The success of law firms relies on a steady flow of billable revenue, much of which is driven by individual lawyers servicing their clients directly.  But lawyers are often burdened by administrative paperwork, overhead concerns and inefficient processes that limit the time they can actually spend on billable work.  The opportunity to eliminate extraneous, nonbillable tasks and focus more time on generating revenue is very attractive.

Many law firms have jumped on the business process management (BPM) bandwagon and are using the latest in BPM software technology to eliminate paper forms, reduce lawyer overhead, automate processes and minimize risk.

BPM Software Defined
BPM software contains a programmed set of capabilities that allows you to model, automate, integrate, analyze and improve human and system-intense processes.  BPM differs from the workflow capabilities in your existing records management and case management systems because it is designed to allow custom design and automation of unique processes.  It delivers the flexibility to make real-time changes to many different processes across your organization.

BPM software actually integrates with your existing document and case management systems and makes them more efficient.  For example, BPM allows you to utilize data and records across multiple processes, ensures that records management and case management systems are updated immediately and enables several people to collaborate on cases simultaneously.  All actions taken in the process, along with the associated content, are logged for auditing.  Process statistics and data can be analyzed and displayed in a graphic format for presentations and reports.  The increased visibility that BPM provides into what is happening across critical business processes can be used to affect changes and apply improvements to the process.

As any new business trend achieves popularity, advocates and skeptics emerge.  The rapid growth of BPM is no exception.  Nevertheless, even the skeptics have to take notice that more and more law firms are proving BPM software not only solves critical process problems, it delivers a fast return on investment and helps them get more out of the assets they already have including their lawyers.

Applying BPM to Your Organization
The first step is to choose a BPM solution.  But since BPM can be applied to many different industries, be sure to find a program that already has proven itself in the legal sector.  Next, identify those core processes that are critical to the business but are paper-intensive and inefficient or are a source of increased administrative overhead for lawyers.  Use the BPM software to model and automate them.

Bringing in new business is among the most challenging and time-consuming activities within a law firm.  Consequently, client matter intake is a critical business process that firms usually tackle first.  A variety of manual procedures and paperwork is often required to check for potential conflicts of interest, validate the business value of the matter, establish credit worthiness of the client, gather marketing data for cross-selling and ensure the firm's accounting systems are updated with the information required to generate accurate monthly billing statements. 

Automate a Broad Range of Nonbillable Tasks
In addition to more efficient client matter intake, firms can achieve measurable results quickly in many areas by implementing a centralized BPM solution.  These include elimination of duplicate data entry errors and omissions, reduced administrative overhead, process compliance across global operations and centralized reuse of existing data, systems and technologies through seamless integration.  Creating greater efficiency in these processes frees up lawyer time for billable work while at the same time lowers risk to the firm by ensuring a thorough review and maintenance of an online audit trail.

Other possible applications for BPM are precautions against money laundering, audit letter response, collections, accounts receivable write-off, file closing, prospective searches, records management, check requisition and travel and expense reimbursement.

BPM technology helps law firms achieve competitive advantage by increasing efficiency and reducing costs without sacrificing the superior client service that is so critical to success.  In addition, firms are finding they can leverage BPM software to achieve regulatory compliance and lower risk.  Ultimately, this can save thousands of dollars on annual liability insurance premiums.  If that is not enough to persuade you, think about the hundreds of extra billable hours your lawyers will generate each year when you free them from nonbillable administrative tasks.

About our author . . .

Laura Mooney is Senior Director of Corporate and Product Marketing for Metastorm, a global provider of business process management (BPM) software.  She is responsible for corporate positioning, messaging, sales tool development and overall product strategy, and manages the company's corporate communications function including worldwide public relations and industry analyst programs.  She can be reached at lmooney@metastorm.com.