The Lawmatics Blog

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a process intended to drive more leads to a website by boosting the site’s position in search engine pages like Google or Safari. Digital marketing for law firms should include SEO to help ensure that their firm appears near the top of search engine results (preferably on the first page). In turn, more potential clients will visit their website. Law firm marketing automation can help put this process on autopilot.

Why do law firms need SEO?

According to Clio, 57 percent of legal clients find a lawyer through online search results. In other words, if a law firm appears on the first page of search engine results and a visitor clicks on the link within the results, if the site gives them basic information they are looking for, they’re more likely to reach out to learn more about the firm’s services. So although there are no guarantees that your law firm will reach the top of organic search results, SEO can help improve your chances – if it is done correctly.

How to do SEO for lawyers

Law firm SEO performance depends on several factors:

• Content. The words used, along with the images on the pages of a website. To improve user experience and improve SEO, ensure that your site features high-quality, informative content.
• Backlinks. The credibility a firm has online as compared with other firms. The number of external websites and pages directing traffic to a firm’s website determines its authority.
• User experience. When Google ranks websites, it considers page speed, title tags, and site structure, all considerations lawyers should make when evaluating their website.

SEO keywords for lawyers

When Google evaluates websites, it sends an automated bot to read the content to understand what each page is about. To help rank your website, your content must be keyword optimized, meaning your content contains the best keywords to target qualified traffic.Many people will search by the most common keyword, but others looking for a lawyer will ask questions in natural language or enter variations of the same keyword. The goal is to create as much content as possible that addresses search inquiries related to your primary keyword. Primary keywords describe your firm’s services and areas of practice, e.g., “personal injury lawyer,” or “immigration attorney.”

Local SEO for lawyers

Local SEO focuses on what people type into search engines like Google when looking for answers to their questions. Local people use these searches to look for local products, services, or information. For example, local searches for a lawyer can range from “lawyers Chicago” to divorce attorneys near me” and unlimited alternatives in between. Local searchers can also trigger specific local results, such as local maps, which is why local SEO is important for law firms and lawyers that serve a particular geographical area.

Google Ads for lawyers

Google ads for lawyers, commonly known as “Pay Per Click or PPC,” utilize advertising paid for only when someone clicks on it to view a website. With PPC advertising, the search engine wins because they get paid a fee for that click, the client wins because they just discovered a potential lawyer to reach out to, and the law firm wins because they just found a targeted potential customer – for a price. Although the cost of PPC for lawyers depends on the extent to which the firm needs new clients, how competitive the target market is, and what kind of budget the firm has to work with, a typical PPC budget for a law firm can exceed $1,000 per month.

What is an algorithm in SEO?

Algorithms are used in SEO to provide the most helpful answers to a potential client’s query (what users type into a search engine). While search engines often keep the details of their algorithms to themselves, information can often be determined by how the results have changed. Algorithms used in SEO are constantly evolving to become more sophisticated, and to rank higher in search results, attorneys must build content that is more than just topically relevant. Research indicates that longer, in-depth content that is more authoritative and comprehensive than other content in the same niche tends to rank higher overall in Google search results.

How to promote a law firm?

Lawmatics law firm marketing automation software allows law firms to see where each lead stands at a glance, ensuring that your SEO efforts do not go to waste. To learn more about how the Lawmatics platform will boost your firm’s SEO strategy, request a free demo today.

A strategic law firm marketing plan will provide a blueprint for the firm’s future growth. It will identify which areas the firm wants to grow and address how to streamline the process, including law firm marketing automation. After all, if you embark on a journey without a map (or GPS), you may not get anywhere, much less to your desired destination. Digital marketing for law firms can help define the direction you need to take. But before we explain what the 6 components of a marketing plan are, let’s get back to the basics – why is law firm marketing so important?

Why do law firms need marketing?

Marketing your law firm is essential to the success of your practice and an efficient way to consistently find and retain clients. A law firm marketing plan should include a combination of digital marketing, SEO, blogging, social media messaging, and digital ads. In addition, to save time, increase efficiency, and help ensure success, a firm should leverage law firm marketing technology to automate various tasks.

What are the 6 elements of a marketing plan?

Law firms interested in growth need a personalized legal marketing strategy that includes marketing strategies for individual lawyers and law firms, and typically includes websites, branding, social media, blogging, emailing, and more. You can use these elements to create a marketing plan template unique to your firm:

1 A detailed description of your goals

Your marketing goals need to align with your firm’s quantifiable business goals. The ultimate goal of law firm marketing strategy is to acquire and maintain clients. Achieving this goal requires building brand awareness with your target market, generating leads through marketing efforts, converting leads into clients, and promoting repeat business and referrals. Ensure that your goals are measurable to track their progress as you reach milestones.

2 A definition of your target market

Creating targeted messages is much easier once you know who you are marketing to. Your target audience will typically include past clients, current clients, industry contacts, other attorneys and law firms, professional groups, referral sources, and the media. Your messages must express what makes your law firm (or you as a lawyer) unique, so develop messages that will communicate the value you bring to your clients to differentiate you from the competition.

3 A realistic marketing budget

A carefully planned marketing budget is critical to any law firm’s marketing efforts. To decide on a number, you’ll need to determine your goals and how much revenue you will need to reach them. Then, to figure out your overall marketing budget, examine how many cases per year you will have to manage to meet that goal, factoring in potential costs such as the marketing technology you will need to produce social media scheduling and email marketing campaigns.

