Behind every federal government agency is another equally important state agency working in the background to execute the many responsibilities that are necessary to keep things running smoothly. These hidden players include many other government agencies that are tasked with ensuring individuals, families, groups and communities have the opportunity to enhance their individual and collective well-being and work.
There are many types of matters that these agencies work to provide solutions for, including:
- Tax appeals
- Guardianship cases involving children and the elderly
- Water/sewer, highway and environmental incidents
- Administrative courts and dispute resolutions
- Hearings and appeals
- Ethical, regulatory and inspector general needs
While not all of them are legal in nature, they still require the same complex government case management software to keep documents, contacts and communications organized. And because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of these agencies are seeing new and increasing challenges with efficiency and productivity that need to be solved to achieve a more agile, collaborative future.
The Challenges Facing Government Agencies Today
Many agencies have historically relied on paper-based filing systems to keep track of the many cases, appeals, incidents and other critical information that filters in each day. With the pressure to get things done faster with less resources, agencies are looking to technology for support during these trying times and to help solve some of the current challenges that plague our citizens and communities. Here are just a few of the situations non-legal government agency employees find themselves in with their current working standards:
- Agency employees must log in to multiple systems to complete work. With disparate data systems and information housed in multiple locations, agency employees waste valuable time in their day bouncing back and forth between the various platforms that are essential to completing daily activities.
- Current outdated technology systems make it difficult to access information online. Many legacy systems don’t have the latest software updates that enable agency employees to access current information securely online. This poses a challenge to getting the valuable information they need to complete their job with real-time information.
- Existing workflow processes include gaps that can’t be fixed without a complete overhaul of current technology systems. Without a seamless workflow process, agency employees can often feel like they are spending countless hours assigning tasks and setting up due dates manually for important deadlines. If something in the case changes, it’s often another manual job to reassign a task to another team member or update the due date. Many technology platforms remain rigid in their flexibility, so changing this feature would require a complete technology overhaul (and sufficient budget) to have an automated system set up.
- Lack of integration with other widely-used technology platforms creates inefficiencies and redundancies. A technology platform with built-in integration capabilities is an essential piece to today’s government agency work. With the inability to integrate emails, phone calls and other critical data, it’s an extra step each time to track a task, log calls or document emails since the information isn’t readily available.
Benefits of Matter Management Software for Non-Legal Agencies
When you think of legal case management program, you might assume it’s specifically for legal teams. But legal entity or not, best matter management software is actually the perfect solution for government agencies to handle the influx of appeals, incidents and files that departments handle each day. By keeping all your important data centrally located and easily disseminated across your local and regional teams, you can save valuable time and resources that are typically wasted on administrative tasks.
Here are a few of the ways that law document management software helps critical government agencies:
- Substantial cost savings by reducing the need for paper. By transitioning everything to electronic documents, many organizations see a huge reduction in costs. With printers to maintain and multiple documents for each case or appeal, it’s no surprise that switching to digital can help alleviate many pains. Through an easy organization system within the matter management platform, agencies can easily file, maintain and quickly retrieve all relevant documents.
- Configure the platform for specific organizational needs. With a flexible software solution, organizations can configure the system to meet each department area’s unique needs. There can be commonalities that are shared by all areas, such as security or document templates, but each one can maintain its own data with the screens and file menus they need to be configured specifically for them.
- Easily track key performance indicators for all areas within a division or an entire agency. Legal matter management systems enable leaders to track files, cases, incidents, even projects and implement a workflow process that can be updated in real-time. By developing a centralized system, team members can not only keep track of files categorically, but management personnel can see the “big picture” at a glance, and immediately address areas of concern.
- Establish organization by storing documents securely and within a single platform. Rest assured that documents are saved and securely stored with a legal matter management system. Each document saved in the system contains a profile, ideally a direct link to the document, which provides important information such as document name, created date, modified date, creator, author, type or classification. With this level of organization, employees no longer have to worry about spending hours searching for that one particular document or email that they needed yesterday. All the team’s documents are available at their fingertips at any time.
- Automatic workflow tools allow for tasks and due dates to be executed seamlessly. With built-in workflow tools within the legal matter management platform, managers have the ability to automatically assign tasks and due dates to users based upon their specific roles within a case, appeal or file type. The workflow feature utilizes a step-by-step process to ensure that nothing will be forgotten when assigning tasks. Once to-dos are populated, they are linked together, meaning any changes that occur will happen with real-time notifications to all those who are tied to the case. This keeps everyone in the loop, as no details are too small to be overlooked.
- 24/7 access to data. With the ability to access the legal matter management platform from an iPad or iPhone, users can gain an inside view into cases anytime and anywhere. Gone are the days of disparate data systems and outdated Excel files. Now, teams can instantly get a glance at important case-related information on the road, at a different office location or at home (where many are still doing business because of the coronavirus).
Legal Files Enhances Your Mission
We at Legal Files want to help you save time on administrative tasks and focus more energy on the real issues: helping citizens, enhancing the community and ensuring equal opportunities for all. We understand the challenges you face and are here to help you streamline your operations and workflow through superior technology that alleviates your day-to-day inefficiencies. Whether it’s customizing the platform to your unique needs, managing thousands of documents and email, or accessing mission-critical data from anywhere in this socially distanced world, Legal Files is the solution to take your productivity to the next level.
Our sales staff is ready and able to take your questions via phone or email.