partnership with a more responsive firm.
You have employees that hate using the PMS but are also afraid of change. They have developed workarounds that help them to use the software without challenging themselves to really master its full range of functions. The bottom line is that you can only keep employing people who are following the standard operating procedures your practice manager puts into place. If you implement a new software system, they must learn how to use it.
Any organisation that's accustomed to using an outdated PMS is not making as much use of its people as it can. You see, the people in your firm's employ will only be efficient if they have a software solution that makes their jobs easier. A good PMS automates many of the tasks and legal processes that you would perform on a typical case. Our system requires users to interact with the software and make decisions, but it also performs many tasks that used to require human intervention.
The alternative to upgrading to a new kind of law Practice Management System is to do absolutely nothing. This indicates a degree of paralysis within the law firm. What follows is that the organization does not grow. It gets harder and harder for employees to feel motivated, and they begin to stop suggesting new ideas. A firm that does not grow and change with the economy can become obsolete. Upgrading the tools for managing the practice helps all employees remain at the cutting edge of the legal profession.
Instead of sitting around and feeling sorry for the dollars that were lost on the current PMS, we suggest that you explore the benefits of a proven legal management system. Your employees may initially resist change. This might look like not paying attention during training sessions on a new practice management system or quitting because they won't learn it. However, once workers get the opportunity to see how a new PMS works in practice, especially by saving time, they will quickly jump on board.