4 Knowledge of current trends

When developing a marketing plan, it is essential that you familiarize yourself with the current marketing trends present in the legal industry. One of these trends is video marketing, which is very effective for personal injury advertising that uses emotional marketing as a strategy to obtain clients. Another is to create a legal podcast – marketing experts predict that there will be 504.9 million people listening to podcasts by the end of 2024. Legal podcasts typically discuss various topics, including current legal cases, significant legal developments, and explanations of legal concepts and terms.

5 A focused brand identity

A law firm’s brand is how potential, current, and former clients, referral sources, and others perceive the company. Law firm branding incorporates your logo, website, and marketing materials. It should include both written words and a visual presentation of who you are and how you want people to feel when interacting with you and your law firm.

6 A plan of action

Marketing activities include content development, advertising, social media, email marketing, and more. Although you might decide to roll out different tactics on a scheduled basis or launch everything all at once, either way, the successful execution of your plan depends on the utilization of law firm marketing software.

Measure the effectiveness of your law firm's marketing with Lawmatics

Lawmatics law firm marketing automation technology enables firms to automate the leg work of their marketing efforts to drive business growth while staying focused on clients. To learn more about how Lawmatics can help you seize every new client opportunity with targeted messaging and impeccable timing, request a demo today.

Spring has sprung at the Lawmatics office and we’ve got another round of new features in bloom! Last month we announced our new Create From Within user experience; we are thrilled to share more developments to this project as well as other new additions and improvements all throughout the platform.

New display options for true/false Custom Fields

Custom Fields have always been a staple of the Lawmatics CRM, so why not introduce further customization options? With this new feature you can now select from three different display options for your true/false fields: toggle (previously the only option), a checkbox, or a picklist displaying options of “Yes” and “No”. Select the option that is best suited for each Custom Field to give your clients the best possible experience when filling out your intake forms.

We’ve also introduced the option for true/false fields to be designated as either "Required" or "Required To Be True".This gives you the flexibility to enforce the selection of a "true" or “false” answer - particularly when a "false" response would result in disqualifying a potential lead.

Click here to learn more about custom fields.

Select All option on Matter Page

You already love the ability to bulk update or delete matters in bulk, but we’ve now enhanced this capability by allowing you to select ALL matters without needing to go from page to page. Simply click the checkbox at the top left, highlighted below, then click the Select All option to check all of your total matters. Any updates made will now apply to all matters selected. This new improvement makes it much easier for you to bulk edit a large selection of matters all at once.

New Create From Within updates

Build a New Custom Form Within Automations and Matter Profile

Create New Pipeline and/or Stage When Adding New Matter

Add New Practice Areas from Practice Area Field Selection

New Relationship Types Directly From Matter Profile

Also In This Release

Relative Time Filtering Option for Date Fields

Particularly useful for honing in on particular matters within specific time windows, you can now select from relative date options such as “this month” or “last week” any time you are using a Date Field as a filter in the platform. This is also available in Reports and Audiences.

New Layout in Custom Form and Custom Document Builders

In alignment with our other user experience improvements, we have also reorganized both the Custom Form and Custom Document editor for improved usability when editing selection options such as Internal Use and Form/Doc Recipient Type.– We hope these new features are just what you need to dust off winter and hop into the new season! As always, feel free to share your thoughts or questions with us by emailing support@lawmatics.com.

Successful marketing is critical to attract new leads and remain profitable, but many law firms don’t have the time or the resources to create a dedicated marketing campaign. After all, most lawyers already have too much on their plate to focus on obtaining new clients – they’re usually knee-deep in managing the clients they already have! In addition, it often takes several consecutive follow-ups before a new lead is ready to hire an attorney. Law Firm Marketing Automation can help automate the marketing process to ensure that leads are nurtured and clients are maintained – with minimal administrative effort from lawyers and staff. In this guide, we'll explore the answers to questions like:

• How does marketing automation work?
• What is the main purpose of marketing automation?
• What are marketing automation benefits?

What is marketing automation and how does it work?

Marketing automation involves using software and other technologies to automate manual tasks and enhance the success of online marketing, including email, social media, websites, and content published by the firm. The tedious administrative work required to operate a law firm – including marketing the practice - can consume a considerable part of a lawyer’s day. However, the marketing must get done somehow as it is critical for attracting new clients and keeping up with the competition. Marketing automation software automates time-consuming tasks that don’t require an attorney’s expertise. For example, it might be as easy as developing an email marketing template that sends messages out automatically, allowing prospects to receive timely and personalized marketing information. Automation also enables lawyers to measure the success of their marketing efforts, thanks to visual analytics features built into the software.

Marketing automation software: a summary

Marketing automation is computer software that completes marketing tasks that do not require human interaction, including everyday marketing automation workflows like email marketing, lead prioritization, and tailored advertising. Marketing automation is especially critical for lawyers with multiple cases, numerous client meetings, and busy schedules. Although it can be incredibly challenging for a lawyer to find time to generate leads, with marketing automation, they can efficiently market their law firms while focusing on client cases. So, what is the main purpose of marketing automation? Simply put, to use available tools to provide the best possible client experience and, in turn, produce more revenue.

Benefits of automation in the workplace

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“Too often, lawyers are trying to pilot the plane, and hand out the pretzels.”

