Posts Tagged ‘practice management’

Recent Adventures in the Cloud

It’s been a while since my last post. I have been active in the web-space, mostly on LinkedIn where I manage a few special interest groups: (1) The Virtual Lawyer, (2) Future Automation (Documents, Data and the Cloud), (3) Time Matters Connection, (4) HotDocs Wizards, and (5) Amicus Attorney Wizards.  The first two groups have been pretty active, growing with interesting discussions, but I have neglected this space where I have a better opportunity to express myself. And so, below are some thoughts on areas I have been exploring.

Cloud-Based Practice Management

I have done reviews of AdvologixPM, RocketMatter, Clio and Houdi.  These systems do much to remove remove the shackles of an office-based, big-hardware, client server based system.  They enable lawyers to “be virtual” and to be free.  And in these times of downsizing, resizing, and cost-cutting, the ability to have a flexible and scalable practice management system that doesn’t require too much capital investment is quite worthwhile.  It allows attorneys to form “ad hoc” groups, practicing together, often from their homes, or wherever there work in.  The potential of cloud based practice management really lives in the “collaboration features.” For those who have followed my discussions on LinkedIn or participated in them, the economics of Cloud based practice management have come to be comparable to those of a client-server model.  If your firm is looking at getting a “new license” and getting “new hardware” or replacing a “server”, the economics of a Cloud solution start weighing in their favor.

Most practice management vendors have moved to “annual pricing” for their software.  This is often in the form of an annual maintenance plan, or some other structure that requires users seeking tech support, service releases or upgrades to pay some percentage of the cost of the software each year.  Fees range from 20% of list up to 33 1/3%.  In my view, these fees are reasonable and justifiable.  They provide ongoing revenue to the software vendor to improve the software and fix the software, as well as pay for responsive support staff.  That said, these costs need to be factored into a TCO (“total cost of ownership”).  If you already have a functioning server; and already have case management software in place, you need to be aware of some significant costs that should be considered in making a decision to move.

Pro-Cloud Costs

You need to factor in the software vendor’s annual maintenance fees.  You also need to factor in the cost of applying service releases and upgrades.  Just because the software is “included” doesn’t mean that you will not have disruptions in service during the upgrade or application of the release.  Some of these disruptions come form the time of migrating the data to a “new platform”.  There are consulting and training costs surrounding the new features.  Some upgrades have required new hardware and new operating system and database software.  If you haven’t put a backup system in place, you need to factors the costs of that solution.  You need to evaluate what “redundancies” you have in your hardware and software in the event of disaster.

Costs of Moving to the Cloud

If you have “nothing in place”, the start-up costs are negligible.  You can take your “Outlook” contact list and synchronize or import it into the cloud system.  However, if you have been running as a business for a while, you will have large contact lists, active matters, email repositories, and documents.  The decision will be what to do with these items.  You may decide to “import” this data into your Cloud system.  If it is just contacts, that can usually be done pretty easily with wizards.  If you wish to bring in custom data, you will be best served to work with a consultant.  They will identify the fields that need to be customized in the practice management system, help you cleanup your data, and set up import templates.  If you are moving in “documents”, you need to be aware of “size” limits.  The base fee includes a certain amount of storage.  If your files exceed that storage, you will incur extra changes.  In the greater scheme these are nominal, but you need to be informed what the charges are and be realistic as to what you are storing in the cloud.

There is so much more I could write, but I will be coming back to this topic on a more regular base.  As many of you know Basha Systems has signed up as reseller partners with AdvologixPM and NetDocuments. There is a philosophical reason.  I believe that lawyers have different needs and uses for their practice management systems and that no single configuration of intake forms and calendars will satisfy all attorneys.  In that light, I prefer the “platform” approach adopted by Time Matters (in the Client-Server world) and by AdvologixPM in the Cloud.  The platform approach presents a base configuration that meets MOST of the needs of MOST attorneys.  But at the same time, it allows the individual organizations to disable features they don’t need, modify features they do need, and extend the program by adding additional features.  Moreover, a platform approach allows 3rd party vendors to create applications that extend the features of the shipping application.

