Beginning of the twenty-first century certainly will go down in history as the twilight of the mobile technology. The development of digital sciences has made possible the introduction of mobile applications into all spheres and sectors of human life. Today it is hard to imagine anyone who would not use mobile devices, such as a smartphone (iPhones, apparently) or tablet. And the phone itself has long ceased to be simply a means of communication, becoming a versatile tool that, given the necessary applications, greatly facilitates not only the user’s life but also their work.
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What about lawyers? Can mobile apps for lawyers help the law offices? Make the work of attorneys and prosecutors more effective? Can a simple application take part of a real lawyer’s hard work and make their job as effective and prompt as it happened in other spheres? Today, high-tech successfully entered such important fields as medicine, maintenance, logistics, transportation, human resources management, and many, many others; so then can lawyers, actions of which often determine the fate and life of a person, ignore the new technology?
The answer is obvious. It remains only to understand in what ways these technologies can help judges, lawyers, prosecutors, legal aid agencies and their clients.
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Legal Mobile Apps: What kinds are there?
For a start, it is worth noting that law firm mobile apps are not fictional. iOS and Android tools for attorneys and law firms have long been implemented in the field of law enforcement, and many have already proved themselves. Such apps as ShalePlay, McCullough Robertson IP Health Check App, and many others, are used by known law firms in the US and Europe (in fact, most of the law app development processes were initiated by requests of legal aid agencies themselves).
All the applications developed for the judicial scope can be divided into two main blocks: software designed specifically for lawyers and law firms, and programs constructed for customers who use (or need to use) legal services.
Applications for lawyers and attorney companies
This is a fairly large class of diverse law firm apps (both already existing, and those that can be created in the future), affecting the different needs of various areas of legal activity. In general, the direction of activity for lawyers’ software can be divided into these categories:
– Company management applications;
Of course, the management of a law firm can be compared to the administration of any other business that provides public services. Thus, armed with the motto “what helps one can help others”, outsourcing developers create an app for law firm afresh or update existing applications that provide assistance in the management of companies, taking into account all the features related to jural activities.
– Organizer apps for lawyers;
Similar is the situation with the organizer applications created for lawyers. The job of attorney in this respect is comparable to a busy entrepreneur: irregular schedule, constant meetings, and sessions, a lot of clients with various problems. A qualitatively built organizer, that considers the peculiarities of the legal endeavors, can significantly reduce the burden on prosecutors and lawyers associated with labor systematization.
– Applications for the promotion of companies in the market of legal services;
According to study, more than 76% of all US customers at some point turned to online sources in their search for a lawyer. Is this not reason enough for legal experts to use the network for their services promotion same as any other public service enterprises do currently? Technologies that boost presentation websites and judicial applications in the search engines’ rankings can significantly help the development and growth of the law firm.
– Contact applications that provide client-attorney communications;
Personal contact applications may trivialize significantly the lawyer’s job and help their prospective customers. What would you say about the application, with which the client can not only find themselves the lawyer with appropriate knowledge and experience but also make an appointment with a single click? In this the application would consult the attorney’s organizer, proposing the client available timeframes for a meeting. Thus, the sole tap will automatically settle the patron a rendezvous at the same time informing the lawyer of the appointment and the nature of the customer’s problem.
– Informational applications;
And last but not least – informational applications. Lawyer’s job primarily consists of huge data sets searching and processing. The attorney must know to the letter (or be able to quickly look up) laws relating to their customer’s case, as well as be well-informed about all the cases and proceedings similar to the one they conduct. Thus, throughout centuries, every lawyer had to sit for hours in front of books or, in more recent times, a computer, searching and analyzing the information arrays such as law compendiums, court records, etc., looking for a data that might help in the client’s case. Isn’t it true that application, which provides a quick access to relevant information, can notably improve the responsiveness of a lawyer, as well as the accuracy and efficiency of their work? Also the legal press and law dictionaries can be attributed to this group.
– Other helpful tools.
These may include cloud storages for case related documentation, different online and native fee calculators, emergency lawyer call buttons by the customer’s location, and so on.
Applications for customers
Before employing the services of any company or lawyer, a person who has some unresolved problems is forced to spend a lot of time analyzing the available information. One must clearly understand to which area of law their problem applies, find companies and specialists that provide essential services and choose from a huge list of law firms one that best suits the customer’s requirements. Special challenges would also be appointing the meeting and the need to briefly formulate the problem (after all, every hour of the lawyer’s counsel is paid from the pocket of their client). In general, legal agencies client applications can be divided into such classes:
• Search application;
• Contact application for quick and easy meeting appointments;
• Consultant apps that assist the customer in choosing the problem’s scope and summarizing it.
Final thoughts
The legal services field is not only in need of new information technologies but also promises a huge potential for new legal application development. To help lawyers, software companies can both adapt the existing applications (for example, in the case of the organizers) and create entirely new interesting and useful jurisprudential products. The amount and operating principles of legal applications are limited only by the imagination of developers.
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One thing can be said surely: the introduction of modern technologies into the work of law firms and the mobile app development for law companies can not only greatly facilitate the life of servants of Themis, but in many ways improve the quality of provided services and efficiency of lawyers’ labor.