Trust and estate administration can be stressful for everyone involved. Two of the most prominent challenges lawyers face are client communications and data accessibility. How can you work more flexibly, give clients and colleagues access to the information they need while maintaining legal compliance regarding privacy and security?
In this blog, we’ll look at the importance of accessibility and flexibility in estate administration, the role of online tools in streamlining the process, and how they benefit lawyers and their clients.
At a high level, estate administration is a process whereby multiple parties need to come together in order to form a business network, during which information needs to be shared amongst them. As such, smooth communication is crucial.
From a client’s point of view, the probate process is a draining experience. The timescale alone often comes as a nasty surprise to first-time trustees and beneficiaries; even a simple estate with a single beneficiary can take up to nine months to settle. Then you have to remember that beneficiaries and clients are grieving the loss of a loved one. The last thing they need is to be repeatedly asked for the same information or feel like they’re being kept in the dark.
Streamlining internal communications is just as important. Technological developments and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic have led to a surge in legal professionals working remotely or adopting a more hybrid schedule. As a result, lawyers need—and expect—to be able to access relevant documents at any time and from any location.
Accessibility and flexibility bring a host of benefits for both lawyers and their clients:
Ultimately, it’s all about serving the ultimate goal of driving client satisfaction and loyalty. When clients have secure access to the information they need and receive regular updates on the progress of the estate administration, they’ll feel confident in your services and be more likely to work with you again and recommend your practice to others.
Estateably is here to help with a cloud-based software platform that puts you in control, enabling you to be more flexible and enhance communication with your clients. Let’s take a look at how:
Estateably turbo-charges your practice by pulling everything you need into one online hub. You can do everything from a single platform. Not only does this reduce communication delays, but it also means you’ll have all the relevant files to hand while working on a case.
Traditional data storage methods often involve physical paper documents or locally stored digital files, which can be vulnerable to loss or damage. Estateably’s secure cloud storage eliminates the need for complex (and costly) IT infrastructure and enables remote working.
From digitizing paper documents and PDFs to classifying and organizing your files, our platform makes it easy to store information and share documents with the people who need them. Of course, sharing information online means that you have to have robust security measures in place, and our software lets you put guardrails around sensitive information, restricting access depending on your team members’ responsibilities. The platform also gives you visibility of document activity to keep track of who’s been reading, editing, or commenting on a file.
Our task management capabilities empower your team to work in a more open and accessible way. They’re designed to foster better collaboration and a smoother workflow across multiple time zones and locations. You can easily assign tasks, manage approval flows, and keep up with deadlines.
One of the best ways to streamline communication is to get ahead of the game and proactively inform clients of their estate’s progress and any recent developments. Estateably’s reporting tools generate custom reports so you can share relevant information with clients and beneficiaries regularly.
We’ve already touched on privacy and security considerations, but they’re of the utmost importance when sharing information with clients and colleagues. We take it seriously and have obtained SOC 2 Type 2 Audit certification. Let’s take a look at some of our security measures in more detail:
While there are many benefits to making documents accessible, that doesn’t mean you have to open up every single file to every person in the whole practice. It’s essential to restrict access to information to those who need it. Our platform supports role-based access, meaning you can grant permissions based on people’s roles within the organization, assign different roles to team members, and revoke permissions where necessary.
Estateably takes a zero-trust approach to keep your data safe. Our software supports single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, and strong password policies to mitigate the risk of a security breach.
We use encryption to keep client data secure in the cloud. All data sent to or from our platform is encrypted in transit using 256-bit encryption. We also encrypt data at rest using an industry-standard AES-256 encryption algorithm.
Ready for greater efficiency, a better work-life balance, and happier clients?
Once they’ve experienced the benefits of information accessibility and a more flexible way of working, many of our customers find that there’s no going back to physical paper files and on-premise servers.
If you’re a trust and estate professional looking to improve collaboration and communication in your law firm or trust company, contact us today to discover how our intuitive solution can support your practice. And if you’re curious to see the platform in action, why not book a free demo to explore our software for yourself?
Estateably Inc. © 2024
Estateably Inc. © 2023
