IT Solutions
Depend on us to get your organisation to the next level.
Sectors
BCN have a heritage of delivering outcomes through our cloud-first services and currently support over 1200 customers across specialist sectors.
About Us
Your tech partner
Posted 28th November 2024
The increasing demand for hybrid working in the legal sector has accelerated the need for collaborative tools like Microsoft Teams for law firms across the UK. Creating successful collaboration between departments, individuals and third parties while boosting productivity is always the key driver in how well this tech will be applied and adopted.
But with law firms handling so much sensitive data, technology platforms, tools and services in the modern workplace must be secure, efficient and effective in the simplest way.
This is why we love Microsoft Teams for law firms and legal teams. The opportunities for integration, secure data sharing and advanced productivity it offers, alongside intuitive collaboration tools, make it perfect to facilitate the multi-task, data heavy and high-volume nature of legal services.
Let’s take a look at how it works.
Microsoft Teams is a holistic solution for modern work practices in one single source platform. Everything that individual roles, tasks, teams, departments and third-party contractors require to complete their workflows in the most efficient manner is available within Microsoft Teams.
It’s built around the world-leading, secure and trusted suite of tools and services that have been running the digital applications of law firms for decades. This means that integrations with familiar Microsoft 365 applications such as Word, Excel and Outlook are all simply available for integration into your Microsoft Teams hub.
With everything in one place Microsoft Teams allows law firms to create, edit and share documents whilst collaborating with colleagues in real time.
Staying connected is simple. Remote and hybrid work is attended to through customisable virtual workspaces that can be used for initial discovery and video client consultations with channels created for each case to enable messaging and file sharing in a strictly secure environment.
The core of modern legal services is ensuring that productivity through billable hours is always supported and encouraged through any process, workflow or digital tools. Microsoft Teams is ideal for law firms to create a central hub of all this activity to bring everything required for case management into one home. It makes collaboration across every stakeholder a more user driven, valuable and useful activity.
Microsoft Teams can bring the discussions of solicitors, paralegals and support staff together into one channel to make meeting deadlines, organising evidence and strategy planning a simple and well documented process.
Instant messaging channels for cases and departments liberate the whole team from the cumbersome and lengthy process of email chains. Importantly, it also allows the most secure forum for the discussions to take place in a quick and easy way.
The rise in home working and the multiple locations involved in case management make virtual meetings an absolute necessity. Microsoft Teams allows law firms to bring all parties together on the call in the most secure way possible with meeting recordings, transcripts and notes available for future use too. This can dramatically reduce the travel times and resources required to stay as productive as possible.
Microsoft Teams presents law firms with an intuitive foundation platform for enhanced collaboration between all roles and people involved in legal services work. The sharing of documents across departments for litigation cases, coordination of information for partners and associates, and handling of sensitive data for any possible mergers and acquisitions, becomes more secure, faster, and enables greater access from wherever you are.
Seamless Document Editing
Working together in real-time on familiar document tools such as Microsoft Word and Excel speeds up editing and drafts with a full version history always available. Collaboration on cases becomes more instant and reactive with everything recorded for full disclosure.
Working with a managed service provider that holds Microsoft partnerships will enable you to integrate any of your existing industry-specific apps into Teams with complete support. Microsoft Teams lets law firms add in bespoke and secure applications of tools such as iManage and LexisNexis that allows access to their functionality with all content remaining available in Teams channels and conversations.
The ability to present information with secure permission access is a crucial element of Microsoft Teams for law firms. Organising specific channels for case management with these checks and balances in place means that information is only available to those that need to see it with content surfaced through notifications for enhanced productivity.
With Microsoft 365 Copilot integrated into Teams, law firms are presented with some great leaps forward for task automation, document drafting & review and research capability. This offers Artificial Intelligence for law firms through a digital assistant that can summarise meeting notes with real time transcripts and detailed actions for next steps. It can also scan documents for compliance content, providing key data and insights for case research. Copilot learns alongside you and may be the most valuable productivity tool to leverage all Microsoft apps that can be accessed securely on the Teams platform.
