fbpx

Oklahoma Bar Journal

Six New OBA Member Benefits Focus on Practice Management

By Jim Calloway

Changes in the legal profession continue to impact us all. We have gone from the days where there was a debate on whether a lawyer should even have a computer on his or her desk to today where the computer network going offline means that the law firm is largely unable to function.

One of the significant changes is that many smart lawyers use practice management solutions to organize all of their client information into digital client files. Six new member benefits can help Oklahoma lawyers better manage their practices, and OBA members who are new subscribers to these cloud-based practice management services will receive discounts.

Clio, CosmoLex, MyCase, PracticePanther, Rocket Matter and Zola Suite are all cloud-based practice management solutions for law firms that now offer various discounts to OBA members who sign up for new subscriptions.

Practice management solutions organize digital copies of all client documents, lawyer’s notes, calendar information, pending tasks and all other client information under easy-to-access dashboards. Lawyers can review documents, record time, assign tasks to others in the firm and do many other tasks, all within these applications.

“Supporting Oklahoma lawyers as they incorporate modern technology tools into their law practices is an important goal of the OBA. Better efficiency and security tools benefit both lawyers and their clients.” said OBA President Kimberly Hays.

Businesses (and law firms) today use email more than traditional U.S. mail for correspondence, but each story of inappropriate email disclosure or email hacking raises concerns about whether email is an appropriate way to transmit confidential information. The client portals provided by these practice management solutions provide a secure and client friendly way to share information using client portals. This is a great way for a lawyer who doesn’t consider themselves a technology expert to upgrade their client communication security.

Although lawyers were initially concerned by the concept of cloud computing, these cloud-based services, which were designed to protect confidential client information, provide better security for client data and better remote access than email. Complete digital client files are important for today’s lawyers. Using one of these solutions, which have been vetted by the Oklahoma Bar Association, is a great way to organize your digital client files. These providers also provide free training for their customers, and there are client-training modules available as well.

HOW TO FIND THESE BENEFITS
Brief descriptions of the practice management solutions and the discounts they provide are available online. To access them, log in to your MyOKBar account through www.okbar.org and click the “Practice Management Software Benefits” link in the links box under your information.

Mr. Calloway is OBA Management Assistance Program director.

Originally published in the Oklahoma Bar Journal -- OBJ 89 pg. 45 (August 2018)