Law firms seeking a central matter management solution often come up short when it comes to finding a single platform that tracks both matter lifecycles and task management. Some solutions are too high level, and others offer a few narrow features. With so many legal tech solutions available on the market, it’s surprising that a single solution cannot effectively track matter progress, manage tasks, and incorporate secure collaboration. As a result, many firms are left with a disparate, and often time-sapping, tech stack.
A central platform that improves matter management must identify and address all of the challenges that law firms face.
Matter Management Challenges
Existing matter management platforms face several hurdles when trying to meet the specific needs of legal professionals. Some of the common challenges include:
Decentralized Task Management
Each legal matter may have unique requirements, priorities, and complexities. Complicating that with the high volume of cases that legal professionals often handle makes it even more difficult to properly track deadlines and milestones. Organizing tasks around matters is critical.
Integration Issues
Compatibility with existing software systems and document management systems used in law firms can pose a problem. When integration issues arise, data silos and inefficiencies in workflow follow. As a result, legal teams bounce from app to app and may pay a significant toggle tax.
Collaboration and Communication
Effective collaboration and communication are essential between legal teams, clients, and third parties. Most matter management solutions lack the ability to invite all stakeholders into secure messaging channels or video conferences.
Reporting and Analytics
Insights derived from data are valuable for strategic decision-making. Matter management platforms should provide robust reporting and analytics capabilities to help law firms track productivity, identify trends, and make informed decisions.
Complexity and User Adoption
When technology is too complex, users don’t stay engaged and will never fully utilize all functionality. Poor user adoption rates hinder the effectiveness of the platform, which becomes at risk of not being fully maximized.
Addressing these challenges requires product innovation, customer feedback, and a focus on developing verticalized solutions that cater to the needs of law firms. The good news is, there is a solution.
The Solution: Integrated Task Management for Matter Management
Workstorm, a secure, collaborative platform designed for the legal industry, was built around the principle of privacy and confidentiality. At its core, Workstorm centralizes secure messaging, video conferencing, document management, email, and calendar. Task management functionality within Workstorm’s already robust platform enhances overall matter management by addressing the key challenges faced by legal professionals in their daily workflows.
Centralized Tasks and Dashboards
Workstorm’s platform allows legal professionals to break down complex matters into manageable tasks and organize tasks by matter. Integrated task tracking, deadline alerts, and urgency settings ensure that all tasks are prioritized and executed effectively. Each matter has a central dashboard the brings together details of the matter, channel communications, tasks, files, and calendar.
Integration with Existing Systems
Workstorm has always integrated with leading document management systems and communication tools commonly used in legal firms, like iManage. Integrating Microsoft and Google for email and calendar ensures that all relevant data and information is accessible from a single pane of glass. Legal teams can create tasks and share files to messaging channels directly from email, eliminating the risk of oversight.
Communication and Collaboration
Workstorm promotes real-time collaboration by embedding messaging, video conferencing, email, and calendar functionalities into one single matter management platform. This integrated approach enables legal teams to make quick decisions, solve problems effectively, and enhance communication and workflow efficiency for all parties involved in a matter. From an information governance perspective, Workstorm has a built-in compliance module that allows a firm to set custom retention or legal hold policies by channel and matter.
Reporting and Analytics
Analyzing the structured data within Workstorm can reveal a deeper understanding of resource allocation and team productivity, and can provide comprehensive insights into risks, compliance, and matter progression. For example, data insights that show an increase in time spent on a specific matter type over the past year can inform budget allocation adjustments for the upcoming year. Ultimately, continuous data collection throughout each matter’s life cycle empowers real-time decision-making for optimal outcomes.
User Adoption
Change management is such an important but often overlooked component of deploying new technology. Workstorm prioritizes user experience with its intuitive and user-friendly interface. Additionally, Workstorm offers white glove training and support to ensure that everyone understands how to use all of the components for efficient matter management – leading to increased user adoption and engagement.
Summary: Invest in a Verticalized Solution Built for the Legal Industry
Workstorm specifically addresses the common challenges of the legal tech industry and empowers law firms to efficiently manage tasks, collaborate effectively, and enhance overall productivity by delivering effective matter management. See it in action, schedule a demo >