— Wyoming State Bar

While delegation is a proven method for driving efficiency, law firms don’t always need to delegate work from managing attorneys to associate attorneys or staff; automating tedious tasks and processes is much more effective. For example, consider the numerous steps involved in new client intake: scheduling, emails, contact forms, chat or text communications, and contracting. All those steps in the intake process can be automated with online scheduling tools, messaging applications, e-signature capabilities, and e-payment systems. Because each step in that process automatically triggers the next, modern software can automate workflow without human intervention, so law firms can effectively manage time and make more money. When used appropriately, there are many marketing automation benefits for law firms, including:

• Streamline communication - Workflow automation significantly improves communication between legal team members. Since employees frequently cite stress due to poor communication as a reason for leaving an employer, automation software can help reduce firm turnover. Workflow automation also improves communication by eliminating the need for team members to remind each other when something needs to be done – those reminders will be sent automatically.
• Increase accountability - Firms that automate their workflow can assign responsibility to a team member for every part of the process, significantly decreasing the chance of something slipping through the cracks. When each step of the process is assigned to a team member, it not only helps ensure all of the work gets done but can also expose inefficiencies in your approach.
• Save money - Workplace automation saves a law firm money by allowing it to avoid costly errors, streamline processes, and help team members perform more efficiently. It can also provide the ability to reduce labor costs since repetitive tasks will be completed automatically.
• Engage employees - Because workflow automation help clarify employee roles and the tasks they are responsible for, allowing them to manage their work more efficiently and take accountability for whatever goes wrong. With automation, managers do not need to oversee every step of the process or micromanage employees.
• Improve efficiency - Workflow automation software makes it simple to assign roles, parse out tasks, and grant responsibilities to the appropriate team members, accelerating processes that typically require manager involvement.
• Boost productivity - Workflow automation allows employees to devote their time to higher-value responsibilities. In client-facing industries like law, this can enable attorneys to serve more clients in a shorter period of time, boosting profit margins.
• Produce higher quality work - When lawyers and key staff members have more time for the critical work they care about and were hired for because software handles the mundane and lower-value tasks, a higher quality output will generally result.

Workflow automation technology helps law firms improve communication, control costs, enhance efficiency, and empower team members via accountability and the time to focus on what matters.

What is database marketing?

Database marketing (also known as customer relationship management or CRM) is a form of direct marketing that systematically collects, consolidates, and processes consumer data. Data of both customers and potential customers are collected and maintained in a company's database.Database marketing aims to target clients based on several factors, including suitable markets and proper channels, to maximize the chance they will respond to the contact and eventually become your client. As a result, database marketing is a highly effective way to find new clients and get more work from previous clients. Building your list (database) is an integral part of this process since the quality and relevance of your list will be critical to the success of your marketing efforts.One type of database marketing is a personalized email drip campaign, an automated cycle of emails sent on a specific schedule. For example, if a client signs up for a newsletter or sets up a meeting, it will trigger a series of automatic marketing emails sent out over a designated period. The intent of a drip campaign is to keep clients engaged without having to manually engineer the process – the software does that. Meanwhile, legal teams can concentrate on what they do best—practice law.Unlike traditional automated emails, drip marketing provides a more advanced and tailored message to the right person at the right time. From a welcome email to a promotional message offering more information about a firm a few days later, drip email marketing nurtures, engages, and leads prospects through the client journey using personalized content rather than generic messaging. Because it is Intuitive and time-triggered, email drip marketing makes a law firm stand out.

How customer databases help achieve marketing success

Customer databases help law firms increase insight into client behavior and can determine what’s next for their target market overall. To succeed in database marketing, they should:

• Identify client groups. Separating clients into groups (from high-value clients to potential leads) is an excellent way to keep various groups organized within customer databases.
• Create detailed customer segments. Audience segmentation based on demographics, behaviors, or personal interests helps deliver tailored messaging to custom groups of prospects and clients.
• Design highly personalized messages. Creating personal messages for both current and prospective customers can provide a favorable impression of a firm, increase brand loyalty, and increase engagement.
• Determine when and how to engage customers. With a customer database, marketers can determine what types of content are the best fit for specific platforms to increase awareness and enhance customer engagement.
• Improve marketing efficiency. Your time and money are precious. An updated customer database will help you avoid wasting time and money on marketing campaigns directly to those who are unlikely to respond.
• Enhance customer service. Customer databases provide support staff with a broad perspective on customer interactions with your brand, allowing them to improve your firm’s customer service.

There are many ways to collect data. However, some tools designed to track information on marketing data can lead to fragmented systems within your firm. In the end, having an all-in-one, easy-to-use solution is generally best.

What is sales automation?

Sales automation, often a feature of CRM software, is functionality that automates the repetitive tasks critical to providing simple and profitable customer journeys. A range of digital tools exist to automate various parts of the sales process. From generating leads to automating follow-up emails, sales automation technology helps teams handle sales activities more proficiently so that they can allocate more time to revenue-generating tasks.Every law firm needs to boost the number of leads in their sales pipeline because additional prospects translate into more clients and higher profits. However, firms need more than spreadsheets and Gmail to handle the amount of work that goes into nurturing leads. Automation sales tools allow law firms to manage a larger volume of leads in their sales funnel and create a standardized sales workflow that can be refined over time.To grow your law firm, you must find a way to handle more leads without sacrificing responsiveness. Automated sales tools will allow you to contact more potential clients and guide them through your sales pipeline while providing personalized messages supporting your firm’s brand.

What are 6 benefits of automation?

Here are a few practical benefits of automation that can help your law firm scale productivity without increasing overhead:

1 Get more done in less time

Greater productivity is one of the chief benefits of automation. For example, legal teams spend far less time preparing and organizing documents when they can click a few buttons and have data auto-populate in their preferred template. In addition, document automation allows more time for billable tasks that increase profitability, which is especially critical if your law firm is pressured to get more work done with fewer resources.

2 Gain a competitive advantage

Document automation can be a powerful marketing tool for law firms. Clients want to partner with law firms that use innovative technology to do work in the most efficient way possible. In addition, client confidence (and referrals) will surge when they observe how your firm delivers quality service on time.

