Blog Posts in the 'LegalPortal' Category

There are many features which can be added to a law firm website in order to make it more of a communication device. Features include sharing documents online, receiving payments, and capturing electronic signatures. They deliver more value to clients, and allow for lawyers to justify charges. Other website functions, such as showing more than 1 language or blogging, serve to convert more web visitors into clients.

A poll was conducted by Impirus Legal Websites to determine the legal industry’s interest in website functionality. The poll was shown to Linkedin users in the United States who are in the legal industry. There were 51 respondents.

The question was asked, “In which law firm website functionality are you most interested?”

The answer choices were:

• Share documents with clients

• Capture electronic signatures

• Receive online payments

• Blog

• Show more than 1 language

The overall results show that 43% of respondents are most interested in sharing documents with clients through a law firm website. Next, 25% of respondents are most interested in having a blog as a part of a website. A similar number, 21% of respondents, are most interested in being able to receive payments through a law firm website. There was not as much interest in being able to capture electronic signatures (1%), or in showing more than 1 language (7%).

Interestingly enough, the results varied depending on the size of the company. Large companies favored having a blog and showing more than 1 language. Small and medium sized companies favored sharing documents with clients.

The overall results were most accurately reflected by the 25-34 year age group. All age groups were most interested in sharing documents with clients, except for the 35-54 year age group which slightly favored getting a blog.

In conclusion, law firm websites can have added functionality. Linkedin users in the legal industry were polled to determine the most appealing law firm website functionality. The overall results showed that the ability to share documents was the most appealing website feature. In the future the poll could be expanded to include more participants, and to limit each feature to a “yes or no” type question.

Yesterday, Matt was the unintended recipient of an email message from an attorney. Maybe it is because he has a common name. Matt noticed a disclaimer at the bottom of the email. As the disclaimer advised him to do, he notified the sender of the error. The sender replied, “Oh, Thanks,” and that was the end of the conversation. The sender was not an attorney, but an attorney’s assistant. My guess is the attorney will never learn about the error.

This is not the only problem with sending legal correspondence by email.

The amount of SPAM has made it imperative for people to have email filters. The problem with filters is that sometimes important messages slip through the cracks. Your important message could be lost among junk email.

Email messages are not encrypted. If someone has a mind to read your sent messages, it would be easy to do. Emails are bounced off many servers in route to their final destination. Along any point within that path, the emails can be read.

Have you ever felt like you were in an email ping-pong match with a client? You know, going back and forth with a client through email communication. Unless the client organizes every email message himself, the communication is not centralized so that important documents can be located immediately.

I have one final comment about email. This is the Facebook era. People are used to uploading pictures, in order to share them. Pretty soon, people are going to think of email as an archaic way of sharing information. They are going to expect a better way of communicating, such as through a document sharing portal.