5 Good habits for Lawyers to improve digital team collaboration everyday

As the legal sector has long entered its digital transformation, the day to day reality of in-house collaboration is another story. The reasons for improving how to interact with each other are important, but it will also be helpful.

So, your firm is ready to improve your workflow and performance but where to begin? These collaborative clothes will kickstart the process.

1. Bring a Holistic View to Every Case

The workforce dynamics in the law firms are deeply embedded in the traditional siloed way of working. However, this no longer serves the employee productivity and efficiency. Today, it has been that cross-collaboration serves both the interests of the firm and its clients. Overcome tribalism within legal teams through digital collaboration. This means fluidifying communication and opening dialogue between departments.

2. Centralize Communication

Signing into a team video conference, sending an encrypted document or scheduling a deposition; many daily activities within a law firm are already digitized. What if you could improve your communication by grouping all of these tasks within a single collaborative tool? Greater efficiency means replacing emails by segmented instant messaging, switching to cloud-based file sharing and smart scheduling through an algorithm that draws from everyone’s individual timetables. Leaving you with time, and the relevant information, to discuss important matters.

3.  Reduce Low-Value Interactions

Need the latest information on a legal case? Encourage team members to directly edit documents online using the commenting feather to contextualize and clarify each interaction. Versioning, made possible by blockchain technology, stores all modifications and comments made onto a file. Version management gives you real-time information on progress and avoids interrupting another lawyer’s workflow and focus.

4.  Safeguard File Sharing

When collaborating on complex and confidential issues, information sharing is crucial, and often a pain-point. Get into the habit of classifying documents: who has permitted access? The whole team, a subgroup segment or just a few collaborators? Can the file be downloaded? Cloud-based document sharing lets you manage permission roles directly in the sharing settings.

In recent years, we have seen that relying on encrypted emails and calls is no longer an option. Put an end to non-compliant habits by encouraging your legal teams to share documents via a system like P2P (peer-to-peer) storage, which encrypts data and stores it in a decentralized mechanism.

5.  Test, Learn and Revise

If you are a large law firm, begin by testing a collaborative tool within a small team. If your law firm is small to mid-sized, include the whole team from the beginning. To support your group effort, identify digital collaboration champions across several departments. Remember repetition is key, so fully commit to the software and regularly evaluate its effectiveness so to adapt your strategy.

Taking your firm’s collaboration is a chance to boost workflow efficiency and compliance, but also gain agility in a competitive environment. In the long run, successful implementation has a lot to do with company culture. Adopting more transparent practices in-house adds a positive social incentive and healthy competition. You would be surprised to be able to help strengthen human engagement! Share the above five steps today to kickstart the conversation.