3 Create and process documents cost effectively

One of the prime reasons why law firms choose automation is to cut costs. With document automation software, you might not have to hire another paralegal to manage stacks of documents. Automation also allows law firms to save money on office supplies, giving firms the ability to invest in other more critical areas.

4 Improve document quality and accuracy

Copying and pasting data from one spreadsheet to another is extremely prone to human error, frequently resulting in typos and mistakes that even the most careful proofreaders might miss, negatively impacting compliance and risk. Documents populated with essential information via automation instead of manual processes greatly reduce costly errors.

5 Streamline responsiveness to clients

Another main benefit of automation is the ability to give clients the answers they need as quickly as possible. In addition, When preparing documents for clients, they can be delivered in a fraction of the time it would have taken with manual methods. A faster, more efficient response translates into happier clients and accelerated growth.

6 Standardize document format and content

With document templates and custom fields, legal teams can easily standardize documents to improve consistency, keep everyone on the same page, and ensure everyone works from the same document library. Automation allows legal professionals to devote time to tasks that demand their expertise, such as developing strategies, providing advice, and completing billable tasks. By embracing automation, teams can get more work done in far less time.

Attract more prospects and win more clients with marketing automation

Automate the leg work of your marketing efforts to drive growth in your business while staying focused on your clients. Lawmatics law firm marketing automation helps you seize every new client opportunity with targeted messaging and impeccable timing. To find out how Lawmatics can help you set up powerful, automated workflows to delight your existing clients and win repeat business, request a demo today.

According to the American Bar Association (ABA), over 1.3 million attorneys were actively practicing in the U.S. as of January 1, 2022. In addition, more than 45,262 solo practitioners are currently employed in the United States. However, whether a lawyer works for a large firm or maintains a solo practice, they all have at least one thing in common: taxes.Law firms and attorneys are confronted with many unique tax issues and must be keenly aware of the tax rules that apply to them and their practices. In addition, the tax practitioners they work with must understand the specific accounting and tax concerns that lawyers and law firms have.

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“Today, it takes more brains and effort to make out the income tax form than it does to make the income.”

— Alfred E. Neuman

The importance of organization

There are many nuances to practicing law, but when it comes to running a law practice, the challenges are similar. For example, all firms and lawyers must track business expenses to manage their taxes properly. However, if they understand how and where to find the best tax deductions, they can keep more money in their pocket by deducting things like continuing education and travel expenses. This eBook is intended to help lawyers and law firms:

• Understand their tax filing obligations
• Become familiar with the applicable IRS tax forms
• Effectively organize your firm’s financial records
• Maximize deductions and tax credits
• Learn to work with a tax professional
• Develop Tax Planning Strategies
• Remain Compliant with Tax Laws and Regulations

At tax time, there are consequences for how employees are hired, how lawyers and partners are paid, how equipment is purchased, how cash is saved, and more. That is why law firms and lawyers must understand their finances to survive tax season.

Understanding the tax filing requirements for law firms

Lawyers have unique tax responsibilities depending on whether you’re a solo attorney or have a small firm. So, the first step is to know when you must report and pay based on your jurisdiction and entity type:

• Sole proprietorships. An unincorporated business owned by one person.
• Partnerships. Two or more people contribute money, property, labor, and skills and share in the profits and losses of a business.
• Corporations. Entities formed by prospective shareholders to exchange money, property, or both for the corporation's capital stock.
• S Corporations. Corporations designed to pass income, losses, deductions, and credits to shareholders for tax purposes.
• Limited Liability Companies (LLC). A business structure allowed by state statute under various regulations. Members may include individuals, corporations, other LLCs, and foreign entities.

Whether an attorney owns a small firm in the form of a partnership, a limited liability company (LLC), an S-corporation, or an E-corporation, they have distinctive tax filing requirements to comply with. Attorneys and law firms are also required to use specific forms when filing taxes, which commonly include:

• Schedule C. Solo attorneys must file firm taxes using Schedule C on their individual tax returns and pay estimated taxes throughout the year.
• IRS Form 1099. Last year, the IRS ruled that personal injury attorneys who pay experts and investigators from client trust accounts must provide documentation via a 1099 form. According to the IRS, the attorney who selected, hired, instructed, and supervised the experts is the "payor."
• IRS Form 1099-NEC. In 2019, the IRS reintroduced the new Form 1099-NEC to allow for the reporting of non-employee compensation. Payments made to attorneys or law firms for professional services are not exempt from being reported on the 1099-NEC. They must be disclosed whether services are provided through a sole proprietorship, limited liability company, or corporation.
• IRS Form 1099-MISC. Businesses report payments not related to non-employee compensation on IRS Form 1099-MISC. However, provided certain criteria are met, some attorney and law firm payments are recorded in Box 10 of Form 1099-MISC and not on Form 1099-NEC.
• IRS Form 1065. A partnership is required to file Form 1065 to disclose information about its operations but is not taxed. Rather, profits or losses are “passed through” to the partners, and each reports their share of the partnership's income or loss on their tax return. Therefore, partners are not employees and shouldn't be issued a Form W-2.
• IRS Form 1120. Domestic corporations must file Form 1120 unless they are required, or elect, to file a special return. This form reports income, gains, losses, deductions, and credits and determines a corporation’s tax liability. If an entity with more than one owner was formed as an LLC under state law, it is generally treated as a partnership for federal income tax purposes, and files Form 1065.
• IRS Form 1040-ES. Unlike W-2 employees who have federal and state taxes withheld from each paycheck to cover any tax liability owed to the IRS or applicable state, numerous lawyers have distinct tax filing requirements, such as estimated taxes. Estimated taxes are due four times annually and are based on income received but not subject to withholding, such as legal fees received by an LLC. Sole proprietors, partners, and shareholders in S-corporations must pay estimated taxes if they anticipate owing more than $1,000 in taxes for the current tax year.

