How Microsoft 365 enhances your law firm’s operations

Category: Blog, Case Management, Client Management, Practice Management 8th August 2022

Microsoft 365 is an enterprise grade platform that features various productivity tools and software solutions, such as Outlook and Word. According to Statista, Microsoft 365 currently covers 48% of the market share for office suite technology, and therefore probably familiar to most legal professionals.

The platform is simple to implement, easy to use, and offers a wide range of productivity enhancing solutions that make creating documents, collaborating with colleagues, and communicating with clients much easier. In this article we’re going to cover four ways Microsoft 365 enhances your law firm’s operations, and the impact that can have on success when it’s integrated with your practice and case management solution.

Four benefits of Microsoft 365 for law firms

Microsoft 365, as a standalone platform, provides law firms with a suite of tools to effectively manage their legal practice. But to enhance your legal operations and maximise success the productivity tools should be integrated with your practice and case management software.

Integrating the platforms helps to streamline document creation, task management, and client communications so your team can maximise billable hours and provide a quality service. Discover the four key solutions within Microsoft 365 that should be integrated with your case management software (CMS) to enhance operations.

Effectively organise client communications

Writing client communications, organising lengthy email chains, and keeping track of replies requires a lot of manual admin time for law firms. To help streamline the process and speed up response times you should integrate Outlook with your CMS.

Utilise the data and time-saving features of your CMS whilst working from the Outlook platform. Take advantage of pre-defined email templates that automatically populates your client’s data, export emails directly into the matter history, and auto-record time on emails so staying organised is easier.

Simplify task management

With so many deadlines, tasks, and appointments to keep on top of across your cases, managing your calendar manually is an impossible task that eats into your billable time. Improve productivity and stay organised with clear visibility of your task list by integrating your CMS with the Outlook calendar.

When integrated, key dates, and appointments created in the CMS can be automatically viewed within the Outlook calendar. You can add them ad-hoc or automate them through our configurable workflows, so you’re always on top of priorities. Staying organised and compliant is easier when your business tools are connected.

Speed up document production

Manually creating each client letter and contract is an administrative nightmare. Not only is it time-consuming, but also error prone and inconsistent.

Speed up document production by standardising your letters and utilising an integration between Word and your CMS to enable client and case data to be auto populated to reduce risk. This also helps to ensure your firm’s branding is consistent, your communications are client-focused and you’re following compliance best practices.

The integration also enables documents to be auto saved in the matter history, so your files are always organised and up to date. And you can take advantage of electronic signatures, with services such as DocuSign, that can tag Word documents with an e-signature field so clients can return signed letters in a matter of hours, rather than days.

Improve employee collaboration

In a report from Chartered Management Institute (CMI), 80% of managers stated that their business has adopted a hybrid working strategy. With team members disbursed across locations, and no longer physically connected by the office, effective communication and collaboration – both internally and externally – can be a challenge. Microsoft Teams and its video conferencing, instant chat messaging, and host of in-built productivity tools can help to streamline processes and centralise data across remote teams to ensure your firm stays connected digitally.

Microsoft Teams also offers law firms a cloud-based phone system so calls from clients or external parties can easily be passed from your secretary through to the appropriate individual. Keep your response times low, decrease friction for clients, and enhance your service with a cloud communication tools that enables an effective hybrid operation.

Enhance your legal operations by connecting Microsoft Office 365 and case management software

Empower your team with effective and streamlined digital tools that increases productivity and Simplifies document creation, task management, and communicating with clients. Maximise billable time by integrating the well-known Microsoft 365 with your practice and case management solution for optimum operational performance.

Contact us to discover how you can easily integrate Microsoft 365’s tools with the Osprey Approach all-in-one practice and case management solution. All your favourite and familiar tools are enhanced when connected to Osprey, helping to streamline and centralise your firm’s operations. As a Silver Microsoft Partner, we can help you utilise the productivity tools within Microsoft 365, so book a demo to get started today.