Undergoing the process of digital transformation for document and data heavy industries such as legal services require expertise, knowledge and experience to make things run smoothly. Microsoft Teams does this while offering opportunities for streamlined productivity across the whole firm from senior partners to support staff.
Efficient Task Management can assign and track tasks across the firm’s ecosystem for case notes, contracts, research, court filings and evidence.
Calendar Integration for Legal Scheduling syncs seamlessly with Outlook to provide up to date information for the whole firm that is accessible and editable from anywhere, on any device, at any time.
The legal industry operates on a global scale. With so many firms having offices and representation around the country and even the world, it’s vital that key stakeholders can communicate frequently and simply through secure channels. Microsoft Teams empowers law firms to work remotely through access from anywhere with internet or mobile network coverage. This cloud-based foundation of Microsoft Teams is a huge benefit to supporting out of office working and maximising billable time on court days, commutes and between appointments.
The Microsoft Teams mobile app is a brilliant tool to assist with this through a device responsive interface that provides all the functionality required in user friendly ways. All of the files, documents and conversations are always in your pocket and at your fingertips.
Perhaps the most important aspect of any digital tool or platform used for legal services is having confidence that all the sensitive information and data is always completely secure. A huge benefit of Microsoft Teams for law firms is that it leverages Microsoft’s advanced and constantly developing cyber security framework to keep everything protected with unmatched results.
All files in Microsoft Teams are encrypted when in transit and at rest. This means no unauthorised user will be able to see, share or edit data stored in any online Teams location or when sent between users and devices. The sensitive case information and law firm financials are continually protected by best in class, top tier security from a world leading provider.
The ever-present and constantly shifting worlds of compliance and regulatory requirements for legal services demand digital tools that support and protect them. Microsoft Teams supports GDPR, ISO 27001, HIPAA compliance and many more, with additional options for data residency in specific locations for data sovereignty if, and when, required.
Every file, document and conversation stored within Microsoft Teams is equipped with a full version history and detailed user logs. With these tracked changes and access information always available, it ensures that any requested audit trails and information is made available simply and rapidly with the option for secure sharing to the requesting party too.
All these elements are aligned with enterprise level security and threat protection across the whole platform with 24/7 monitoring and incident response to provide peace of mind. BCN has conducted research and development in the realm of Cybersecurity for Legal Firms for many years and we are confident that With Microsoft Teams successfully installed and maintained, your data is protected with the fiercest level of security available.
The bottom-line benefits of Microsoft Teams for law firms are delivered through an emphasis on maximising the productivity of fee-earners within the firm. With lower costs on physical infrastructure through the cloud-based solution of Teams, an overall reduction of overheads can be achieved across the firm in simple steps.
The subscription model of Microsoft Teams presents a flexible approach for additions and licences with fixed costs and pricing plans too. This is essential for budgeting purposes and can aid the financial implications and projection of growth for the firm, including mergers and acquisitions activity.
Employing Microsoft 365 for Law Firms has been a successful strategy for almost a decade now. As there will inevitably be existing subscriptions in place across the firm, this can also further leverage your investment in existing costs to get the most out of the integrated services they offer.
With so much support for the tasks that drive an elevated efficiency of billable hours, Microsoft Teams as a platform can align with your overall productivity goals in a visible and reportable way. Importantly, it also provides a wealth of data, driven by machine learning and AI for law firms, to build KPIs for development and growth.
BCN is incredibly proud to be one of a very small number of Microsoft partners holding accreditation in all six designations and Solutions Partner for Microsoft Cloud Status.
Our position as a leading IT managed service provider for the legal services industry in this country puts us in the perfect position to consult, create and develop the strategy and solutions for your law firm’s Microsoft Teams journey. This direct knowledge and associated experience become a vital asset as shown in our client story for the award-winning law firm Schofield Sweeney.
The BCN site is full of interesting resources and information You can learn more from a deep dive into the functionality of Microsoft Teams for Businesses here.
When you’re ready, feel free to speak with our BCN Legal Services team to arrange an initial consultation and get started.
Visit our legal hub to learn more about our specialised legal IT services Learn moredown down