1040-ES deadlines

Although different deadlines apply to partnerships and s-corporations, estimated tax payments are due for all on the same dates as follows:

• April 15th: For January 1st – March 31st
• June 15th: For April 1st – June 15th
• September 15th: For June 1st – August 31st
• January 15th of the following year: For September 1st – December 31st

Penalties for late or incorrect filings

Nobody sets out to pay more taxes to the IRS. However, careless mistakes leave many individuals and businesses doing precisely that. The IRS penalizes filers for errors that could have been avoided through compliance with the tax rules, including deadlines.

• Late filings. The filing deadline for the 2022 tax year is April 18, 2023. Late filing penalties can add 25% to your tax bill, although those who cannot file their tax return by the deadline can request an extension of time which will give them until October 15, 2023. Forgetting to sign a tax return is the most common mistake taxpayers make. The IRS won’t accept a tax return that is not signed and considers it the same as not filing at all.
• Creative bookkeeping. If your bookkeeping sets off red flags to IRS employees, you will have to provide a journal detailing every deduction and exemption claimed on your return, and you'll also have to turn over receipts for all other questions they may have. If you cannot prove your case, the IRS will access a 25% accuracy penalty on top of the additional tax and interest on the entire amount.
• Math errors. Math errors are widespread on pen-and-paper tax returns, so check and re-check your math. If the math error results in you paying less tax than you should, the IRS might require that you pay the additional amount of taxes owed plus the interest accumulated after the due date of the return.
• Improper home office deductions. If you use part of your home as your law office, you may take a deduction for your home office. However, you must use your home office “exclusively and regularly” as your principal place of business, and you can only deduct the exact area(s) you use exclusively for business. Expect penalties if the IRS determines you do not qualify for the home office tax deduction. In addition, because the deduction is taken on Schedule C, it may raise your taxable income, and that amount is also subject to self-employment tax, typically 15.3 percent.
• Undocumented charitable donations. Charitable contributions can lead to additional tax deductions; however, the donor must receive an itemized slip from the organization listing what was donated, the condition of the items, the estimated value, and a signature. If you are audited and nothing specific is listed on the slip or the donation does not meet IRS guidelines, the IRS will likely deny the deduction.

Organizing financial records and documents

To set up your practice for financial success, you must review your law firm’s finances periodically, including at the end of the year. At year-end, you should methodically review your records, close outstanding receivables, and budget for the year ahead. This will streamline tax time for you and your accountant and make planning for the coming year much more manageable. Here are some financials every law firm should be tracking:

1Outstanding balances

It’s best practice to collect all accounts receivable in a timely manner, particularly for clients who are slow to pay. Since the chances of collection decrease with time, you should identify long-overdue balances before the end of the year, a task that can be accomplished automatically with time and billing software built for law firms.

2Time entries and billings

Before collecting, you must ensure the firm is current on time tracking and billing. To achieve this, ensure everyone at the firm has logged their time through the end of November so that subsequent billing can occur at the beginning of December. Billing reconciliation software seamlessly automates recurring invoicing, billable hours, matter management, and reporting functions.

3Trust accounts

Even if you’re meticulous when dealing with your law firm’s trust accounts throughout the year, you should dedicate time at year-end to double-check that you’ve been diligent about moving money from your trust account to your operating account as fees were earned. You can automate this process, make trust deposits, issue refunds, and set minimum balance alerts with law firm billing software.

Year-end collection strategies

Here are some year-end collection strategies that can help law firms improve their financial picture:

• Accept online payments. The 2021 Legal Trends Report found that 73% of firms accepted online payments. Time and billing software for law firms takes the headache out of getting paid by letting your clients pay directly from within their invoices. You’ll get paid faster if clients can pay their preferred way – from a laptop or mobile device.
• Send reminders. Your clients may not be dragging their feet intentionally. Send custom automatic invoice reminders to help streamline the process of collecting payments smoothly and efficiently.
• Set up a payment plan. If your clients cannot pay on time, consider setting up a payment plan to get them back on track. According to the 2021 Legal Trends Report, 81 percent of all legal consumers would prefer to pay their legal fees on a payment plan.

Tax deductions and credits for Lawyers

To be as prepared for tax season as possible, make sure you’re taking advantage of all the available tax deductions and credits available to lawyers and law firms, including:

Marketing expenses

Like any other business, law firms must spend money on advertising and marketing.

Fortunately, most expenses connected to marketing campaigns are tax deductible, including hiring an SEO agency, building a website, running paid advertisements on social media platforms, printing flyers, or outsourcing marketing tasks to qualified external firms.

Retirement plans

Businesses, including law firms, often partially fund their employees' retirement accounts, which is an excellent way to incentivize top talent and obtain a tax deduction for the firm. Simple IRAs and 401(k) plans are two of the most popular retirement plans. Simple (Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees) IRAs are an option for firms that employ under 100 people. Employers typically contribute between 2 and 3 percent of employee compensation into a Simple IRA; however, the 401(k) option allows employers to choose the percentage they want to match.

Mileage

Lawyers routinely drive to meet clients, interview witnesses, examine evidence, take depositions, and more. The mileage accumulated during these activities is tax deductible and can reduce your tax burden. Here are the options: 1) take the IRS’s standard mileage deduction, which is currently 65.5 cents per mile driven while in the course and scope of employment, or 2) itemize mileage-related expenses like gas, tire rotations, and insurance, and base your deductions on those.

