Every law firm has tasks that take longer than they should. Often, they’re small, everyday processes that don’t seem like a problem in isolation but add up to hours of lost productivity over time.
The table below highlights some common areas where law firms can lose valuable fee earner and support staff time. See if any sound familiar. If they do, we’ve included examples of how Microsoft technologies could help simplify the process, reduce manual effort and free up time for higher-value work.
| Where time is lost | Potential solution | Why this could help | What this could look like in your law firm |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hunting for the latest case information | Copilot + SharePoint | Case information is often spread across several places, so people lose time opening files and checking which version is current. | Ask Copilot to find and summarise information the employee already has access to, using specifics. Make sure key SharePoint content is current and permissions are tidy. |
| Writing up client meetings and chasing the actions | Teams + Copilot | Important details, decisions and actions can be missed when lawyers are rushing between meetings or don’t have time to write up notes afterwards. | Ask Copilot to create a draft meeting recap on the meeting and an action list in Teams. The lawyer checks it, then saves the approved version and sends to the relevant contacts. |
| Typing the same client or case details more than once | Power Automate + Forms | Repeated data entry slows onboarding and increases the chance that names, dates or matter details do not match. | Enter the client/case details in a Microsoft Form or Power App. Power Automate can then send the approved information to the correct teams without staff retyping the same details. |
| Answering the same policy questions again and again | SharePoint + Copilot | Support teams can spend significant time answering the same questions when employees struggle to find the latest approved guidance themselves. | Set up a Copilot agent that has access to the policy document and share internally so anyone can get answers on the policy quickly. |
| A fee earner reading email chains to catch up on a case | Copilot in Outlook | Long email chains are time-consuming to work through, making it difficult to quickly understand what has been agreed, what has changed and what still needs action. | Ask Copilot to provide a quick summary of a long email chain, including decisions and outstanding actions. |
| Using different processes in different departments/offices | Power Apps + Power Automate | Different ways of working can make support, reporting and improvement harder, even when teams are completing similar tasks. | Create a Power App for a shared process such as submitting an internal service request. Staff follow the same core questions and approval steps, while Power Automate sends each request to the right team. Agreed differences can be included without creating a completely separate process. |
| Building the same management reports each week | Power BI + Power Automate | Manual reporting takes time away from analysis and can leave leaders looking at different versions of the same figures. | Power BI can automatically bring together data from multiple sources into a live dashboard, reducing the need to manually build and distribute the same reports week after week. |