A Lean Office is a Happy Office

During my time as a VP of Marketing, I regularly wrote on subjects relevant to the legal industry. This is an article on the core principles of LEAN manufacturing and how they apply to the modern law firm.

A LEAN OFFICE IS A HAPPY OFFICE

WHAT CAN A MODERN LAW FIRM LEARN FROM LEAN MANUFACTURING?

I’m sure you’ve been through something like this before. It’s the last week of the month. You have a stack of real estate files that need closing and each one is screaming for your attention. In a rush, you grab the first one on the pile. Your heart sinks as you open it and realize this file’s documents have an egregious mistake. Depending on your work process, it could take you an hour or more to fix, re-print and have them signed (if necessary). Here we have a prime example of the wasted time and energy a LEAN law practice aims to eliminate.

LEAN began as a methodology used by the manufacturing industry to make their assembly lines more efficient. The modern version of LEAN has been adapted from the Toyota Production System. Today, LEAN principles are being used by the public sector to stay on budget, and the private sector, including law firms, to remain competitive. There are many good guides available online for implementing LEAN in your office, but they can be mostly distilled down to a few core concepts.

Stop Wasting Time

This happens due to a number factors, from unnecessarily re-doing tasks that could be automated through technology, to having a disorganized workspace. Track your work for a few weeks to see where you waste valuable time and then work to eliminate those to become more efficient.

Reduce Errors

The most common errors in a real estate practice are mistakes in data entry and incorrect calculations. Look for software that integrates with land registry, municipalities, mortgage lenders and other law firms to minimize manual data entry. Most conveyancing systems are built to handle calculations that factor in many of the variables involved in the financial aspects of closing a real estate deal.

Standardize Tasks

When you standardize tasks across the firm, you save time and help reduce errors by placing all staff members on the same page. Many of our busiest and most efficient clients have developed their own simple to follow guidebook, broken out by specific tasks.

Develop a Smooth Workflow

Think about developing momentum on your files. Offices with a smooth workflow have real estate files that move seamlessly from task to task and person to person. When the tasks are standardized with the right conveyancing software, the file can move easily from file opening through to post-closing reporting.

Continuously Improve

In this collaborative process, everyone works together proactively to achieve ongoing and regular improvements in your entire workflow.

As you can see, these concepts work together, where improving one also improves another. But at this point, you may be asking, “What can a LEAN law office do for me?”

Technology can help you

RealtiWeb®, used by law firms across Canada, is our offering for real estate conveyancing. As a web-based conveyancing application, it offers many features to help your office become more efficient. Any data entered into RealtiWeb can be used and re-used to your heart’s content. A built-in word processor means you don’t waste time opening documents in Word or WordPerfect. Calculations are handled for you, reducing errors dramatically.

The innovative follow-up feature keeps track of your undertakings and to-do’s. It means no more falling behind on your post-closing reporting. Everyone in your firm works on the same centralized platform – no more searching for files or documents. In RealtiWeb, limited access rights can be assigned to junior staff members for basic tasks, like data entry, freeing you to do more important work.

Tech-Benefits

We recently ran a survey among our users to see how our technology is helping them in their daily work. One hundred per cent of respondents told us that they’re saving time and reducing errors on their files. In fact, users are saving an average of 35-40 minutes per real estate file. If you work on 20 files or more per month, you would save three to four hours every week. When factored over a full year, RealtiWeb can free up to 200 hours (or five weeks) of your time!

And what could you do with all this newly found free time? Imagine all the stress that can be relieved in those five weeks, or other improvements you can make to free up even more time.

About LawyerDoneDeal and RealtiWeb

LawyerDoneDeal (LDD) pioneered the concept of web-based software for the legal community. RealtiWeb is available to legal professionals across all of Western Canada (BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba), Ontario and Nova Scotia. More than 7,500 lawyers utilize the LDD platform to streamline their real estate practice. For more information on RealtiWeb, visit www.ldd.ca.

Tobias Sallewsky is the Vice President of Marketing at LawyerDoneDeal Corp. He deals with a range of stakeholders involved in real estate transactions, including lawyers, legal support staff, mortgage lenders, title insurance providers, new home builders and realtors. Tobias regularly speaks on technology, legal productivity and real property conveyancing tools to legal professionals across Canada.