The Salesforce playbook for law firms.
Law firms are sophisticated service businesses whose operational technology has often lagged badly behind their financial sophistication. The firms winning have built modern matter management, AI-augmented research and contract review, and the practice analytics that turn partner intuition into evidence.
- 13 chapters
- 5 Salesforce products in depth
- 14-point readiness checklist
- 9,957 words
What's inside.
Written by our Salesforce consultants for law firms. Read it start to finish or go straight to the chapter you need.
Salesforce in law firms: where it pays off
6 patterns that work, and the stack we typically deploy.
The challenges Salesforce has to solve
The 6 problems a design has to solve, plus 4 methods we use on them.
Which Salesforce products fit, and how
Salesforce Sales Cloud, Salesforce Service Cloud, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Salesforce Agentforce: use cases, data model and buyer questions for each.
How to implement it
Who needs to be in the room, what the first release includes, and the questions to settle before kickoff.
Moving from your current system
What moves from your current system, how to plan it, and the decisions to make early.
The systems to connect
10 systems to connect and what flows between them.
Regulation and compliance
6 rules and obligations the design has to account for.
Readiness checklist
14 decisions to make before you sign a statement of work.
What to measure
6 metrics to baseline before the build, with a worksheet.
After go-live: support and health checks
What ongoing support covers and when to run a health check.
If a project has stalled
How stalled projects get back on track, and how to get more from the org you have.
Where the industry is concentrated, and local guides
Where the industry is the largest share of the local economy, and local guides for 1 metros.
Next steps
Free assessments and how to reach a consultant.
From the readiness checklist.
Three of the 14 decisions the playbook asks you to make before you sign a statement of work. The full checklist, with the rest of the playbook, is in the PDF.
Get the full playbook →- Respect ethical wallsScreened matters and lawyers must stay separated in the CRM just as in document systems. Translate wall rules into sharing configuration and test them with sample cases before go-live. Name an owner who can update walls promptly when the risk team imposes a new screen.
- Keep lawyer effort minimalEvery field a lawyer must fill in costs billable time and goodwill. Rely on email and calendar sync, delegate entry to assistants and business development staff, and ask lawyers only for judgments they uniquely hold. Adoption depends more on this restraint than on any feature.
- Handle marketing consent properlyClient alerts, events and newsletters need subscription tracking and unsubscribe handling, and some jurisdictions have rules about lawyer advertising. Keep preferences in Salesforce as the single source, and make sure marketing tools read them before anything is sent to clients or prospects.
The Salesforce products it covers.
Each product chapter covers use cases, how the data is modeled and the questions buyers ask. Shorter versions are on our site.
- Salesforce Sales Cloud for Law FirmsSales Cloud gives a law firm one place to see who knows whom at each client and prospect, which pitches are in progress, and where new matters are coming from.
- Salesforce Service Cloud for LegalService Cloud gives law firms and in-house legal teams a structured way to handle the service work around legal practice.
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud for Law FirmsMarketing Cloud gives law firms one platform for client alerts, practice group newsletters, seminar and continuing legal education invitations, and intake follow-up for consumer practices.
- Salesforce Experience Cloud for LegalExperience Cloud gives law firms and corporate legal departments a secure, branded site where clients or internal stakeholders interact with legal work directly.
- Salesforce Agentforce for LegalAgentforce lets law firms and legal service organizations deploy AI agents for the administrative side of client service.
Who wrote it.
Abstrakt Solutions is a Salesforce Select partner based in St. Louis, with 108 Salesforce certifications, 7 Salesforce accreditations and a 4.95 out of 5 rating from 92 reviews on Salesforce AgentExchange (formerly AppExchange).
The playbook draws on the guidance we publish for law firms.
