Calendaring and Scheduling Software for Law Firms Explained
By Mary Elizabeth Hammond
Dec 19, 2022
| 5 min read
Keeping a legal calendar up to date can be difficult. With everything from client appointments and prospect consultations to shifting statutory and court rules, it’s easy to forget to log a deadline. But that’s not an option in litigation—there are usually dire consequences that negatively impact profitability.
Legal calendaring programs ensure that your calendar is always accurate. They also limit the time spent on manual calendar entries (a non-billable task) and minimize human error—making it much easier to keep your schedule organized.
In this article, we’ll discuss:
- A brief overview of legal calendaring software
- Why scheduling software for law firms can boost business
- What to look for in law firm appointment scheduling software
What is Legal Calendaring Software?
Legal calendaring software is an electronic calendaring system that enables legal professionals to digitally track and centralize all deadlines, obligations, and meetings.
Benefits include:
- Setting automatic or pre-scheduled reminders and notifications for events and deadlines
- Sharing deadlines and appointments with other lawyers and staff across your firm
- Creating and automating custom workflows that are triggered by specific events, such as a change in court dates
- Managing calendars from laptops, desktops, or mobile devices
- Staying up to date on court deadlines
- Allowing clients and prospects to book appointments and consultations
Why Should You Use Scheduling Software?
Practicing law doesn’t leave much room for error. Missing a deadline or key change in court rules could have drastic repercussions such as loss of clients, dip in profits, and potential malpractice lawsuits. Below are key reasons why calendaring software for law firms can benefit you.
1. Happier Clients
Inefficient, unclear communication is often frustrating for clients. For instance, clients shouldn’t need to constantly engage in back-and-forth voicemails and emails to schedule appointments during their case.
Certain legal calendaring programs have appointment booking features—allowing current and prospective clients to book meetings or phone calls based on your indicated availability. They can do this 24/7, there’s no need to call your office during business hours.
Additionally, with a reliable calendaring system, you’re more likely to stay on top of deadlines, events, and meetings. This can produce better outcomes for your cases or matters, which leads to happier clients who want to refer your firm.
2. Fewer Cancellations
A last-minute cancellation wastes both your time and your client’s time. Avoid unnecessary cancellations and no-shows with automatic appointment reminders.
Law firm appointment scheduling software allows you to send these automatic reminders via text or email. It also helps to remind yourself and colleagues of meetings.
3. Increased Clientele
With an organized and robust calendaring system, you’re able to take on more clients. First, you’ll save time since you won’t have to rely entirely on manual data entry to keep on top of your calendar. This frees up hours to focus on billable tasks and managing client relationships.
Also, a prospective client may be in a hurry. If they are in a time-sensitive situation and need to meet with a lawyer as soon as possible, they are more likely to contact you with online appointment options or online client intake forms. Consider leaving appointment slots open for same-day or next-day appointments for cases like these. Oftentimes, the most responsive attorney wins the business.
Features to Look for in Legal Calendaring Software
Not all legal calendaring software is created equal. The best legal calendaring and scheduling software for law firms includes these features:
1. Easy Booking
Look for legal calendaring programs that allow prospects, clients, and colleagues to schedule time with you. Law firm appointment scheduling software saves you time manually managing your own calendar and makes it easy for clients to reach you when needed.
Tip: With the MyCase and Smith.ai integration, you can have a virtual receptionist schedule your appointments through Calendly (online appointment scheduling software).
2. Case Analytics & Reporting
Calendaring software for law firms paired with reporting functionalities can give you a comprehensive view of all of your cases, finances, and workflows in just a few clicks. For example, MyCase provides a centralized case dashboard that shows the next event, the next task, and the latest status update on all cases.
With reporting capabilities, you can:
- Stay on top of your firm’s outputs over time
- Filter cases by stage, practice area, or lead attorney
- Track your team’s caseload and efficiency
- Understand how much time is spent on each stage of case progression
3. Cloud Integrations
There are several benefits to syncing your calendar to the cloud. For instance, if you make changes to your calendar it can update across your firm. This means when key dates or court rules are inevitably modified, deadlines will recalculate and changes will reflect in your calendar with no additional work required on your end.
This functionality ensures that your calendar is always up to date and that your team is on the same page.
4. Rules-Based Docketing
With rules-based calendaring, you can program specific jurisdictions’ court rules and statutory deadlines, and apply them to the due dates of any matter or case. This means no manual entry, saving you massive amounts of time.
How Do You Choose the Right Scheduling Software for Your Law Firm?
MyCase recently integrated with LawToolBox to bring the legal industry a powerful tool. It enables lawyers to take control of their calendars and ensure that no court date or essential deadline is overlooked.
In addition to reliable and robust calendaring, MyCase offers:
Get your free 10-day trial today—there’s no credit card or commitments needed.
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