#covid19 risks lastingly disrupting the way French people work and lawyers will not escape this necessary change in their practices.
If it is obvious that the courts and the firm will remain essential places of life for the profession (pleading, client meetings), the preparation phases and even certain consultations can be carried out remotely for more flexibility both with regard to the client than the legal professional.
So, how can you reconcile your office and working at home? In collaboration with Maître Clémence Michaud, co-founder of Alter Avocats, we give you some tips for success, without law firm management software.
The tools we recommend for managing your law firm:
Organize and monitor your projects and files remotely (calendar, invoicing, etc.)
Trello
Say goodbye to the multitude of post-its cleverly scattered in your files, diary, notepad and other media: Trello takes over!
Thanks to this solution, you will be able to create to-do lists, back-schedules, reminders and organize your projects with ease using intuitively arranged tables and columns.
Trello is inspired by agile methods and more classically the Kanban method by allowing the classification of integrated data according to the following categories: Idea, to do, in progress, finished.
The appeal of Trello lies in its ease of use, the speed of its implementation and the possibility of working in a team by assigning tasks to collaborators.
With this app, you can organize and manage any project remotely!
Trello is available in two versions: one free, more than enough to get started, the other paid with more advanced features (power-up library allowing you to directly link your mailbox and your calendar to the tasks contained on Trello).
Please note, three levels of confidentiality are possible. Remember to put your tables in private, to prevent anyone outside your projects from being able to access them.
It is essential to open Trello every day and browse the different cards (several times a day!)
Communicate remotely, with partners, lawyer-collaborators or employees
No more endless daily email exchanges and attachments lost in the mass of emails received and sent to your inbox which is saturated from all sides. Between Slack, Teams and What's app, you're sure to find what you're looking for!
Instant messaging has the advantage of being less intrusive than the telephone (you can decide to read the messages later unlike telephone calls) and of not overloading mailboxes with “low added value” emails. So which one to choose?
Slack
The best known, simple to set up, intuitive and free (Be careful however on this last point: you have a non-blocking limit of 10 messages. Beyond that, the first ones will disappear to allow you to continue working or they will have to pay in order to obtain more storage space).
In order to keep the space organized and not waste time finding the item you're looking for, don't hesitate to create channels (not too much either!). Ex: legal questions, current files, administrative, accounting, etc. You will therefore be able to easily organize the management of your law firm
Just like Trello, Slack offers power-ups to facilitate file transfer or to connect other tools.
Team
For owners of the Office 365 suite, Teams is included in your subscription.
A true copy of Slack, it is even more efficient since it allows you to organize video conferences with your teams.
Exchange by video conference with your team and facilitate the management of your law firm
I had planned to talk to you about Zoom, but given the news around the platform, I will present other tools to you:
Skype or Whatsapp
Basic, a little outdated today on certain points, the Microsoft platform nevertheless remains a safe bet for face-to-face exchanges. If you are in a small team or there are only two of you discussing (alone, you might as well do it in front of your mirror) it is a reliable tool.
Google Meet
Free, you only need a Gmail account to set up video conferences with all the members of your team. It is very easy to use and perfect for office meetings. Everyone can take control and share their screen.
Jitsi
Downloaded more than a million times in March 2020, Jitsi is an open source solution, customizable. A little more complex than the previous two, it remains a very good alternative.
Share files, collaborate on documents and work from anywhere
Working remotely is the crux of the matter! And confinement has put a strain on the nerves of many lawyers...
“Everything is on the office server, accessible only via Ethernet, at the office therefore…”
“All my files are at the office, I have nothing online, except a few emails…”
Many were not prepared for the possibility of having to work outside their office and a wave of panic blew through the French bars.
If it is now obvious that remote access to files is imperative, what solution should we opt for to ensure total inviolability of data and therefore respect for ethics and confidentiality?
If you use the following Google or Office 365, you have almost unlimited storage space. Although the risks of hacking or data loss are minimal, they are not excluded. So how to do it?
The custom solution: install a server in the office, accessible remotely. A proprietary solution therefore, but which involves a certain cost and significant logistics (service provider, regular upgrades, etc.).
Jarvis Legal : in addition to a suite of collaborative tools designed and designed specifically for lawyers, Jarvis offers you the Jarvis Drive, allowing you to store all of your data securely online and to access it from any medium and at any place.
In addition, Jarvis also provides you with the Jarvis Box, a tool for local replication of your data on your computer.
Thanks to these services, make your organization easier and access all your documents, even offline.
Jarvis Drive + Jarvis Box, mobility and security in one place!
The processes to put in place to facilitate the management of your law firm remotely
Establish a routine with your colleagues.
While the use of instant messaging makes it possible to exchange quickly and efficiently, certain subjects require longer face-to-face exchanges.
“Daily stand-up meetings”
At Jarvis, we have introduced “daily stand-up meetings”.
These are short meetings (5-10 minutes max), at the start of the day, during which team leaders take stock of the day's tasks.
“THE weekly meeting”
Ideally placed at the start of the week, it is essential in our organization. It allows you to first debrief the past week, then secondly to take stock of the tasks to be accomplished for the current week. Finally, it is a special moment during which everyone can express their ideas and announce future objectives.
You will have understood, the important thing in reality is to communicate, by any means! Whether with your partners, your collaborators, your employees or your clients, good practice management necessarily requires an effective and controlled sense of contact.
Get news from your professional and personal entourage and put in place all the processes to facilitate human connection, even during periods of confinement.
Testimony from Clémence Michaud, lawyer at the Bordeaux Bar at the Alter Avocats firm:
Having recently founded my firm with a particularly dynamic partner, from the start it was necessary to implement a modern and efficient way of working, allowing us to communicate with each other or with our clients at any time and in any place.
We therefore communicate daily via WhatsApp and Slack, whether professionally or personally.
In order to better organize our various projects, we have also set up a Trello but I admit that I do not use it optimally as the need to connect to this solution several times a day is imperative.
Faced with the myriad of constraints and obligations that we face on a daily basis, we finally made the choice to call on Jarvis. This tool has allowed us to optimize the organization of the firm, to provide our clients with a personal space where we can exchange documents with them and to manage our accounting simply and efficiently.
Thanks to all of these solutions, we can focus on our core business and continue to work remotely.
