Top 10 features to look for in the Best Personal Injury Law Software

Personal Injury lawyers wear many hats; they serve as the confidant, the counselor, and the negotiator and advocate for people in crisis due to accidents, negligence, or malicious harm. The workflow necessary for complex civil litigation and catastrophic injury cases can seem insurmountable.

Manually tracking matter details from all involved parties and keeping notes of medical reports, insurance claims, worker’s compensation claims, and the other multitude of factors associated with a Personal Injury claim can often feel too cumbersome for you and your team of attorneys, paralegals, and staff.

Legal practice management software for personal injury attorneys can help manage all of these tasks and more, but you need the right features (in the right software). Let’s take a look at some tips for choosing the right personal injury law software – and how to select the best case management software for personal injury attorneys.

1. Strong Technology Foundation 

If you want to successfully run a Personal Injury law firm, you must have a strong technological foundation of software and tech tools that help get the job done right. Just as a doctor relies heavily on medical diagnostic tools to assist in seeing the damage that may not be evident otherwise, cutting-edge law firm management software is imperative to the success of a personal injury case and the protection of your clients. It needs to work.

The question is no longer “‘should I incorporate personal injury software into my legal practice?” but rather “which software works best for the needs of my clients and my law practice?”.

To be successful, personal injury law firms must have a commitment to the flawless organization and task management, which includes seamless internal and external communication with associates, partners, and anyone related to a matter. Your software should also ensure that all case details, including photographs, testimony, and police reports, are protected and secure.

Whether you’re a veteran law firm updating your software or you’re a new law firm exploring law firm management software for the first time, you want to invest in the most effective legal practice management personal injury software available that addresses the needs of personal injury legal practices. No matter what phase your law firm is in, your decision to establish a strong technological foundation is imperative to your business operation’s success.

2. User-Friendliness

Regardless of your experience with technology, you are busy and want the software to be intuitive and user-friendly. No matter how advanced, the best personal injury management software should follow one fundamental rule: offer solutions.

A quick user guide and the software itself can be a good start to navigating through the system, but let’s be honest — in order to learn all the features and how they can help you, you’ll need to get trained properly. Smokeball includes a full onboarding and training program and provides your firm with a dedicated account manager to ensure you and your staff know the software (so you’ll use it). We believe this unique approach to legal software support and our intuitive software help Smokeball earn the rank as the #1 Overall and #1 Easiest to Use Legal Case Management Software by G2 Reviews.

But before you call a help desk, take a look at the software itself. The main screen should immediately address your workflow needs.

After careful research of the workflow and needs of its personal injury clients, Smokeball created a streamlined matter screen for each personal injury file showing all the critical data on one screen and creating a user-friendly experience.

3. Accessibility to Be Flexible 

You are on the go, in court, meeting clients, researching information, and trying to make time for family and friends. You need to access software from your phone, your tablet, or from whatever device is most convenient at the time.

Smokeball has the best legal mobile app that is compatible with Androids and iPhones. Whether you need to pull up data in court, add information when meeting with a client in the office or on the go, or are working from home, you can access all of your important client information, documents, and calendar dates. The app keeps your information up-to-date with automatic backups through Smokeball’s cloud sync, ensuring that you will have all the information you need at your fingertips.

4. Efficient Pi Matters Management

Efficiency is a ‘must have’ when choosing software for your personal injury practice. The software should increase your productivity as opposed to creating more work or stress because it lacks critical features that you need to win the case. Below are a few crucial characteristics that Smokeball was careful not to neglect when developing this software custom-built for your needs as a Personal Injury attorney.

You can truly let go of your spreadsheets and let Smokeball do the matter management work with the following automated functions: 

• Lien and balance tracking. Smokeball provides a lien and balance tracking system on one screen making it efficient and user-friendly. You can see the total possible claim, the actual amount claimed, and the negotiated settled amount as well as reports and settlement tabs in the same function.
• Medical & Settlement details. All of your case financial tracking is in one tab with Smokeball. The matter type streamlines the tracking of medical providers, document requests, and invoices with those calculations ending in an automated settlement statement. Although you will still have control over your settlement statements, there is a drop-down menu offering adjustments based on the variant dynamics. The best efficiency factor is that these features do manual labor for you and remove the possibility of human error.
• Advanced reports showing case status. You will always know your updated case status. The reports tab includes (1) documents requested (medical records, etc.), (2) medical provider summaries, (3) medical provider outstanding amounts, (4) medical provider invoice line items, (5) lienholder summaries, and even (6) lienholder and balances without liens. 
• Memos tracking settlement negotiations. The memo tab is within the personal injury matter screen and clickable for you to review previous negotiations and prep for additional ones, as entries are automatically timed and dated showing the name of the staff member who had the discussion. Stay abreast of all negotiation details.
• Activity Intelligence. In Smokeball, Ai stands for Activity Intelligence, a tool that helps you manage your firm’s productivity. With this cutting-edge intelligence feature, you can view time, effort, and activities for a particular matter, a specific staff member, or your entire firm with just a click.
• Legal Document Generation. Document generation allows you to automatically access every detail in your client matter file and make important adjustments to details such as grammar and pronouns which could easily impact the outcome of your case. Document Automation reduces document errors and decreases time spent drafting standard documents and correspondence. Smokeball boasts powerful automated settlement states, medical records requests, and much more!

