As lawyers, we have an ethical duty to ensure privacy for client communications. Technology hasn’t changed this, but there have been recent questions as to what steps lawyers should be expected to take to protect electronic communications. To address these issues, the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility recently released Formal Opinion 477, an update to Formal Opinion 99-413, which discusses how changes in technology use coincide with Rule 1.6 concerning client confidences.

Here at Zola, we can understand why so many legal practice management programs make grand claims of being fully integrated, all-in-one solutions. Software with capabilities to meet all your law practice management needs in one user-friendly interface is appealing. The fact of the matter is that these claims are often misleading. You end up stuck with practice management software that relies on third-party applications and integrations to meet many of your key needs. The bottom line is - you can’t be an all-in-one practice management solution if you are relying on third party applications for important functions such as email, accounting, and document management.

As a conscientious professional, you constantly strive to satisfy your clients.  After all, a happy client can lead the way to great referrals and more business. To achieve this, you must be responsive and attentive, while establishing a sense of trust that your client can rely on you to help solve their problems.

With cyber security concerns on the rise, how can you safeguard sensitive information against security breaches? To stay in contact with your clients on a regular basis, you probably use email as your preferred way to share and discuss details about their case. But as we’ve all read in the news, email is not the most secure way of sharing sensitive information. Without internal encryption, information shared between your practice and your clients may be intercepted by a third party.

Florida has become the first state to mandate technology CLEs. Beginning January 1st, Florida lawyers must complete a minimum of three extra credit hours of technology-related CLE courses, raising the standard to 33 hours every three years. The FL State Bar decided that lawyers within the state have a technological competence to protect and serve their clients as necessary.  Florida Bar Board of Governors member John Stewart stated, “[l]awyers now have to be familiar with social media issues, e-discovery, e-filing, legal outsourcing, web-based conferences, cloud computing and record keeping, how electronic records are stored and secured, webinars, protecting their electronic communications with clients, and other issues.”

When searching for the best legal practice management software, you need to consider which application will best improve your firm’s efficiency. One factor to look at is whether the software can take care of all your firm’s needs from a single platform. Many practice management platforms integrate with multiple third-party applications as a means to increase functionality for their users and draw in prospects. Although it may seem as though your firm would benefit greatly from software that integrates with many other applications, this may not be the case.

A User Interface, or UI, is the series of visual elements that you interact with in a software program such as buttons, icons, screens, and pages. All of these elements contribute to the functionality and usability of the application. A successful UI has to be equally appealing to the eye and easily navigable, especially for those who would not consider themselves “techies” (perhaps this sounds like someone you know?). A well-designed interface can shorten the learning curve of an application, helping you perform tasks easier and faster without wasting billable time. For this very reason, some of the country’s most gifted designers, lawyers and technologists have been collaborating to apply legal design and innovation to legal products and services.

Have you ever woken up from a late night panic wondering if you sent an email to the right Susan? Scenario: It’s a busy Friday afternoon. You have so many emails to get to before you go away for the weekend (which you’ve been looking forward to all week). There are so many contacts in your address book, it’s hard to remember which contact is related to which matter. You’re supposed to email Susan Smith but you have three Susans (plus a Sue and a Suzanne) in your contacts, all related to different matters. It’s absolutely crucial to keep track of the right parties and the right matters to maintain client confidentiality…

Have you ever received an email from someone and couldn’t quite put your finger on who they were? Did you later find out that the email contact was a member of the case that you are working on? Your firm is consistently dealing with cases, clients, and other related individuals which makes it easy to lose track of what point of contact is associated with which matter.