The 8 Benefits of CRM Software for Legal Teams

The implementation of client relationship management or CRM for legal teams is a perfect example of smart business practices crossing over into new sectors. However, CRM software for legal professionals isn’t just about managing client data. It’s about improving how law firms interact with their clients, streamline their operations, and succeed in an increasingly competitive landscape.

In a world marked by the relentless pace of new cases, clients, and legal precedents, a CRM for law firms offers a fully integrated platform that takes care of vast swathes of the background work, allowing the team to stick to the human tasks.

In this article, we’re going to delve into eight far-reaching benefits of a CRM for legal teams. From enhancing processes with specialized client intake and CRM software for large legal firms to improving client relationships and securing their data, we explore how these tools are reshaping the legal industry.

How does CRM software ensure the security of sensitive legal data?

An advanced CRM software for legal professionals, like Bitrix24, ensures data security through advanced encryption, access controls, and secure data storage. These features protect sensitive client information and comply with legal regulations, safeguarding the firm's and clients' interests.

1. Centralizing client information into one system

Kicking off the benefits of CRM software for legal teams is enhanced client management. Perhaps the most obvious on the list, it has a wide range of sub-benefits that we’re going to look at here.

A CRM is a purpose-built system that systematically stores all client-related information on a clear profile. It will feature all the data you might expect, including name, address, and contact details, but also more detailed data such as income, industry, decision-making factors, pain points, and desired outcomesoutcome.

In addition to structural information, you can also add more personal notes and reminders. As we’ll see, each interaction you have with your clients is saved in the CRM, and you can annotate them with special requests and agreements. This way, no matter who picks up the case next, they will have the exact same information at hand to provide a level of service that the client expects.

For maximum efficiency, teams need logical, efficient processes to take the guesswork out of their day-to-day. When the volume of client information can be vast and varied, features specialized in client intake and CRM software for large legal firms prevent data from going missing or being entered erratically.

2. Optimizing the client intake process

Now we’re getting down into the details by addressing the specifics of client intake. A CRM for legal teams is ultra-valuable for setting standardized processes and efficiently managing the incoming flow of client information for more streamlined and effective legal service.

Gone are the days of error-prone, time-consuming manual data entry. Law practice CRM tools come fine-tuned to sort and categorize incoming clients, saving your team more time to deal with the real issues at hand. You can customize a series of triggers and actions to sort new clients into segments that you have created to save time by skipping mundane steps on your client journey.

Customizable forms guide clients into giving you all the relevant information in the right format, updating your client database in the most efficient way possible. A CRM for law firms gives data officers the possibility to tweak their framework or integrate with other legal practice management tools to enhance the client intake process for legal workflows. With this structured format, you minimize the potential for errors that are so common in manual data entry.

3. Improved accessibility and collaboration with cloud-based solutions

As technologies have improved response times and collaboration, so have client expectations. This makes it realistically impossible to turn away from a CRM for legal teams, as all of your competitors will be betting on this flexible, scalable solution.

We’ve already touched on it, but the fact that modern legal teams can all access their files wherever they are in the world has a plethora of advantages. Firstly, it allows HR departments to source top employees from any geography, building a more talented team in a remote format. Even for in-person teams, a lot of work is carried out in courtrooms or at client locations, and cloud-based storage means team members have everything they need at their fingertips.

Another benefit of modern client data management for legal professionals is that you can scale your operations without a significant investment in new infrastructure. Bitrix24’s law practice CRM tools work in a tiered format, so when the time comes to grow your client database, you can simply level up your plan and have instant access to more storage and features.

4. Integrating case and client management

It’s one thing optimizing your client management, but nothing in business exists in a vacuum. To really maximize efficiencies, you need to know how to get multiple systems running in tandem with each other. Therefore, the best CRM solutions for attorneys should be able to integrate into other systems easily and efficiently.

Fusing a CRM for legal systems with wider legal practice management software makes it easier to stay on top of each case and saves you and your team the burden of remembering each specific name and all case details.

The best CRM systems do all of the hard work for you. With your client attached to each relevant task in your task management software, you can access files from either system and find the same information. Performance metricsallow youto track the progress of each client’s case, while you can dedicate folders in your cloud-based document management to unify all your client resources in one place.

By combining your communication tools, you can also speed up every interaction without needing to find a number, copy it down, and punch it into your telephone system. Instead, you can pull up your client file in your CRM, click on email, video call, or phone call, and a neat integration will automatically get you in touch with the right person.

5. Time tracking and billing integration

While the essence of a CRM can be applied to almost any industry, client management in legal services requires a special set of features to run at maximum capacity. None of these are more important than tracking billable hours.

