The Connected Global Business World or team: Having the global legal team in one ecosystem

The benefits of global teams are endless: by having a workforce spread across different cities and timezones, you’re able to tap into a wide array of cultural experiences and expertise. You’re also able to better understand local conditions in more than one place. But while building a global team is certainly worthwhile, it can be a great challenge as well.

A 2015 article from the Harvard Business Review noted that one of the biggest challenges global teams face is combatting a large “social distance,” the feeling of a lack of emotional connection that is created by not often interacting with colleagues in an intimate way. With large social distance, teams are unable to work as well and as efficiently together as they otherwise could.

Creating teams that work well together and feel connected is a challenge even if everyone is using the same office and spending time together on a near-daily basis. Add in the challenge of differences in language and culture, different time zones, and a lack of face-time, and the challenge only increases.

In order to help foster teams that have these close ties, law firms and legal departments need to ensure that their communication and task management systems have uniformity, are transparent, and promote teamwork. Thankfully, Case.one is up to the task.

Uniformity

It might seem ironic, but the true creative potential of your employees can only be unleashed if their expectations are clear and consistent. Because Case.one’s system is designed around clear expectations, workflows, and easy communication at all stages of a case or project, each teammate and attorney knows what is expected of them from the very outset. This allows each individual to plan out their workload in a way that makes sense for them while sticking to clear deadlines established by the team leader or manager. Within that set timeframe, team members will have the opportunity and freedom to work in the ways that make the most sense for them, allowing creativity and higher-order thinking to thrive.

There’s a great degree of uniformity on the client side as well. All invoicing can be handled directly through Case.one’s intuitive system. Because differing time zones can also be frustrating when you’re working with an overseas client, the Case.one system also allows your clients to access case information and pay their bills 24/7 — including while you’re asleep or in another meeting.

Transparency

In Case.one, it’s easy and intuitive for lawyers and team members to track time and record progress on tasks they’ve been assigned. Because work is tracked directly inside of the Case.one ecosystem, there’s a degree of transparency that you wouldn’t be able to achieve if every team member tracked their own work independently and only shared their time logs with their managers when the end of the billing cycle came around. Additionally, because workflows are standardized and automated, everyone knows their responsibilities at the beginning of the project, making expectations clear and achievable.

Promoting Teamwork

In large firms, siloing off each department into its own autonomous unit can stifle creativity and put a damper on everyone’s effectiveness. In groups larger than a few persons, it’s vital to have a “command center” that unites the whole company around shared goals and a shared mission. By providing an overview of what everyone in the organization is assigned to and working on, Case.one’s feed helps managers track everyone’s workload and unite the team around shared goals.

Especially in teams that work around the globe from one another, it can sometimes be difficult to share and celebrate “team moments” that help unite and build morale. With Case.one, tracking case tasks and celebrating the clear end of a project is easy to do, aiding in this important goal.

The Importance Of Analytics

Providing insightful and consistent feedback is even more important when you’re working with global teams than it is when you’re constantly interacting face-to-face. In addition to missing out on a lot of the casual conversations and small-talk that happens in an in-person office, those workers who may live cities or even continents away from their managers sometimes miss out on crucial feedback on how they are performing and whether or not their projects are successful (or on schedule).

Thankfully, Case.one’s beautiful and easy-to-use reporting tools allow managers to provide consistent progress reports for their employees on whatever metrics they choose, providing a meaningful document to jumpstart regular check-ins.

Dynamism and Flexibility

Businesses of old used a top-down, siloed model — to varying degrees of success. In today’s world, the ability to form small and nimble teams within a larger organization, and communicate quickly between teams, is of the utmost importance. In an adaptive and modern firm, teams and the tasks they work on should be “mission-oriented”: working teams should be designed around a specific task, goal, market, or customer need rather than siloed into separate departments, allowing them to work on a specific project or mission quickly and effectively.

In order for a law firm or legal department to work in this way, their case management software needs to be designed to facilitate this quick and efficient work. Case.one’s emphasis on automated workflows help these modern nimble teams focus on higher-order thinking rather than on assigning routine tasks. Likewise, Case.one’s intuitive feed empowers all employees to stay apprised of the big picture while also honing in on their specific assignments. Because modern teams also need to be able to communicate with other teams in the firm, Case.one makes sharing files and collaborating within them as easy as pressing a button. This allows teams to create a shared language and build common knowledge, which makes everyone more effective.

Mobile Optimized

Being able to communicate both formally and informally when away from the office is an important part of staying connected as a team. Whether sharing quick case updates, tracking task progress, or sharing an issue that must urgently be resolved, mobile is the king of this sort of communication. With this in mind, Case.one comes complete with an easy-to-use mobile app. The app also allows team members to keep track of notes and billable hours while in client meetings — all in the same workspace.

An Empathy Building Process

It’s essential that case management software act as a tool to connect teams. Unreliable systems that are hard to use or have poor user experience certainly aren’t up to the task. Thankfully, Case.one is both intuitive and a breeze to use. Clients, global team members, and managers alike will benefit from having a centralized place to store files, collaborate on projects, and communicate in real-time.