The Case for Unified Practice Management in Modern Legal Practice

Unity® is much more than just conveyancing – it’s a 360-degree platform purpose-built to make it easier for you to do all aspects of your job each day. It is the only practice management solution in the market that can support all aspects of a legal firm’s day-to-day workload – from client intake to case and firm management, conveyancing and common workflows, staff availability management, legal document management, customer relationship management and accounting – in a single platform.

Unity® is one of Canada's most trusted practice management platforms. More than 2,500 firms have migrated seamlessly from other solutions to take advantage of the platform's industry leading capabilities and interoperability. More than 15,000 legal professionals log into Unity® every day, creating over 60,000 documents daily. To date, the platform has supported more than two million real estate transactions.

Why is Practice Management Important?  

Practice management helps law firms improve efficiency, productivity, and profitability. More than ever, technology has become an enabler and a differentiator for legal practices. Firms are increasingly turning to software solutions to manage their practices, and those that have embraced a digital-first approach are now much more efficient and productive than when they were using outdated, paper-based processes.

Nevertheless, selecting the right technology from a plethora of options and implementing them effectively can be a daunting task. One of the biggest challenges is ensuring that different technologies can work together seamlessly.

Interoperability is Invaluable in Today’s Legal Practice 

Interoperability refers to the compatibility of software and computer systems that allows them to communicate with each other. Law firms often use a variety of tech solutions for different aspects of their practice, resulting in a mix-and-match of tools.

For example, a practice accounting solution may not be suitable for trust account management. A client intake tool may be ineffective for workflows, and document storage software may not allow direct uploads to case and matter management software. Additionally, it's rare for tools from different vendors to integrate seamlessly with each other, further complicating matters.

This lack of interoperability leads to inefficiencies that are unsustainable for firms looking to compete and remain relevant in today’s fast-evolving legal industry. By migrating to a complete and comprehensive practice management solution like Unity®, legal professionals and firms experience the benefits of having all the tools they need in one place – and at one price. Some of these benefits include:

• Cost Savings: Deploying multiple software solutions can lead to costly monthly license fees paid to technology vendors, while still leaving significant gaps in your operations. It also makes it more difficult to get a sense of the true value and ROI of your investment in technology. By using a fully integrated practice management solution, firms can significantly cut costs and gain a better understanding of their technology investment.
  
  
• Time Savings: By having tools for client intake, case management, and even billing all connected, a firm can cut down significantly on time-intensive, unbillable tasks – like re-entering client data into multiple different solutions – and spend more time focused on revenue-driving billable work. With a fully connected solution, appropriate client data can be setup to auto-populate from intake to matter to invoicing, removing hours of administrative work and drastically reducing the risk of data entry errors.
  
  
• Enhanced Security: Multiple account credentials and passwords across numerous solutions increase a firm’s exposure to potential security risks. Password fatigue is a real issue, and from years of managing secure accounts, we know that it is becoming much more complicated for the average user to use best practices for safety. Additionally, multiple software systems result in more accounts with sensitive information to deprovision when an employee leaves the organization. By implementing a comprehensive practice management solution, a firm can reduce security risks and handle sensitive information more efficiently.
  
  
• Improved Client Relationship: A comprehensive cloud-based practice management solution gives legal professionals a 360° view of their client relationships, enabling them to onboard clients efficiently, communicate effectively, and handle matters competently and professionally.

Why Unity® is the Best Practice Management Solution for You 

Unity® is one of Canada's most comprehensive cloud-based practice management platforms, helping legal professionals and practice administrators manage every aspect of their firm from a single, connected solution.

Key features of Unity® include: 

• Powerful practice management and workflows: Unity® provides tools to open and manage all types of matters and opportunities. Users can access standard templates or create customized, matter-specific workflows, giving them complete control over the case management process.
  
  
• Efficient client management: Clients are at the heart of any business. Robust CRM capabilities in Unity® help users generate new opportunities, automate the onboarding process, and easily manage client history and relationships. Furthermore, businesses can utilize the user-friendly cloud-based tools integrated into the platform to conveniently interact with their clients and share documents.
  
  
• Effective staff management: A clear understanding of staff capacity is crucial for any organization, especially for legal professionals who need to make commitments confidently. With Unity®, managers can easily access a bird's eye view of staff obligations, which helps them efficiently allocate and balance resources based on availability.
  
  
• Seamless accounting and billing: A key feature of the Unity® platform is robust accounting, billing, and financial reporting capability. Users can generate standard bills and detailed reports in a fraction of the time it usually takes, allowing lawyers to bill easier and get paid faster.
  
  
• Efficient document management: Unity® offers a comprehensive document management system comprising cloud-based storage for easy access to files from anywhere. It also allows for syncing between a desktop and the cloud, ensuring constant access to documents, even offline.
  
  
• Robust conveyancing capabilities: Built on more than 30 years of industry expertise, Unity® includes one of the most comprehensive sets of conveyancing workflows and documents available to Canadian legal professionals.
  
  
• Industry-leading integrations: Unity® connects with a growing ecosystem of industry partners, including title insurers, mortgage instructing providers, land title registries, real estate brokerages, remote signing solutions, and other essential legal technology providers.
  
  
• Top-tier security: The protection and security of your firm’s digital assets is our top priority. Unity® offers privacy controls so only authorized users have access to your private information. All data is encrypted in transit to and from your browser using SSL encryption. Additionally, data is backed up and stored in secure offsite Canadian locations hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Making Tomorrow Even Better 

A key element of the Dye & Durham DNA is continually seeking to make tomorrow better than today for our customers. As the legal industry evolves, so will Unity®, with ongoing investments that deliver greater efficiency, stronger collaboration, and more value to firms of every size.

In addition to expanding the platform's core capabilities, we are continuing to introduce new features that help firms uncover new revenue opportunities, streamline operations, reduce costs, and create more time for higher value, billable work.

Artificial Intelligence is an important part of that. We are embedding AI within Unity® to automate routine administrative tasks, reduce manual data entry, and simplify everyday workflows. For example, upcoming capabilities will enable users to upload an Agreement of Purchase and Sale (APS) or Contract of Purchase and Sale (CPS), with key information automatically extracted to create and populate a new matter in minutes.

Our vision is simple: to make Unity® the technology legal professionals rely on every day. By bringing practice management, accounting, document management, conveyancing, client relationships, and AI powered workflows together in a single platform, we're helping firms spend less time managing technology and more time practising law.