5. Seamless Legal Workflow Organization 

The organization is a key feature of law practice management software that personal injury law firms cannot function without. Smokeball is a tireless workhorse in two specific areas lawyers and their legal staff access multiple times a day (if not all day): 

• Email Management. You will never miss an email, emailed attachment, or important notice again with Smokeball’s Email Management tool. You can capture and record every emailed communication related to a specific case. Smokeball will link them so your information is not scattered and time-consuming to locate. In addition, Smokeball keeps track of your contacts, e.g. clients, experts, witnesses, and doctors, by serving as a contact database so you can easily retrieve a contact with a single click.
• Calendar Feature. Through its robust legal calendar management features, Smokeball keeps track of your court dates, depositions, client check-ins, medical appointment tracking, and meetings for each of your clients and connects to Outlook, making your workflow a well-oiled machine.

6. Integrations to Streamline Litigation Process

No integration left behind! From intake to settlement and all the way to tax season, Smokeball’s powerful integrations are thoughtfully designed and curated for your clients, consultants, and your legal and accounting teams: 

• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Outlook 
• Zoom 
• Quickbooks Online
• InfoTrack 
• RingCentral
• Lawmatics 
• ScanSnap Scanner
• LawToolBox
• YoCierge
• Decision Vault
• Settify.

We listen to our lawyers – our list of legal software integrations is growing and updated frequently.

7. Automatic Lawyer Time Tracking to Save Your Time for Your Clients

Contingency law firms don’t deal with billable hours. However, many contingency law firms still track their attorneys’ time. Keeping track of how much time lawyers spend on cases can be beneficial for intake decisions, and planning for future cases. Smokeball’s intuitive and automatic time tracking provides the data you need, without burdening your legal staff to keep exhausting records of time spent on matters.

8. Seamless Billing and Online Payments

The contingency fee nature of a law firm eliminates the need for most personal injury lawyers to send invoices or accept online payments. However, some personal injury lawyers handle other types of legal matters – whether regularly or occasionally. Having billing and online payments available allows personal injury lawyers to minimize time spent on preparing bills and spend their time practicing law. Even for the occasional one-off legal matter, Smokeball’s legal time tracking and billing software are simple and easy to use.

9. Useful Law Firm Insights

But even with all the right basic features, if the software does not fit the specific workflow needs of a Personal Injury law firm it’s not only a useless tool, it can negatively impact your ability to serve your clients effectively. You need law practice management software like Smokeball that makes your law firm intelligent. 

Smokeball’s performance tracking capabilities give you data-driven analytics that empowers you. Law firms that operate on a contingency fee basis have different considerations than law firms that bill clients. Smokeball gets that – and provides law firm KPIs that support the workflow needs of personal injury attorneys. This means that personal injury law firms get the information they need – and not the information they don’t need.

10. Client Portal and Communication

For personal injury clients, weeks and months can go between communications as a case progresses. A case can be relatively inactive for months, while a client is undergoing treatment and healing. But no matter how long you go between contacts, it’s essential to have accurate notes and be able to pick up exactly where you left off. 

Our signature law firm client portal software, Smokeball Communicate, keeps your contact management and entire law firm organized and up to date so that every communication resumes seamlessly, with quick access to notes and prior communications.

Level Up Your Game: Maximize the Potential of Your Personal Injury Practice

There are many software packages on the market, but you should make sure that the software you choose fits your law firm’s unique needs. This guide has highlighted major features of law practice management tools like Smokeball and offered tips for comparing software so you can make an informed decision when choosing the best personal injury case management software for your firm.

We hope you learned a few things to look out for when choosing legal practice management software for personal injury attorneys.

To learn more about Smokeball for a personal injury law, view our PI Tour or schedule a demo.