The coronavirus (COVID-19) is all anyone can talk about at the moment.  For most law firms, barristers, and in-house legal teams, it presents some unique challenges,  namely, employees needing to work from home.  At the time of writing, the threat of COVID-19 becomes more and more real.  

This interesting piece from Artificial Lawyer, Your Views on Covid-19 and Isolation, shares some interesting insights into psychological and governance challenges that the professionals in our industry may face.

Much has been written about the usual communications tools, including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, etc. 

However, I wanted to use this article to bring to attention all the fantastic platforms that the members of our association have delivered for law firms, barristers, and in-house legal teams.  

The large majority of these businesses focus solely on the needs of the legal industry, so it would be remiss to ignore them.

Without naming names, it seems appropriate to highlight the following categories of technology, given the circumstances:

1. Collaboration

There’s no doubt that collaboration is one of the biggest challenges we face when most people are not physically in a room together.  

Many of the ALTA members who focus in this area have built custom solutions that incorporate matter management and seamless communications between clients, solicitors, barristers, in-house legal departments, expert witnesses and of course, the courts.

2. Legal operations

There are some fantastic legal operations management and document management tools on the market.  However, when an in-house team needs to manage external vendors, contractors, other business departments, technology and processes, everything gets a lot more difficult.  

The tools that some of the ALTA members offer to in-house departments are fantastic — and absolutely necessary amidst the uncertainty of today.

3. Client relationship management

Last but not least is CRM. 

For law firms and barristers, managing client and referrer relationships through digital means is absolutely essential today.  It’s hard to let your team know exactly what’s going on when you are not in the same room or on the same floor. 

But it’s important to remember why we are here — to help clients.  We all know that that does not just mean providing excellent legal advice, but also exceptional client service.  

We also know that now is not the time to let client service slip – and  CRM tools can really help you manage this process.

Introducing eBrief Ready

My relatively new business, eBrief Ready, is a collaboration tool that helps solicitors and barristers share briefs digitally.  It also has features such as annotating documents (collaboration) and bundling and indexing court documents automatically.

It’s free to use now — and sharing briefs will always be free. Later this year, we will be offering a professional version.  If you need to deliver a brief to someone, I’d encourage you to give it a try. 

I would also encourage you to look at all the ALTA members to see where there might be some good tools to help you through the current situation — and for whatever the future holds!

About the Author

Stephen Foley is a legal tech entrepreneur, delivering technology solutions to barristers and solicitors for over 30 years.

As the Founder and Managing Director of TA Law, he has created three tools to solve the biggest problems faced by barristers’ chambers: BarristerSELECT, eBrief Ready, and iChambers.