Clients agree to pay top dollar for the best service, and they want to know that your team is efficiently spending their time. Time-tracking software is now ubiquitous in the legal world as the best way to generate transparency and therefore trust. For each task, each member of your team can create a time entry with a brief description of the work being carried out and the name of the client, taken straight from the CRM.

As a result, all billable hours are registered under the relevant name in your legal client relationship software. For full transparency, clients should be able to access the billable hours to see how they are progressing over the month.

However, it is at the end of the month when time-tracking software really comes into its own. With all of the billable hours collated, your finance team can generate invoices and bills at the click of a button and send them over to your client with a personalized message.

6. Improving both internal and external communication

To be considered a worthy organization, legal companies require clear and timely communication as a standard. It is a sign of professionalism and trust that ultimately leads to more business and a happier workforce. CRM software for legal professionals makes the process more efficient, with tools that organize client interactions, schedule meetings, track important emails and calls, and more.

With a CRM for legal practices, you can launch all of your communications from one place. Every interaction is registered, so your entire team is always up to date, even if you change those involved with a specific case. Converting emails into events on a calendar saves time and effort while increasing accuracy, and each event can come with a handy video call link to allow all participants to join easily.

From paralegals to partners, every legal case requires input from a variety of people. A specialized cloud-based legal practice CRM for legal firms stores all information and tasks on the cloud and syncs it across devices. More than that, you can communicate through your task management tool, keeping all case-relevant updates in one place to avoid miscommunications. This results in all relevant players having access to the most up-to-date information, resulting in a more cohesive team effort.

7. Leveraging automation in your client relations

Although it might seem impersonal to use algorithms in your client management in legal services, if you strike the balance right, using automations can actually lead to more human relationships.

One way to automate a cloud-based legal practice CRM for legal firms is by scheduling client meetings. For example, when you’re coming to the end of a call, you will likely want to schedule the next meeting. Rather than spending time with both parties creating a meeting, you can replicate your current meeting, and update it with a new time and date, and the CRM for legal teams will verify with your calendar whether you’re free at that time.

In a similar way, you can automate many sections of the client journey. For example, legal practice management software can leverage automated emails so your team can focus on later stages. When a client reaches out, you can send them your vision and mission and a form to fill in so both parties have full details. Further automated interactions can lift your client’s first name from their CRM file to provide a more personal interaction — even though algorithms are doing the work.

8. Keeping client data secure

The legal profession is perhaps unique in how important it is to keep data secure. A commitment to data security is far more than a marketing tagline. It needs to be at the core of every CRM for legal teams, and you should be able to fully explain how it works when asked.

Tools like Bitrix24 do a lot of the hard work for you. We know the importance of client data management for legal professionals, so incorporate security features for all of your CRM users. For example, our two-step authorization, via the Bitrix24 OTP and Google Authenticator apps, offers one-time password codes to log in. Even if your password is stolen, hackers still won’t be able to access your sensitive information.

Zooming out to a wider scale, we use Amazon Web Services (AWS) to host your data. Specialized in security, it is certified in HIPAA, GDPR, ISO 27001, SOC 1/2/3, Directive 95/46/EC, and PCI DSS Level 1.

Even without third-party hackers, companies can make errors that lead to client data being deleted. Bitrix24 creates reserve data copies on a daily basis, so you can quickly restore your information without suffering delays to your processes.

Bitrix24: The ultimate CRM for legal corporations

In such a high-paced field, legal client relationship software represents a transformative step that improves accuracy and efficiency while reducing time-consuming work for your staff.

Our CRM solutions for attorneys include:

• Efficient case tracking

• Automated workflows

• Advanced client communication tools

• CRM analytics

• Secure cloud-based document storage

So if you need the efficiencies of a solid CRM for legal teams, sign up for Bitrix24 today.

FAQs

​​CRM software benefits legal professionals in client management by:

• Centralizing client information

• Optimizing client intake

• Improving collaboration

• Integrating client and case information

• Simplified time tracking and billing

• Streamlining communication

• Leveraging automationautomations for more efficient workflows

• Providing tools for personalized client interaction

This leads to improved client relationships, higher satisfaction, and better case management.

CRM software designed for legal teams encompasses specialized features such as:

• Advanced client data management

• Case-tracking capabilities

• Tailored document handling systems

• Integrated communication tools

• Customizable workflows to suit legal processes

CRM tools enhance efficiency in law firms by:

• Automating routine administrative tasks

• Facilitating seamless case and document management

• Making client interactions more productive

• Fostering improved client relations through personalized client engagement