Who Wants Budget Stability? A New Year, Better Predictability

The year’s end is a time for reflection and projection. You look back at what happened over the past year, and you think about what the future holds. Some of this process is subjective, and some of it is speculation – but some of it is hard numbers.

Take your law firm’s budget, for example.

How was your IT spending in 2017? Did you stay within the parameters, or did you experience any major technological fall-out that caused you to dip into another line item?

What about next year? How’s your server holding up? Will this be the year be the one that results in multiple repair bills or the cost of a replacement server (and the associated migration costs)?

Good news: There is a way that you can stabilize your law firm’s IT budget for 2018. Migrate to a cloud environment, such as Legal Workspace, and you will experience predictable monthly costs instead of highly variable IT repair and maintenance bills.

Consistent bills, consistent budget

Because a cloud environment like Legal Workspace is constantly upgrading its software, servers, and security, those costs to your law firm – and that worry – can just disappear.

The responsibility is on Legal Workspace’s shoulders, not yours. No longer will you have to pay for upgrades. You won’t have to stretch a dying server’s viability until its last gasp. Instead, your data will be stored on up-to-date, state-of-the-art equipment.

You’ll simply pay for a predictable, unchanging monthly bill. Now that’s easy to budget.

Quicker client payments

Not only will you be able to stabilize your law firm’s IT budget, but you can utilize Legal Workspace’s tools to get paid faster, too.

Administrators can spend hours reviewing invoices. They might allocate a significant portion of their day to sharing invoicing information with attorneys – and attorneys might be wasting their time on clunky timekeeping and pre-billing. The Legal Workspace team can work with law firms to determine the best technology and processes for streamlining billing.

Working with Legal Workspace on this issue results in faster payment. As Diane Kuhre, firm finance manager for Davis Schilken, PC, puts it, “Since I can complete monthly billing in half the time, invoices get out the door in two days. The firm gets paid much more quickly now.”

All-in-one solution

Other headaches can fall by the wayside, too, when you start to use a cloud environment. Constantly adjusting to hackers’ increasingly adept and creative ways to penetrate law firms’ shields is a major annoyance – and it takes significant expertise (not to mention serious dollars) to protect your firm’s data adequately.

That’s one of the many reasons so many law firms now take advantage of a cloud environment for data storage. Law firms no longer need to worry about security updates or maintaining back-ups; it is all taken care of for you.l

Adopting the use of a cloud environment like Legal Workspace results in many benefits – not least a healthier bottom line. Just one simple decision can stabilize your IT budget, take away headaches about security and back-ups, and get your law firm paid more quickly.

Streamline Firm Management with Legal Applications

Most law firms realize the benefit of using Practice and Case Management software. These tools help keep a firm organized, track performance, and balance workloads. They’re created especially for law firms, so—while they deal with quotidian details—they’re organized by case or matter.

Smaller firms may rely on this type of software because they don’t have the resources to put toward a case manager or law office administrator. Mid-size and larger firms may have managers, administrators, and other support staff who use this software as a tool for organization.

Whether a law firm is small or large, Practice and Case Management software can make a profound difference in efficiency of operation.

What Case and Practice Management software can do for you

Case Management software concentrates on doing one thing well: managing cases. These applications store information about matters and cases in a searchable database. Most Case Management software allows users to check for conflicts of interest and statutes of limitations.

Practice Management software can help a law firm with case management, as well as other day-to-day tasks, such as calendaring and contact management—even document assembly.

Some law firms cobble together their practice management technology by using a variety of specialized applications, such as Quickbooks for billing and Outlook for contact management. This can work up to a point, but one benefit of using Case or Practice Management software is that everything is in one place. And, many Practice Management software options integrate with other applications (such as Outlook) for ease of use.

The key is determining what needs your law firm has and finding the right software to address those needs.

Popular Practice and Case Management software

Here are some popular applications that will help law firms manage their practices and cases:

1. PracticeMaster: This option is made by Tabs3, so it integrates with their billing software. It also provides calendaring, conflicts and contact management, and document assembly, as well as research, email, and phone call tracking. Other programs with which it integrates include Quickbooks, CalendarRules, Worldox, and Outlook. PracticeMaster works well for small to medium law firms.

2. Needles: A good solution for law firms of all sizes, Needles features calendaring, document scanning and assembly, client contact information, case and matter management, and time and billing.

