Industry analysis from Tikit: Breaking away

This article was originally featured as an industry analysis in the June issue of LPM. To read the issue in full, download LPM.

Today’s lawyers spend much less of their working life at their desks. For several years now, law firm workers have been able to work from home and occasionally from client sites – but now expectations are increasing. Employees working remotely want the same access to their firm’s practice and case management solution that they’d have at their desk.

Millennials joining the workforce also have an expectation of mobile working – although some partners from the baby boomer generation may be resistant to the need for that way of working. There is, however, a growing realisation that firms need to keep up with rivals when it comes to flexibility if they’re going to offer competitive service levels and attract talented staff.

Employees’ immediate priorities for the corporate information they need on the move are easily met. Most solicitors want access to their work email from a mobile device and many firms have been enabled to do this through discrete, secure email access via a Microsoft Outlook or Exchange app. Providing equivalent access to the firm’s core practice and case management system is more of a challenge, especially for small IT departments. Practice and case management solutions were traditionally locked-down on-premise solutions and weren’t designed with secure mobile working in mind.

And when firms are looking to purchase new technology to enable mobile working, security is often the number one concern. When asked for LPM’s Legal IT Landscapes research: “Is cybersecurity high on your firm’s management meeting agenda?”, 94% of legal leaders responding said it was.

In the latest mobile systems, however, there is nothing of value on the mobile device itself – it simply enables a secure view of the data held centrally on practice and case management systems. Compared with carrying around a mass of confidential client files on paper, having locked-down mobile access to wellsecured systems arguably presents less of a risk when it comes to loss or breach of confidential information. If an employee loses their mobile device, it can quickly be shut down and wiped before anyone has chance to have a crack at the password.

INTEGRAL INTEGRATION

There’s also a pressing need to implement a range of well-integrated technologies to deliver the breadth of features lawyers need to work effectively on the move. Without integration, it’s not going to be possible to achieve desired flexibility and mobility.

Full integration is necessary to eliminate duplication of information and make applications easy to use. Risk considerations relating to data aren’t just about loss or theft – it’s important to avoid situations where data is updated in one place and not in others, or where conflicting data is held. Not only does this have repercussions for customer service, but it may also have farreaching compliance consequences. Best practice is to have one central source of reliable data, with all associated applications drawing on that.

SME law firms with a one or two-person IT department or an outsourced facility face a resourcing challenge in integrating new solutions for mobility. It’s a good idea to tap into the expertise of the firm’s practice and case management system supplier to source additional applications that will work well with the core system. Tikit’s approach is to choose best-of-breed examples in each area – from Workshare for document comparison solutions and BigHand for dictation to Mimecast for email management – to supplement the features of its core practice and case management system.

Employees sitting on a train don’t want to have to trawl reams of documents and data to find the information they need about a client. They need to be able to access a summary or a subset of information, including: the matters clients have with you, the balance of their account, and who the main contacts are associated with that client. Tikit’s Partner for Windows (P4W) practice and case management application provides all of that alongside time recording, accounting, billing and compliance features.

It’s common to see lawyers at their desk catching up on three days’ worth of time recording they couldn’t do on the go. The mobile version of Tikit’s Carpe Diem enables both time recording on the move and provides access to summary information held in P4W on their clients and matters. Carpe Diem is available as a mobile app that sits just as happily on the desktop, smartphone or tablet. With cloud-based delivery of the time-recording software platform, it’s possible to be working from a desk, record some of the time you’ve spent, leave the office and then get on the train and pick up the activity in the same place you left it.

This way of working couldn’t be achieved with traditional mobile apps that work independently and don’t integrate with the main practice management system. The risk with these traditional apps is that data could be recorded twice or time-recording data won’t be captured by the firm’s core systems. But Carpe Diem is now available on Microsoft Azure – providing a cloud option with the same functionality, but none of the on-premise infrastructure and management which could prove prohibitive for the smaller firm.

MAXIMISING MOBILITY

Historically, replacing a practice and case management system was a huge investment of time, money, and change management. But today, retaining the core solution and bolting on fully integrated functionality is much less disruptive.

For many growing SME firms one of the highest overheads is premises. Law firms with growth ambitions could benefit massively from mobile technology, as it can underpin hotdesking and remote working that reduce the firm’s requirement for expensive physical desk space. Furthermore, the flexible, mobile-enabled law firm is far more attractive to tech-savvy young lawyers and to clients who are looking for lawyers, who are working with modern collaborative technology. A 24/7 economy also means that clients are increasingly demanding selfservice technologies, such as Tikit’s FormShare module, so they can complete forms and submit information electronically to their lawyer on the go. Secure access to data is also key to the future success of any law firm.