As for NetDocuments, I favor that platform over DropBox, Box.net, iGNYTE, and GoogleApps, for two reasons.  First, it was developed “FOR LAWYERS”.  That means it was designed to meet the security, encryption, and document integration needs of lawyers. Second, you cannot adopt a Cloud practice Management system and then leave your documents in the “MyDocuments” folder or on a local Server; this position is inconsistent.  So you need a viable cloud-based stoage.  Moreover, you need a system with an API (Application Programming Interface) so it integrates with your cloud solution and isn’t a separate repository.

New Players in the World of Document Assembly and Case Management

For the past few years, the world of document assembly and practice management as be S.O. (or same old …).  There have been a number of interesting upgrades to existing products.  There have been some exits (notably GhostFill).  There have been a few acquisitions (Lexis’s purchase of PCLaw and Juris, to name a few).  Into this “void” there are 3 new players who I will be examiniing: Zunesoft (maker of WordFusion, a document assembly platform), RocketMatter (www.rocketmatter.com) – a cloud-based legal practice management system- and Clio (www.goclio.com) – another cloud-based practice management system.

The CLOUD, for those who don’t know, is a word for software services that are made available through the internet where the data is stored, not on your server, but the server of the software service provider.  It is called the internet CLOUD because in the cloud you cannot see where the data is actually stored.  And, in practice, the data may be stored on dozens of different machines in multiple locations, and can be accessed from anywhere.  More on these systems later.

Taking Case Management to the Next Level

Case Management is more than just a “piece of software” like a word processor; it is meant to be integral to the way you practice your trade.  A well designed system is like a good Porche – zero to 100 in ten seconds flat.

Within ten seconds of a client inquiry, you will have the answer you need to their question (or the question that you wanted the client to answer).

You Want Some Reasons?

Here are some reasons to have a case management system like Time Matters…

Care and Feeding of Existing Clients

What better reason than because your clients demand it. You may not realize, but most client believe (hell they know) that they are the center of the universe and that you are merely there to serve them. Because of this, they expect that when they call, when the e-mail, page or instant message, you can get back to them with the answer or status of their case. What an electronic file (like Time Matters) can do, is give you the ability to satisfy them. Within 2 click, you have the complete case history, another click, you can open any related document, another click and you can post a reply email and pop in a clipboard of data from their file answering their questions. Keep you clients well fed with information and services and they will give you more work.

Effective Prospecting of New Clients

At some point you will to gain more clients.  Even if you are working full-out, you need to grow and have protection if that anchor client leaves you, a need to diversify.  That is where case management software really helps.  Every contact with your firm, whether via email, phone, snail mail or encounter is logged.  Then, when you have a break from “real work” you have a list of prospects that you can “call”.  Or you can prepare a newsletter, and in a few clicks have an “email list” to send it out, or for the more traditional, generate a set of mailing labels to put on a printed newsledtter.

Consolidation of All Matter Information

Case management is sometimes called Matter Management …. because the matter is one of the central features of the case management system.  In the old days, the secretary would open a file – a physical file folder with several subfolders for pleadings, correspondence, contracts, notes, reasearch etc.  The file would sit in your office, or by your secretaries desk, and every piece of paper, note, call etc. would be placed into the file.  Now, several peices never got into that file.  And other pieces would get pulled out of that file, never to be found again.  The solution is the “electronic file,” a central feature to any case management system.  From a “Matter Record” in Time Matters, with a single click you can see a complete timeline of all related files, or see all calls and their contents in a powerview, or view the billing history and status, or just check for the return dates for motions.

Better Work Product

When the case management system is integrated with document automation, either document assembly or merge templates, the work product that comes out meets minimum standards of quality often far greater than the average workproduct from scratch.  Not only is the quality better, but the product takes just seconds (or minutes) to create.  Link Time Matters with HotDocs, and you can just print money.

Organization of All Critical Documents

Whether the case management system is integrated with a free-standing document management system (like Worldox or iManage) or whether you use the built in document profiling schema, your document are now tied to your electronic file.  From the Time Matters document profile, in a single click you can see all documents linked to the matter or just the drafts of agreements, or just correspondence or just memos to file.

Take Your Information on the Go

With all this power, you don’t want to leave it at your office.  Time Matters lets you take what you need with you to the court room, to your client site, into the deposition.  With laptop synchronization and PocketPC synchronization, you can have what you need at your fingertips, whereever and whenever.

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