The Top Remote Collaboration Tools Your Law Firm Needs

Choosing remote collaboration tools isn’t all that straightforward. Requirements vary depending on the kind of business you run, and the extent to which you wish to embrace digitalization.

To make your job easier, below you’ll find a list of the best business tools for law firms that we’ve curated after thorough research and consideration. They’ve been divided into categories based on their purpose, to make the choice that much easier for you.

Email Collaboration

Microsoft Outlook

This is a highly-rated email collaboration tool that lets you manage your inbox into categories, integrate your meetings, and share calendars with colleagues. You can categorize your emails based on case priority by flagging and color-coding them. There are also many other useful features like setting up your signatures, setting up auto-replies, etc. that can transform the way your business collaborates and operates.

Help Scout

One of the top-rated communication tools for lawyers, Help Scout is focused on the customer-centric side of things. This makes it much easier to seamlessly handle client relationships. For a domain where trust and credibility are vital for survival, Help Scout offers features such as live chat, shared inboxes, and in-app messaging and is very easy to set up and use.

File Sharing and Document Management

SharePoint

An optimal remote environment for legal businesses is one where information is centralized and easy to access. SharePoint does precisely that – it is a central point of access for all your employees – they can read, comment, modify, and manage content together in real-time from the convenience of their location. This is a highly-rated document management tool, used by over 190 million people across the globe.

Google Docs

One of the easiest platforms to use, Google Docs lets you create, manage, edit, and share your files. The most convenient part is that it lets multiple users work on the same document at the same time. It also stores these files on the cloud and creates a shareable link to these files that you can share with anyone.

Microsoft 365 for Business

Microsoft 365 is a whole suite of tools including PowerPoint, Word, and many other Microsoft apps and features. It collectively provides over fifty features and is therefore one of the most used remote collaboration tools. It offers both desktop and cloud storage and sharing capabilities and is a must-have suite of tools for any legal firm.

Grammarly

Grammarly is an editing tool that legal employees find useful. Legal wordings require a lot of patience and finesse, and minor mistakes may also prove to be costly. With Grammarly, you can focus on writing, while the automated AI tool will simultaneously scan every word you write, and suggest edits.

These edits range from grammar mistakes and typos to considerable scale sentence structure modifications for wordy or complex sentences. With Grammarly, you can focus on the core content, and the tool will ensure the quality and structure are of high quality, making this tool one of the best business tools for law firms out there.

Voice, Video, Meetings

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft teams is a multipurpose communication and connectivity tool. Best known for its video calling features, it has a ton of other features such as creating channels and teams for communication, direct and group chat features, file sharing capabilities, integrated apps such as calendars, To Do, screen sharing, etc., making it arguably the best among all remote collaboration tools out there.

Skype

Another tool similar to Microsoft Teams, Skype is a handy tool for communication in small teams. Some people call skype their phones on computers because it's audio and video calling functionalities are very similar to that of phones. It integrates smoothly with other tools, enabling legal businesses' best remote environment.

Invoice and Billing

Xero

You can handle your accounting easily with Xero. Right from managing cashflows and maintaining ledgers, it also has features such as automated accounting statements, workflow management, and much more. You can keep track of all your investments, expenses, payments, and bank details easily with Xero.

Signatures

DocuSign

A remote environment for legal firms is pointless if you can do everything remotely but need to print every document and sign it by hand. DocuSign is an e-signature management tool that lets you create or upload your digital signatures and electronically sign on all pages of the document. It also allows you to manage signing areas, so you can share documents with your client on DocuSign, and the tool will show them exactly where their signatures are needed. Signing can be as easy as one click for your clients, making it a very useful, hassle-free, and reliable tool.

Final Word

Remote collaboration tools can be quite tricky to integrate into the new routine of employees, and have their challenges. One of the key mistakes most law firms make, is they download or start using a bunch of tools that they find to be of most use, without realizing the irony there. When you use random tools without failing to realize how well they work with each other, you don’t get the best out of any of them – you’re using collaboration tools without leveraging the real power of collaboration.

An optimal remote environment for legal firms can be created if you have collaboration experts guiding you and supporting you throughout the way. Relieve yourself of the needless hassle, and go digital with peace of mind with Northriver IT – an expert in the collaboration field for law firms that knows exactly what you’ll need, and how.