Travel expenses

Besides mileage on your personal vehicle, you can deduct numerous other travel expenses, including airline tickets, ridesharing services like Lyft or Uber, meals, hotel accommodations, and laundry services. However, be aware that “travel” means you must travel a substantial distance for an expense to be deductible.

Educational expenses

Legal education doesn’t end with law school or passing the bar. Instead, the legal profession is famously analytical, and successfully practicing law requires keeping up-to-date with new legal developments. As a result, attorneys are required to attend Continuing Legal Education (CLE) classes to maintain licensure. While some CLEs are free, others are offered for a fee that can be written off as a tax deduction.

Credit card fees

More and more law firms are moving to accept digital payments, a win-win situation for everyone since providing a convenience benefits the client, and offering the option to pay via credit card can substantially reduce the time it takes to get paid. Although credit card companies charge processing fees for handling transactions and these fees can add up fast, they are tax deductible as long as the firm pays them and doesn’t pass them off to clients.

Student loan interest

Student loans are not tax-deductible; however, up to $2500 student loan interest is tax deductible annually. To qualify for this deduction, you must have taken the loan out for yourself, your dependents, or your spouse, but you will not be eligible if you are claimed as a dependent on someone else’s return. Student loan interest deductions apply to all student loans, not just those granted by the federal government.

Meals

Lawyers can typically deduct 50 percent of the meals and expenses they accrue during meetings to network with clients. In addition, the IRS put some special rules in effect for 2021 and 2022, allowing you to deduct up to 100% of some meals. When claiming this deduction, keep receipts and detailed notes about who the meal was with and what was discussed in the event of an IRS audit.

Home office

Regardless of where you work – a spare bedroom, your kitchen, or a dedicated home office – if you operate your law firm from your home, a percentage of your home expenses are tax deductible, including mortgage interest, rent, and utilities, as long as this part of your home is used exclusively for business purposes.

Professional fees

The IRS allows attorneys to deduct any dues required by their profession, such as bar dues or membership fees to a professional or trade organization. If you are self-employed, you may take the full deduction. If you hire an accountant or tax preparer, you can deduct those expenses on your law firm tax return as well.

Phones, computers, and other equipment

According to the IRS, your business expenses must be “necessary, customary, and reasonable” to be deductible, meaning you must use your desktop computer, laptop, or iPad for business. Similarly, if you use your cell phone exclusively for business, then the cost of the phone equipment and the monthly service is tax-deductible. You can claim a partial deduction if you use the phone partly for business.

Working with a tax professional

Organizing law firm financials can be overwhelming and time-consuming, particularly at year-end when the firm is busy wrapping things up. However, an experienced accountant is an expert in managing financials, tax planning, tax compliance, and more. Therefore, if you hire a law firm accounting professional to do your taxes, you will have more time to focus on other aspects of your practice while remaining confident that your financials are handled properly.Attorneys’ taxes can also be highly complex. For the best possible outcome, attorneys and law firms need to hire a tax professional who specializes in working with legal operations. An experienced tax advisor can satisfy all filing requirements, take all available deductions, and adequately document your filings. If you need to file foreign tax returns or are required to file in multiple states and localities, consider hiring an accountant with experience those areas to avoid triggering an audit.

Tax planning strategies for law firms

When it comes to filing your personal and business taxes, there are many money-saving tips and tricks. Here are some common tax planning strategies to reduce tax liability:

Maximize Section 179

Section 179 of the IRS tax code allows law firm owners to deduct the full purchase price of qualifying equipment and/or software bought during the tax year, allowing you to reduce your overall taxable income. As of 2019, section 179 increased to $1,000,000, but the property must meet three qualifications:

• It must be tangible.
• It must have been acquired for business use.
• It must have been purchased by you (not gifted).

The Section 179 election is made on an item-by-item basis for eligible property. You do not have to take full depreciation on all eligible property purchased during the fiscal year; however, you must make the election in the tax year the property is first placed in service and reported on Form 4562.

Leverage retirement plans

Maximizing your tax savings opportunities through your firm’s retirement plan by deferring income until later could result in thousands of dollars in tax savings. If your firm’s program does not offer Mega Backdoor Roth IRAs, check into the possibility – with this type of Roth IRA, you can put up to $37,500 away annually. To qualify, your firm must allow for “after-tax” contributions and yearly “in-service” distributions to a Roth IRA.

Itemize deductions

When President Biden signed the Inflation Relief Act in August 2022, he effectively removed the SALT tax, and as a result, the cap on itemized deductions rose from 21 percent to 28 percent. In addition, if you’re planning any large charitable donations or events, those can be written off up to 50 percent of your adjusted gross income. Certificated and allocated credits for your state could be another path to substantial tax savings.

Increase spending to reduce liability

Spend more money at the end of the year to get tax deductions? It sounds counterintuitive. Yet, if it makes sense to spend money to receive the tax benefit in the same year, such as much-needed equipment upgrades, go for it.

Staying compliant with tax laws and regulations

With so many regulations and rules — and recent changes to them — it can be hard to know what tasks to focus on or the best practices for tackling them. However, adhering to basic compliance principles and even breaking them down further into a checklist of regular practices can help make tax compliance much more manageable. Even for small firms, there are many applicable taxes, and each tax comes with its own compliance requirement and particular due date. As a result, small business owners can quickly get confused and forget to comply with one or more requirements. To ensure that every compliance requirement is followed, take a systematic approach:

• Make a list of all the tax laws applicable to you.
• For every applicable tax law, list all the essential forms and returns required to file, and note the due dates of tax payments.
• Make a list of all the documents required for each type of return.
• Keep your books organized and all supporting documents in order.
• Monitor the changes in tax compliance laws, especially those that affect your practice.

