Congratulations! You have decided, either as an individual or with a group of colleagues, to open your own law firm. There is a lot to do and many choices to be made. Everything from office location, firm name, domain name, business cards, internet and phone services to computers (Windows or Mac) must be decided. You may get to the point where you feel you just do not want to make another decision, but decide you must.

Global Workplace Analytics predicts that approximately 30 million U.S. employees will regularly work from home within the next two years, which is six times more than before the COVID-19 pandemic. Remote work is now commonplace, and will remain so for quite some time. With the increase in employees working remotely, law firm leaders have become even more concerned about keeping employees engaged in their work. While there is no one-size-fits all solution, mentorship programs can help. Mentorship has long been a staple in most firms, and while it’s more logistically challenging these days, it’s never been more critical to employee engagement and professional development.

As a lawyer, you start off your work day by checking your emails. You see one regarding a task that needs to be done, so you forward the message to your legal assistant. You then receive a reply with questions regarding the task. You reply, and so begins a long email thread. A week later, you’ll add to that thread when you inquire as to the status of the project. It’s an all too common, wildly inefficient, scenario that plagues legal teams.

Since breaking with tradition and starting the next-generation cloud practice management movement (what we refer to as Cloud LPM 2.0) nearly six years ago, Zola Suite has helped tens of thousands of legal professionals work more efficiently, creating a synergistic solution that helps rid firms of disjointed applications for matter and financial management.

Goodbye 2020 and hello to 2021! As we kick off a new year, we asked some of our partners to make some predictions on what we can expect to see across the legal industry in 2021.

Personal injury cases are complex and so, too, are the workflows involved in managing them. Zola’s Suite’s end-to-end practice management platform is loaded with specialized tools that help personal injury firms streamline processes, increase productivity and maximize profitability. Zola’s Settlement Management tools enable firms to efficiently manage settlement allocations and seamlessly generate settlement memos for all parties, even referring attorneys.

It’s safe to say that 2020 threw us all a curveball. Despite the hardships this year brought, the legal industry rose to the challenge, adapting operations and offering new services to help clients through these unprecedented times. We asked Zola partners to share some of the trends they witnessed in 2020 and how they may affect the transition to cloud-based solutions. In part two of this series, these legal technology experts also share their predictions for what’s to come in 2021.

Controlling receivables directly affects a firm’s financial health. Therefore, it is imperative that a law firm has an organized and detailed method for collecting client payments in a timely manner.

Social media has quickly become a preferred way to communicate with one another. The pandemic has made it an even more necessary form of communication. Today, law firms are taking advantage of these platforms as well. For many practices, these social media platforms have become the new reception area. To potential clients, they often represent the first interaction with the firm. People routinely search the internet, check out the firm website, and then visit social media for more information. The influence of social media cannot be overlooked, especially when sites like LinkedIn have grown to over 700 million users.