What are the advantages of a best matter management software in Nigeria, Kenya, Nairobi?

A matter management software brings a multitude of benefits to legal practitioners, transforming the way legal matters are organized, tracked, and executed. This software centralizes case-related information, providing a unified platform for legal teams to collaborate, share documents, and manage workflows. The automation features streamline routine tasks, reducing manual efforts and improving overall efficiency. With built-in deadline tracking and alerts, the software ensures that critical dates are never overlooked, enhancing compliance and preventing oversights. Document management capabilities allow for secure storage and retrieval of case-related files. The software's analytics tools offer insights into case performance and resource utilization, enabling informed decision-making. Ultimately, matter management software promotes organization, efficiency, and collaboration, empowering legal professionals to navigate complex cases with greater precision and effectiveness.

If we take the core components of a matter, then we can easily deduce the benefits and efficiencies that the best legal matter management software in UAE, such as Smart Legal Counsel from Beveron Technologies LLC, provide for legal departments. This boils down to:

1. Centralized Document Management

Top Matter Management systems centralize document storage for matters and provide a secured location from where important matter documents can be accessed. All crucial document management functionality is usually present, including versioning, redlining, custom metadata, tagging, granular permissions etc. Additionally, integrations with MS Office and Google Workspace are also quite often available and make editing and collaborating on documents fast and easy. Again, Matter Management tools also make it simple for documents and their content to be searched and found. Some matter management systems also offer specific contract management capability such as e-signature integration and clause extraction for contract related matters.

2. Discoverable files and documents

One advantage of managing matters in a single system is that it means that all matter related information and knowledge is collated in one location, a single source of truth. It also gives structure and taxonomy to that data. The best legal automation software in UAE harness this data and make know-how searchable and easily available in context when it is needed. Some matter management systems are even utilizing AI to simplify and support knowledge delivery, connect data, help keep it up to date and put it into context. Some matter management platforms are leveraging integrations with other systems to centralize data and make multiple sources searchable; others are also embedding chatbots and decision automation tools to deliver answers to specific questions and circumstances rather than just search results.

3. Efficient collaboration and communication

Following the pandemic and the rise in remote working, the best legal automation software in Dubai now integrates with the market- leading collaboration tools such as MS Teams. Good matter management platforms usually are also systems of engagement (and not just systems of record), so they enable users from both within and outside the organization to collaborate on the management and delivery of matters. This is particularly helpful when legal teams are working with outside counsel. Communication should be possible within the matter management platform as well, with social collaboration functionality like messaging, comments and sharing. We are gradually seeing a trend towards the “meet users where they work” model, so expect to see matter management tools integrating with more personal productivity and collaboration tools in future.

4. Automated workflows and self-service

Automating standardized workflows and reducing manual intervention is the key to making any legal process more efficient. Towards this objective, matter management platforms often provide workflow automation functionality. Process automation can range from standardized and fixed, to completely configurable (often known as no-code automation). It can be used to optimise a wide range of matter processes including notifications, legal intake, document automation, approval processes, risk escalation mechanisms and contract lifecycles to name just a few.One major benefit of automation is that it unlocks greater self- service. Legal teams are already busy enough, so the more they enable others to help themselves, the more they can focus on higher-value work. Matter management platforms are therefore being used to enable stakeholders within the business to instruct the legal team, generate their own documents, and access relevant guidance and know-how

5. Better organization of work

Delivering a legal matter involves the intricate co-ordination and management of multiple resources, status and risks in order to ensure delivery of the matter on time and on budget. Matter management systems often include tools to help with planning, resource allocation and scheduling. From task management, work allocation and project plans to capacity trackers, team calendars and timelines — matter management tools help map the work necessary for the delivery of the legal matter and support the management of the resource to ensure proper execution of that matter. In some cases, matter management platforms will also include time tracking features to enable legal teams to record the time they spend working on matters. Matter management tools therefore provide tools that ensure complete transparency over matter activity.

6. Transparent Spend Management

While many legal matters are dealt with in-house, a large percentage of matters still require the support and inputs from external legal counsel. Full-suite matter management tools often provide functionality to help source legal service providers, create budgets, track spends, review invoices, enforce billing guidelines and run approval processes. Since legal spend is such a large component of any legal matter, it makes sense for spend management to form part of broader matter management systems -after all, it’s possible to derive more valuable insight when spend data is layered against other matter data. For instance, comparing a law firm’s spends with its cycle times and outcomes can help determine whether a legal department is seeing value from their legal service providers.