Tax compliance can be challenging, particularly for small firms, because it requires a thorough knowledge of various tax laws and a substantial amount of time and work. Hence, it often makes sense to seek professional help.

Conquer tax season with automation

To streamline your financial reporting activities and survive tax season, tap into the power of law practice management software to automatically collect, track, and analyze your firm’s income. To find out more about how the Lawmatics platform simplifies tax time for attorneys and law firms, request a demo today.

On average, lawyers perform just two-and-a-half hours of billable work in an average eight-hour workday. Although most attorneys put in significantly more than 40 hours during the typical work week, unfortunately only a fraction of these hours are billable and generate revenue. Many lawyers waste time performing non-billable administrative, financial, or marketing tasks instead of working on their cases. How can busy lawyers serve their current clients and keep new ones coming in? By utilizing law firm marketing automation.

What is legal automation?

Legal automation involves using software to automate the manual or routine tasks that many lawyers perform as part of their jobs. No lawyer would say they worked hard, took out student loans, and sacrificed for years to put themselves through law school, only to fill their days performing manual data entry, copying and pasting to create documents, and developing marketing campaigns. Legal automation software performs low-value legal work, enabling lawyers to focus on more strategic tasks. Law firm automation can:

• Reduce the risk of human error due to duplicate data entry
• Improve the client experience by automating specific processes or making offering self-service options for filling out forms and scheduling appointments
• Enable attorneys to spend more time on billable work and other revenue-producing activities, increasing work satisfaction
• Improve communication and transparency between law firm staff and clients
• Reduce the overhead costs related to staffing associated with a traditional law office
• Levels the playing field by enabling small or mid-sized firms to stay competitive on a lesser budget

Legal automation can vary according to the setting. For example, some law firms automate the document review process to allow lawyers to avoid manually searching through emails. In contrast, others choose to automate their marketing efforts with an efficient yet personalized approach. But regardless of the setting, most lawyers can automate a large portion of their work with current technology.

What legal processes can be automated?

With legal workflow automation, law firms can automate a myriad of tasks – from billing to document management – while eliminating errors and reducing overhead.

Types of automation

Some of the types of legal work that can be successfully automated include:

• Document creation. Merge the data you need from your custom fields and auto-fill directly into boilerplate legal forms to generate documents – with the click of a mouse.
• Document execution. Introducing secure, universally-recognized electronic signature for law firms allows attorneys to streamline their operations and win more business.
• Legal workflows. Automation helps legal teams and law firms to string together various manual processes, such as client intake, to make everyday workflows more scalable.
• Time and expense tracking. Legal time tracking software offers the most efficient way to track time, whether your law firm bills hourly, fixed fee, or on contingency.
• Billing management. Law firm billing software automates every step in the billing process, from invoice creation to billing, collection, and payment status.
• Online payments. Payment processing software makes it easy for your clients to securely pay their invoices online, meaning you get paid faster.
• Appointment scheduling. Automated scheduling software takes the hassle out of appointment setting by allowing legal clients to schedule their own appointments.
• Lead management. With automated pipeline management, firms can manage, prioritize and nurture prospective clients from initial inquiries to paying clients.
• Marketing campaigns. Build repeatable processes with email marketing drip campaigns that initiate a response as you move a lead from one stage to the next.

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“Lawmatics lets me do what much bigger firms spend a whole lot more money doing - and I can do it much faster and much better.”

— Taylor Darcy, Attorney, Founder, CEO of Think Legal, P.C.

Benefits of automation in law

The main benefits of legal automation are 1) a dramatic increase in productivity and 2) substantial time savings. Here are some of the most common benefits of automation in law:

• More time for higher-value work. By avoiding repetitive administrative tasks, lawyers have more time to perform the strategic, substantive legal work they are trained to do.
• Less duplication of work. Once a process is automated, it’s off an attorney’s plate. No more reinventing the wheel – once a task is automated, it can be generated instantly from a template.
• Superior client experience. When low-value work is automated, the cost savings can be passed on to the client, giving them a better, more cost-effective experience.
• Greater access to data. Manual processes, like due diligence reviews or wet signatures, usually capture no data - making it hard to integrate them with something else. Automated processes can capture data, provide analytics, and enable better workflows.
• No more blown budgets. Automating a process can mean a team can cut costs, avoid hiring additional staff, and scale productivity without scaling overhead.

These and other benefits encourage more and more lawyers to consider automating some of their processes.

Can automation replace lawyers?

With the emergence of revolutionary AI software like ChatGPT, legal professionals have found themselves asking: “will lawyers be replaced by robots?”. Law office automation and technology will not take away the human element of the practice. Instead, it allows attorneys to spend less time on time-intensive, tedious tasks and more time on activities requiring their unique skills and expertise.

A "robot" lawyer powered by artificial intelligence was set to be the first of its kind to help a defendant contest a traffic ticket in court last month. However, the experiment was scrapped after Joshua Browder, the CEO of the company that created the chatbot, was threatened with prison time.