3. Time Matters: LexisNexis is the parent company of Time Matters, which works best for medium-sized law firms. It provides calendaring; task, client, and project/matter management; and calendaring. It integrates with Office suite as well as other LexisNexis applications.

4. LawBase: This software handles case and practice management for firms of all sizes. It also integrates with HotDocs and Outlook.

Questions to ask

Because Practice and Case Management software will have a direct effect on everyday issues, it’s important that law firms select a program that works for their specific needs. Here are some questions that can help you narrow the possibilities:
• If we’re already using Outlook, Quickbooks, and other applications, what other features in your software can we benefit from?

• What features are included in your application? Calendaring? Contact management? Conflicts of interest checks? Document assembly?

• Does your software integrate with applications we’re already using?

• Do you provide a client portal?

• Is customization possible?

• Is your software hosted on servers or in the cloud? Can I access your application remotely?

• Do you provide regular backups? At what intervals? How often do you upgrade your software?

• What happens if I have a maintenance issue? Do you provide training or support?

If you need assistance determining which type of software has the features you need, or if you want help integrating new applications with your existing system, Legal Workspace’s application support specialists can help. You can take advantage of Legal Workspace’s Software as a Service licensing model for certain Case Management or Practice Management applications. Legal Workspace can also move existing licenses for software to its cloud environment.

The work that goes into the daily management of a law firm can be streamlined with Case and Practice Management software. There are many good programs on the market that will save your law firm time and effort. The key is to select the program that integrates well with the applications you currently use and that provides additional features that you need.

Technology That Can Increase Profit for Busy Solos

eliminate-law-firm-growing-pains-with-technologyAs solos ramp up their billable hours, a one-laptop solution can still work. However, busier solos have additional needs. Time becomes precious when solo firms bill more than 1,000 hours a year. Active solo attorneys have to take advantage of technology to increase efficiency and optimize their time.

Step One: Save Time with Document Generation

A lot of time can be lost in repetitive document generation. If attorneys take advantage of technology, that time can be put to better use.

Anymore, most attorneys aren’t writing each new contract (or other frequently used document) from scratch. Many lawyers attempt to save document creation time by using templates within Microsoft Word, as well as taking advantage of Word features, such as Quick Parts, which allows users to store and insert commonly used text blocks. That can work up to a point.

Document generation application options, such as market leaders HotDocs and ProDoc, are a more robust solution. HotDocs allows attorneys to automate documents they use repeatedly, regardless of complexity. By inserting what they call “business logic” into templates, users can customize documents in a wide variety of ways. ProDoc is a document assembly program that offers document generation packs for specific practice areas, such as family law and administrative law. It provides national systems, as well as those specific to California, Florida, and Texas.

Joe Kelly, CEO for Legal Workspace, says that the use of automated document generators is especially prevalent in real estate and personal injury practices. “In some cases, it’s possible for nearly all documents to be totally automated,” he says. That’s a lot of saved time.

Step Two: Save Time by Tracking Time

Busy attorneys need to make sure they have a process in place to accurately capture time and bill clients promptly. Lawyers that have a lighter work load might be able to log time in Excel or on a legal pad, but capturing time more effectively becomes a priority for any solo ramping up its billable hours. That’s where timekeeping software comes in.

Tabs3 and Sage Timeslips are good options for accurate, efficient timekeeping. Tabs3 integrates with QuickBooks and PracticeMaster, a practice management software that is included as a bonus with its license, and it tracks time and accounts receivables. Timeslips integrates with a number of different software options, such as QuickBooks, Outlook, Excel, and Amicus Attorney, and it allows users to track time and accounts receivables, as well as syncing to a user’s calendar.

Step Three: Save Time by Protecting Data

You’ll be able to run whatever document-generation application or time-tracking software you choose on your laptop, thereby upping your practice’s efficiency. But another time-waster for busy attorneys is back-up—something that needs to be done regularly.

Kelly says that a laptop’s two greatest enemies are “gravity and Diet Coke.” His joke emphasizes that anything can happen to a laptop, and if an attorney’s whole practice is primarily run on one device, he/she needs to have back-up in place just in case something happens.

