As a criminal defense lawyer, you’re always head down building a defense and developing a strategy for your client’s cases. When your client got themselves into legal troubles, it is inevitable to worry about how it will impact them for the rest of their lives, and it can be challenging for them to know what to do next. Defending clients is the top priority for all attorneys, however, when it comes to criminal defense cases, things can get complicated. To make things easier for your client and their family members, having constant communication is a must. A secured client portal is a way to create a communicative bridge between family members and legal teams, so clients can get peace of mind with transparency with constant and real-time case updates.
How Does A Client Portal Work?
A client portal is a centralized place where criminal defense attorneys can manage communication with clients, save documents and files, and organize legal calendars and court dates.
How Can Criminal Defense Attorneys Benefit From A Secured Client Portal?
PracticePanther’s client portal gives criminal defense attorneys a chance to easily communicate with their clients, or their families, by providing real-time case updates, invoice breakdowns, and an simple ways to pay online, all while maintaining a trusting and positive client relationship.
Secured and encrypted messages
PracticePanther ensures messages between attorneys and clients are kept confidential and protected, thanks to our military-grade 256-bit encryption. Attorney-client confidentiality is an important aspect of any legal relationship, using secure messaging within PracticePanther helps to maintain that sense of security.
When you send a message to your point-of-contact via the PracticePanther client portal, they will receive an email notification that notifies them to log in to view the message. Instead of viewing the message straight from the email, there’s an extra barrier of security to ensure all messages are kept private.
In order to ensure the flow of communication continues smoothly, PracticePanther users will be able to identify if a message has been viewed via a checkmark, or read the receipt, next to each message. This transparency quickly lets users know if they need to send a follow-up message.
A holistic view of case progress
Legal proceedings can be drawn out and have many moving parts, clients or family members should be able to know the precise status of the case. PracticePanther’s client portal gives your client the peace of mind they need by giving them access to what activities and tasks your team has been doing, and can also prompt them with tasks that they need to get done in order to advance the case along.
For example, if there’s an agreement that requires a signature, clients can simply sign with eSignature, complete the task, and click “Mark as Completed”, notifying the legal team when to proceed with the next steps.
In addition, criminal defense attorneys may share files and documents and invite clients to tasks and events at any time. PracticePanther’s client portal serves as a bridge for criminal defense attorneys and clients to work collaboratively together in one place.
Get paid quicker and easier
With a client portal, criminal defense attorneys can level up their billing operations by providing clients or their families with the option to pay via PantherPayments. With PantherPayments, your clients can pay you instantly with multiple payment options such as credit cards, eChecks, or bank sign-in. When there are multiple payment options offered, clients tend to pay quicker since they can pay in the way that’s most comfortable for them.
Under the “Invoices” tab within the client portal, your clients can view all of the invoices that you’ve sent to them, making it a more transparent and efficient process. When your client clicks through the “Open & Pay” button, they will be redirected to the invoice breakdown.
Once your client reaches the invoice breakdown, they can see what they owe you in detail and can pay you directly. The ability to pay straight from an invoice reduces the amount of time a client can redline the invoice and helps you receive full payment on time.
Client Portals Make Communication Easy
PracticePanther’s client portal is designed for attorneys to save money and time on administrative tasks. It serves as a communication bridge and provides a sense of transparency throughout the lifecycle of a case.
If you’re interested in finding out more about PracticePanther’s client portal in detail and other natively built-in features, book a time with our team and we’re happy to walk you through how PracticePanther can streamline your criminal defense practice.
