It is quite natural to stick with your own portable devices these days – laptops, tablets, and smartphones are your trustworthy day-to-day assistants. As a lawyer, you may roam around quite a lot, even on pandemic days, and it is unlikely that you will sit in your office all day, especially considering quarantine. Under such conditions, going digital is quite a necessity.
There are quite a variety of different ways to discover the full potential of your devices. However, that does not justify cluttering your phone with shiny but useless apps that you probably won’t ever use. This article won’t just name you three unrelated apps. Instead, it will showcase a bundle of apps that can be synergized together to skyrocket your performance.
1. Best digital workplace foundation
It is much better to establish your workflow based on interoperable services. Imagine how great it is to create a document in a web app that can automatically save your draft on a cloud server so you could edit it later on using your desktop app?
By using Microsoft 365, you can log in to the web version of Microsoft Word from any device that can handle a browser and an internet connection. And the list does not stop on Word – Outlook, OneDrive, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, SharePoint, Yammer, and even Teams can be accessed just using your browser. And if you still prefer to download apps – you have such options for pretty much any of the popular operating systems, including Android and IOS. It should be mentioned that Linux might not have an app for some of the Microsoft solutions, but you can still use it within the browser, so that is not an issue. Small storage of your device won’t be an issue anymore, as everything can be easily stored within OneDrive. In addition to that, an Outlook calendar will make sure that you won’t forget a thing.
Considering everything mentioned, Microsoft 365 can be a solid foundation of your digital workflow. It won’t make anything too magical for you, like AI-based document generation or clause analysis (don’t worry, we will get to such solutions soon), but it is a great solution to start your workplace digitalization.
Alternative: Google workspace. Just like Microsoft 365. The Google workspace can provide you the ability to create various types of documents within the browser and store them on a cloud server. Outlook can be substituted by Google Calendar and Gmail; Word can be replaced by Google Docs. However, some tools, like MS Teams, cannot be replaced by Google services yet. That is not an issue if you are ready to use Discord for business purposes, but it won’t be synced with Google services like MS Teams is synced with OneDrive and other Microsoft tools.
2. Best document analysis solution
Now when we have discussed how to create a solid foundation, it is just about time to focus on magical stuff (yeap, just as promised). A cozy digital workspace helps to solve your day-to-day assignments, but how about letting technology not just ease your work but actually do it instead of you?
Loio achieves just that. This tool for lawyers can speed up your document review by automatically indicating key points (dates, addresses, counterparties, and even more). It also can help you proofread the text, as its powerful AI excels at short but capacious legal writing. Loio helps with time-consuming issues like text formatting, lists, and overall contract layout preparation. This project is actively developing and expanding its feature list – for example, an upgraded clause analytics feature is coming soon. It is expected that this project will become a Loio actively tries to communicate with legal community – Loio blog contains handy work tips, legal industry insights, and other lawyer-related material.
And even more than that – Loio can be easily integrated into your Microsoft 365 workflow, turning one of the most popular text editing software into Microsoft Word for Lawyers.
Alternative: It is hard to name another comprehensive legal tool like that. For example, some tools can help with general spelling, but usually, such tools do not provide additional features and do not focus on legal spelling and clause analysis.
3. Best paperwork solution
Dealing with paper is quite burdensome and unpopular nowadays. However, you still get a chance to work with such a relic of a past like a wet-ink signed document.
Luckily, there is no need to reprint anything anymore. Office Lens will gladly recognize any text from photos or scans for you. Office Lens is provided by Microsoft, so if you are up for Microsoft 365 – you will get additional synergy points.
Alternative: There are quite a few projects that can recognize texts as well. CamScanner is one of the most popular options. At this point, hopefully, everything is straightforward. Need to create an agreement? Launch your MS Word or Google Docs, draft something up, make it impeccable and production-ready with Loio. Need to deal with paperwork? Use Office Lens or CamScanner to recognize text, and then proceed to its analysis and editing with Loio. The Best Document Management Systems for Law Firms constitute a smart combination of interoperable software solutions that will surely upgrade your business.
