Microsoft Teams For Law Firms in South Florida

LAN InfoTech and Microsoft Teams for Law Firms in South Florida

Key Points:

• Microsoft continued development of Teams offers some features and functions designed specifically for law firms.
• Advancing communication and collaboration capabilities for law firms remains a priority of Microsoft’s future development plans.
• Features and benefits of Microsoft Teams continue to grow, with full enterprise telephony using direct routing now providing complete administrative control over system and user management aspects.
• The ability of legal firms to adopt and use Microsoft Teams is becoming a key indicator for the amount of success a firm can expect in the future.
• Implementing collaboration and communications solutions is becoming a necessity rather than an option.

Microsoft Teams is quickly becoming the preferred meeting and collaboration platform for law firms in South Florida. With Covid-19 continuing to hamper office returns, many firms have committed to the Microsoft Teams “one solution” approach.

One of the primary reasons law firms in South Florida are moving forward with Microsoft Teams is the realization that this solution immediately provides technical equality for all employees, whether working from the office, remotely or in a hybrid work setting.

In addition to delivering consistent solutions with best-in-class features, the platform provides secure document storage, sharing and signing, and real-time collaboration produced through HD audio and video conferencing features, securely linked to case management systems.

Microsoft Spotlights Organizational Perspectives for Law Firms in South Florida

Microsoft has positioned its Teams platform as the leading option for law firm workplace collaboration. The platform provides a secure central hub for daily communications, conferencing, and internal or external information sharing with partners, clients, or stakeholders.

Microsoft’s corporate mission is “to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.” Microsoft’s goal is to help Law Firms reach their full potential by using the most secure cloud services and configuring a system to meet their unique needs. Among other features, the platform recognizes the need for functions such as Document Management Systems (DMS), Secure File Sharing, Encrypted Accesses, and User Rights Management.

Law firms in South Florida appreciate how Microsoft Teams can eliminate the need for multiple applications to view and work on legal projects. Instead, these solutions provide a single, protected hub and coordination point for everything a legal team needs to function, including chat, meetings, calling, document storage, sharing, and customizable planning and task management.

Microsoft Teams links directly with Office 365 tools that employees are already familiar with, making the platform intuitive and easy to use. One significant benefit for many law firms is Teams ability to handle full-scale enterprise telephony through direct routing. This feature enables your firm to fully manage and control every aspect of your telephone system, including all incoming and outgoing calls.

Continued Development Especially for Legal Firms

Microsoft Teams planning and management tools are ideal for law firms, especially those wanting to drive high-volume, task-oriented projects, with pressure to deliver work efficiently and at a competitive cost. Microsoft Teams enables your team to access a single hub that gives them a comprehensive view of their clients.

Microsoft’s attention to the needs of the legal industry has enabled them to create a team space that is conducive to collaboration. Microsoft Teams makes it easy to make creative decisions and communicate, especially if a team is part of a large firm, has many team members, or remote employees. The Teams platform provides employees with the same tools and experience from any location or device.

Microsoft Teams provides law firms with a single point of coordination for a wide array of information sources, providing updates at a glance without changing apps and saving a significant amount of time for legal professionals. Additionally, Office 365’s business analytics and reporting capabilities give operations managers greater insight, improving financial management and efficiency.

Organizational Successes Realized by Legal Firms Integrating Enterprise Teams

Beyond a doubt, the pandemic made Microsoft Teams the leading chat and collaboration platform for legal firms in South Florida. Of course, many firms were already using the platform for internal communications, but the pandemic produced a sudden shift to remote working, which accelerated the adoption of Microsoft Teams.

Legal firms’ rapid adoption of Teams filled a sudden need to support a remote workforce. While not the type of issue commonly addressed through most organizations’ normal processes, the pandemic created a situation that effectively required switching to remote operations overnight.

Lawyers and the legal industry have been forced to adopt a team approach for collaboration by applying digital teamwork principles to the industry. This change will require education, training, products, and service providers throughout the entire legal system. It’s important to remember that this process is not easy and that the necessary changes will be incremental and even painful in some cases.

In the past, the legal system has been focused on individual lawyers instead of clients or the entire legal team. For instance, territorial rules were established to protect a region’s lawyers from outside competition, which would likely benefit the client.

Legal metrics typically focus on an individual’s input, such as hours billed or profit-per-partner, rather than customer satisfaction. Because of these factors, some deep, ego-centric patterns need addressing as lawyers start embracing team-centered and collaborative solutions.

Post-Covid Survival

Legal firms in South Florida that have implemented Teams have already begun to see the benefits. For example, remote access enables firms to better serve clients with faster response times from any location or device, which translates to increased billing.

While Microsoft Teams has roots in chat apps that create a channel for specific conversations, Teams adds context such as documents, data, and other pertinent information. These features make Microsoft Teams the ideal solution for the legal industry.

Despite its unprecedented adoption rate, because of a lack of familiarity with the platform and other challenges, integration, and implementation of Teams requires initial and ongoing specialized expertise. This expertise is also beneficial to ensure the secure transfer and storage of data and adherence to client-lawyer confidentiality in communications. Contact us today to learn more about the benefits that Microsoft Teams can provide for your legal firm in South Florida.

Michael Goldstein

LAN Infotech is a Microsoft Cloud Services Provider, IT Managed Support company and a leader in helping law firms, nonprofits and medical organizations deploy cloud solutions, manage computer networks, keep data protected and top technology management company. Businesses like yours need technology support to run highly-effective organizations.