Joshua Browder, CEO of DoNotPay, tweeted that his company "is postponing our court case and sticking to consumer rights." Browder said he would not send the company's robot lawyer to court. According to Browder, his company’s AI creation that operates on a smartphone, considers legal arguments, and formulates responses for the defendant, was designed to tell the defendant (through headphones) what to say in real-time. However, Browder decided that the prospect of bringing the first robot lawyer into the courtroom wasn't worth the risk of spending six months in jail.Criticism from attorneys against Browder's robot lawyer suggests that many have concerns over AI-powered chatbots taking their jobs. But according to Browder, the ultimate goal of a robot lawyer is to “democratize legal representation by making it free for those who can't afford it, in some cases eliminating the need for pricey attorneys.”However, given that the technology is illegal in many courtrooms, Browder doesn't expect to be able to launch the robot lawyer any time soon. As he told CBS MoneyWatch, when Browder originally revealed that DoNotPay's robot lawyer would appear in court, lawyers threatened him with jail time.

"There are a lot of lawyers and bar associations that would not support this," Browder said. "ChatGPT is very good at holding conversations, but it's terrible at knowing the law. We've had to retrain these AIs to know the law," Browder said. "AI is a high school student, and we're sending it to law school."

According to an American Bar Association (ABA) report, lawyers don’t need to worry about robots taking their jobs . . . yet. The types of automation currently being deployed are tools like document automation and chatbots:

Document automation

Document automation is like having a personal assistant that helps you create legal documents faster and with less room for error. You know how tedious it can be to create contracts or legal agreements from scratch every time? With automation, you can streamline that process, and even personalize documents to suit your clients' specific needs. In addition, it saves money by reducing the costs of creating and storing documents. But how exactly does it work?Document automation technology employs logic to combine preexisting text, user input, and data to create new documents. Document automation solutions typically guide users through the document creation process with a series of questions. Then, based on the user’s answers, the system automatically uses that information to generate a document. Document automation is much more complex than mail merge because it allows users to draft documents using complex reasoning that humans instinctively use when creating documents. Although the legacy platforms of the past required users to learn code, the new generation of user-friendly automation tools visually representing logical connections has replaced these cumbersome systems. As a result, users or subject-matter experts can complete document automation projects faster and easier than ever before.

Chatbots

A chatbot is a computer program designed to maintain conversations with human users over the Internet, using natural language and replying based on preset rules and data. They have become a widespread, practical, and helpful way to encourage clients to provide the data required to create documents and provide relevant and valuable information. Most people have become comfortable with Chatbots’ conversational user interface through texting on mobile phones.According to The State of Chatbots Report, a survey of more than 1,000 adults ages 18 to 64, consumers observed many benefits to using chatbots, the most common potential benefit being the ability to get 24-hour service (64 percent), followed by receiving immediate responses to inquiries (55 percent), and getting answers to simple questions (55 percent). In addition, some users prefer chatbots because they want to avoid judgment by others and feel safer communicating with a machine. Chatbots also provide a more accessible interface by allowing those who are hearing or physically or visually impaired to communicate by voice or text. So will automation replace lawyers?Automation won’t replace legal expertise. Instead, it will allow lawyers to spend more time practicing law instead of performing the duties of a business owner or manager. In the past, law firms looked at document review, legal memos, and research projects as easy ways for young lawyers to get up to speed, but some modern law firms are looking at document automation and chatbots as a way to train the next generation of lawyers. According to the ABA, the future will likely reflect the past, and junior associates will continue to learn about the law and its application through research and consultation with more senior lawyers. However, the tools they use to get educated will be different. For example, chatbots and document automation might be a new way for associates to integrate what they’ve learned to make it worthwhile for others. In other words, robots won’t replace lawyers but may make them better lawyers.

Which legal document management system is the best?

Legal document management software allows lawyers to store, organize, and access documents from one central repository. These platforms enable lawyers to work more collaboratively and efficiently – from anywhere – and prevent the unauthorized access of client documents, enhancing security. Lawyers have many options when choosing legal document management software. Here are some potential legal document management solutions.

Lawmatics

Lawmatics document automation software syncs the right data into the right places instantly, saving users time and minimizing errors. Lawmatics instantly generates documents in the preferred template using Microsoft Word, PDFs, or an online text editor app to reduce mistakes and save time.

Clio

Clio introduced the first cloud-based practice management software to law firms in 2008 and is still widely considered one of the top legal document management solutions. Clio is trusted by over 150,000 legal professionals, with high ratings on G2 Crowd, Lawyerist, Capterra, and SoftwareAdvice.com.

PracticePanther

Practice Panther is one of the market’s leading and fastest-growing practice management platforms. With an incredibly robust set of tools designed to make managing and billing cases a breeze, PracticePanther allows law firms to track, organize, and manage their documents in a centralized location.

Filevine

Filevine, a cloud-based document management program intended for personal injury firms, aims to help legal teams simplify processes, organize documents, and work more collaboratively.

MyCase

One of the leading case management platforms, MyCase provides solid features for document management, client communication, and billing. MyCase makes it easy for lawyers to adopt and implement the latest legal software and focus on practicing law.

Rocket Matter

Rocket Matter is a cloud-based legal billing and management solution for small and midsize law practices that includes time and billing management, calendaring, document management, and payments and collaboration management modules to help law firms boost revenue and provide an improved client experience.

What software do most law firms use?

The software a law firm uses generally depends on the size and needs of the firm. Lawmatics is the #1 legal software for growing law firms, offering law practice CRM, marketing automation, legal billing, document management, and much more in one easy-to-use system.

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“Lawmatics is the best legal technology software I have seen in ten years. When I evaluate software, I question whether our lives would be easier if a program could execute or manage a specific task. The team has gone a long way to make our wants and wishes a reality.”

— Christopher Gaddy, Nice Law Firm

Not only is it extremely easy to create documents with Lawmatics, but you can just as quickly review, send and receive with e-sign pdf software, all in our simplified automation platform. To learn more about how the Lawmatics platform will transform your law firm, request a demo today.