Like many other industries the professional services industry has experienced the effects of the economic downturn causing law firms to look for ways to reduce administrative tasks and increase time spent on valuable client service and other revenue generating activities.

A recent article from Society for Computers & Law features Laura Mooney, vice president of corporate communications for Metastorm, discussing how firms such as Allen & Overy, DLA, Duane Morris, Eversheds, Foley & Lardner, Freshfields, Hogan & Hartson, and Jones Day are increasingly implementing business process management (BPM) technology to help drive business efficiencies.

Many firms, prior to implementing a BPM solution, encounter problems that inhibit their overall performance in areas like productivity and revenue, regulatory compliance and customer service. However, with the help of innovative solutions like BPM, practices can strategically automate core processes—like new business intake, for example— which can dramatically reduce time, labor and supply costs across the firm.

Firms can leverage BPM software to achieve regulatory compliance and reduce risk to save hundreds of thousands of pounds on annual liability insurance premiums. Because BPM automates human-centric processes, it ensures repeatability and consistency in processes and enforces business rules and levels of authority in all actions. Every action taken in a process is captured into an online audit trail that can be viewed, analyzed and used during an auditing period, which helps firms maintain regulatory compliance.

With the functionality created through BPM firms can quickly achieve measurable results such as a decrease in duplicate data entry, errors and omissions and administrative overhead while centralizing reuse of existing data, systems and technologies through seamless integration.

BPM technology helps law firms achieve a competitive advantage by increasing efficiency and reducing costs while enabling superior client service, all of which are critical to success.

Related posts:

1. Leading accounting firm discusses the value of BPM With increasingly high regulatory pressure and costs, today more than...
2. Creating more efficient supply chain processes A recent report from the BPM Forum found that 60...
3. BPM for new client matter intake Reviewing and processing new clients or new business from existing...
4. Financial compliance at the process level In the new presidential administration, it is intended that new...
5. BPM and Green technology being showcased at CeBIT 2009 CeBIT, one of the most important global IT fairs, today...