That’s where a solution like Legal Workspace helps out busy solo attorneys. Not only does Legal Workspace automatically back up data on a daily basis, but it keeps that data secure. It also offers hosting for the top legal applications, including those time-saving document generation and time and billing application options mentioned above. Legal Workspace can accommodate a practice’s changing needs as it grows.

Busy solo attorneys need to optimize their time. Taking advantage of technology will streamline administrative work and increase accuracy and protection, creating the time they need for the more rewarding aspects of the practice of law.

Legal Software 101

legal-software-101Whether you’re getting ready to hang your own shingle or managing an established law firm, implementing a suite of legal software can seem like a daunting task. You might have been intimidated by the cost, the time to put the new procedures and tools in place and possibly the change from familiar processes. However, even with those hurdles, it pays (literally – it saves money) to improve your practice by adopting technologies that work best for you and your firm.

Software Categories

The four categories of applications commonly used by law firms include:

  • Practice Management Software
  • Document Management Software
  • Time and Billing Software
  • Legal Document Generation Automation Software

Practice Management

Practice management applications allow attorneys to streamline their workflow and business processes, thereby enabling them to spend more time generating revenue and less time doing tedious, unproductive tasks. These applications, at their core, offer fundamental matter-centric organization of contacts, calendaring, and management.

The use of practice management applications helps attorneys and staff with organization and quick reference to vital information, no matter the practice. These tools often integrate with other applications that allow for easier manipulation of that data as well as increased mobility.

Common practice management applications include:

  1. Amicus Attorney®
  2. Needles®
  3. Practice Master®
  4. Thomson Reuters ProLaw®

Document Management

Document management software applications are powerful tools in any law firm’s workflow. These applications provide the firm with a centralized and searchable depository of documents, emails and other matter-related items. Law firms deal with volumes of data in a variety of forms and formats. With the billable hour in mind, the ability to quickly search and recall documents or emails is essential for optimizing the firm’s workflow.

With paper documents converted to electronic files, less physical storage space is needed. It becomes easier to take or access documents off-site and audit trails become easier to maintain.

Two popular document management solutions are:

  1. Worldox®
  2. Microsoft SharePoint®

Time and Billing

Two of the most common struggles with any law firm, regardless of the size, is capturing billable time and getting bills out in a timely fashion. The right time and billing application can assist a timekeeper with these tasks and can even help capture more of their billable time. Used correctly, time and billing applications easily pay for themselves with more hours billed and more efficient billing practices.

Your accounting software can also be linked to your time and billing solution in order to facilitate invoicing and tracking accounts receivable and trust account transactions.

Popular time and billing software for law firms includes:

  1. Timeslips®
  2. Tabs3®Billing Software
  3. QuickBooks®

Legal Document Generation Automation

With law firms often collecting data for cases from a variety of disparate sources, assembling a single document from that data can be a challenge. Document generation software allows firms to streamline and automate that process.

These applications use templates and interview questions to help assemble the documents for attorneys. Firms can quickly automate the generation of releases, letters, government forms and other frequently needed documents.

Some applications that help law firms quickly generate these documents are:

  1. Hot Docs®
  2. ProDoc®
  3. Amicus Attorney®

Benefits of Integrated Legal Software Applications

Correctly implemented, these integrated technology solutions can save you time and money in billings, document generation and effectiveness – all while reducing risk.

  1. Increase profitability – capture billable time
  2. Increase productivity – automate documents
  3. Increase effectiveness – build templates
  4. Reduce risk – identify malpractice and disciplinary milestones

These benefits are reached not only through the efficiency of using each individual application, but also through reduced redundancy as the various products share information with each other.

The Legal Workspace Solution

Legal Workspace provides a cloud-based legal work environment with licensing options for all the software applications mentioned in this article. The platform was created just for lawyers and law firms. Our base package includes the complete Microsoft®Office suite, as well as the latest anti-virus and anti-spam protection and nightly backups of your data.

You can also customize your environment to add any specific legal applications your firm already uses or wants to offer, including the unique e-filing software used to submit documents to your local court. We allow you to move existing licenses to the cloud or take advantage of our SaaS (Software as a Service) licensing model for many legal software applications.

Our solution can be implemented in less than a week, often with most of the process happening over the course of a weekend, meaning little disruption to your workflow.

No matter how new or well-established your firm is, you can discover time savings and return on investment by implementing the right legal software solution.