COVID-19 spurred a significant uptick in video conference usage by lawyers and support staff. In response, some practice management providers are developing or licensing video conferencing software and integrating it into their platforms. But not all practice management developers are jumping on the video conference bandwagon. 

To be sure, practice management companies agree video conferencing usage was growing pre-COVID-19 and will continue to be used after national stay-at-home mandates are relaxed. 

"If anything it's been a trend for remote working and collaboration, but COVID-19 is accelerating that adoption," noted AdvoLogix chief product officer Dave Schwab.

Still, Schwab said the Sugar Land, Texas-based practice management platform has no intention on adding video conferencing capabilities because it takes away from the company's main focus: matter management.

"If you are doing that in-house, you have to update it with new releases and allocate enough time to make sure you are stress testing," Schwab noted.

While some practice management providers argue providing video conference services isn't in their purview, others look to capitalize on the growing legal professional usage. Litify, for example, launched its video conference feature Uplink for its practice management suite on April 21.

Uplink allows users to join a video conference by clicking an invitation link on a computer or smartphone with no app downloads required, according to Litify. Uplink also provides users with a recording and transcription of conversations, which Litify said is securely stored and is a useful note-taking feature for lawyers talking to clients.

Litify acquired phone and text messaging tracking solution Uplink in October 2019. Litify later added video conferencing capabilities to Uplink in-house, noted Litify chief revenue officer Terry Dohrmann.

Even though the novel coronavirus caused most to work from home, Litify previously observed customers leveraging various video conference platforms while working with Litify and other legal management platforms, Dohrmann explained. But he added that while COVID-19 wasn't the impetus for creating a video conference platform, it did accelerate it as a top priority. 

And Dohrmann argued greater video conferencing is a behavioral change that will continue beyond COVID-19: "The use of video conferencing and text messaging has been on the incline and COVID and any crisis likely will accelerate it."

Similarly, practice management platform Law Ruler is also considering licensing and integrating a proprietary video conference software into its platform, said Law Ruler Software marketing consultant Nick Apollo. Like Litify, Law Ruler was considering adding video conferencing capabilities before the coronavirus pandemic.

Apollo noted that lawyers and support staff have become more accustomed to video conferencing, and higher usage may demand integration with their other business tools, including practice management software. 

Still in its early phase, a big focus for its video conference feature is its security, Apollo added. He noted that attorneys' confidential discussions and conversations cloaked under attorney-client privilege must be protected.

However, protecting an attorney's confidential conversation with a client may be too tall of a task for some practice management providers, said AbacusNext practice automation, chief solutions architect Tomas Suros.

"There was a pretty quick backlash against Zoom of, 'Is their security and passcodes to enter meetings [good enough]?' That type of risk is something firms can't take on," Suros said.

Also, competition is stiff in the video conference arena with the likes of Zoom, Skype and others, he added.

"We are not considering video conferencing technologies because that's not our strength and these businesses, Zoom, Skype and WhatsApp … a lot of technologies that exist that are mature and have a lot of features and what we have seen is those companies compete furiously," Suros said.