Is your lawyer onboarding setting the best first impression?

Jon Roscow, commercial director, ROW, FileTrail|Briefing April 22

When a law firm brings on new lawyers, the first impression can often set the tone for the lawyer’s relationship with the firm for months or even years. A smooth and productive entrance establishes the firm’s reputation with both the new lawyer and their clients. Furthermore, providing an efficient and effective way to exit lawyers from the firm is also an extremely important part of information governance.

Much of the onboarding and offboarding of lawyers is done manually today, causing delays, frustrations, unwarranted costs and compliance issues. With the increasing mobility of lawyers, firms must be able facilitate file transfers in a way that maintains compliance with internal information governance policies while continuing to ensure they are prioritising client service. The smooth onboarding of lawyers allows them to service their clients in the first critical days of arrival, maximising billable work. Likewise, when partners leave the firm, they want to quickly assemble and review the transfer of client files.

IT directors and records managers understand the inefficiencies and human error risks involved in handling client file transfers manually. Time-intensive and unstructured processes can result in omitted documents or attaching the wrong files, creating unnecessary business risk.

The smooth onboarding of lawyers allows them to service their clients in the first critical days of arrival, maximising billable work. Likewise, when partners leave the firm, they want to quickly assemble and review the transfer of client files

Firms with automated solutions to handle client file transfers not only reduce risk, improve processes and increase efficiency, but also make their billable resources more productive from the start.

Modern, automated tools enable firms to capture a record of every file transfer request, whether for onboarding, for departing lawyers or for a client-initiated request. They can identify all relevant documents across multiple systems, gathering them in a central location for review. The best-in-class tools in this area track every action associated with the request and provide status updates throughout the process, in addition to sending notifications to reviewers and capturing a clear record of approvals.

Whether a firm is focused on making a good first impression on their new lawyers (and their clients), improving efficiency or reducing costs, there are countless benefits for any firm implementing an automated process for handling client file transfers.

For further information, visit: filetrail.com/governance

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