Konica Minolta: Why now is the time for legal firms to embrace digital transformation
There is an old saying about nothing being certain in life apart from Death and Taxes, but I think it’s fair to add legal services to that list. Whilst the world, and much of the economy has paused numerous times during the global pandemic, legal services have continued.
Like many other business sectors, the pandemic has forced the legal industry to find new ways of working, bringing business practices sharply into focus. For a sector that still heavily relies on paper documents (law firms generate up to 60% more documents than similar-sized companies in other industries), there has never been a better time for legal firms to embrace Digital Transformation to ensure they are flexible and agile, yet remain watertight, in terms of meeting regulations and data security.
What is Digital Transformation?
Digital Transformation takes manual and often inefficient business processes and uses the latest technology to streamline them, which increases efficiency and helps to reduce ongoing costs. Incoming information such as invoices, contracts, or client documents of various types (hardcopy or electronic files) are captured then converted into a variety of formats (and if necessary, searchable files) and automatically sent to the right workflow or archive.
This approach ensures documents can be found quickly in a matter of seconds via text or alphanumeric pattern search. Equally, data security and compliance are enhanced whilst reducing the time and money required to curate the data. Scanning and printing costs can be kept under close scrutiny (by department or billing client), and the automated distribution of documents to other parties is completed in a secure and compliant way that opens up new paths in communications with colleagues, clients and courts etc.
In the legal industry Digital Transformation means digitising every aspect of the legal process – case management, service delivery, workflow, back-office processes, team collaboration and client engagement. Ultimately the aim is to improve the way firms and their teams work by delivering strategic enhancements that streamline collaboration and eliminate mundane tasks, enabling staff to focus on the core business.
Things to consider
Most law firms are being presented with large volumes of work and consequently a need for more efficient document management, secure communications, and assured compliance.
Whilst Digital Transformation promises ground-breaking results, it also requires the right planning to gain the full benefits. This includes understanding the vast choice of technologies available and selecting the right tools for the job, such as document automation, cloud IT, mobile technology, data analytics and artificial intelligence. Firms also need to be mindful of key requirements such as maintaining the integrity of information and preventing unauthorised access to content, as well as ensuring compliance with regulations, professional standards, and corporate governance requirements.
With many legal communications still conducted via traditional paper/post channels, it is also vital that any Digital Transformation solution is fully compatible and adaptive to the daily routine, rather than the other way around. Undoubtedly, customised document solutions are the most effective for most legal sector firms.
Big benefits
Security is a big advantage of Digital Transformation in the legal sector. For example, it enables the secure availability of data for pledging, argumentation, or data export. Also, it ensures minimal risk of working on obsolete document versions, along with matter-centric document management, role-based data access rules and controlled printing of sensitive information to protect confidentiality.
Efficiency is another big advantage, as there is less time spent converting, consolidating, and printing files, as well as faster processing of incoming administrative documents. There are also fewer lost or incorrectly labelled data files and worksheets, and less time spent searching for data and retrieving information. Additionally, there is quicker submission of documents to courts, improved print cost control and assignment to case for billing, comprehensive audit trails, and document consistency.
Leading market research company Infotrends have researched how law firms have benefited from automated processes and it makes compelling reading. The results suggest 52.3% have enjoyed faster contract development, 47.7% have found client communications more efficient, with 43.2% experiencing a faster discovery process. Other benefits underlined by respondents include more efficient communications between law firms (34.1%), improved compliance with regulations (31.8%), more efficient court communications (31.8%), and improved privacy and integrity of information (27.3%).
Real-world advantages
Digital Transformation is enabling legal sector firms to evolve. We (Konica Minolta) have recently worked with a large global law firm to streamline its operations and embrace Digital Transformation at its London head-office. For a similar monthly cost as the service and support costs of its previous manually intensive systems, the firm now has a powerful fully digital upgrade which ensures far less time and resources are required for admin such as filing, searching, and billing.
The costs of support staff versus fee earners have long been a headache for legal firms, but Digital Transformation helps ensure team resources can be squarely aimed at the latter. This benefits clients by lowering admin fees and makes the firm more efficient overall, something which is particularly useful for fixed fee services (such as conveyancing for example) where profit margins rise dramatically through these efficiencies.
These solutions are highly flexible in terms of scaling and therefore suitable for any size of business, and highly future-proof, particularly when provided in a Technology as a Service model which avoids big cap-ex expenditure, includes all the service and maintenance costs, and provides a predictable and affordable ongoing delivery of vital core business systems.
The past 12 months have shown that all businesses need to be agile, flexible, and prepared for whatever the future has in store. However, it has also demonstrated the opportunities and potential that Digital Transformation can deliver to a business in the short, medium, and long-term.
For more information and advice on Digital Transformation for the legal sector and the potential options for your business please contact business@konicaminolta.co.uk
By Andy Emery, Solutions Team Manager at Konica Minolta Business Solutions UK
