A product that makes time tracking simple benefits attorneys irrespective of practice area or fee structure. For attorneys who bill by the hour, easily entering, editing, and reviewing times holds obvious advantages.

But what about flat fee and contingency firms? While those practices need not always record time (unlike hourly attorneys, time is not directly the product you’re moving), it’s still worth doing. Why? Recording time reveals profitability. Hourly billers get a sense of profitability with every pre-bill, discount, or write-down they give a client.

Flat fee and contingency firms lack that regular “check-in.” By recording time and knowing, for example, that a $10,000 flat fee estate plan takes $5,000 to prepare (i.e., comparing the fee charged against staff salaries and other expenses), the firm gains a profit margin “snapshot.”

TimeSolv, a web-based law practice management system (LPMS) with deep roots in the business of law understands the importance of time tracking. TimeSolv understands that making time entry simple and quick ranks of first importance.

TimeSolv Delivers Comprehensive Time Tracking Tools

Track Multiple Events

With TimeSolv, users can have multiple timers available simultaneously. Starting one timer automatically pauses the currently-running timer. For example, if an attorney is drafting a document, and a client calls on an unrelated matter, clicking to start a new timer for the phone call automatically pauses the document-drafting timer. When the call ends, the attorney can stop the phone call timer and enter it. Or perhaps the attorney expects to look something up and make a return call to the client later that day, they can pause the phone call timer and resume the document drafting timer.

Track Time Anywhere

This feature is key. A great solution works on the web, laptops, tablets, and especially smartphones. TimeSolv meets this need. It even works offline; no internet connection necessary! And, of course, TimeSolv includes powerful sync capabilities. If you make a time entry in the desktop app, it syncs with the TimeSolv servers so that entry saves to the cloud and is visible to others. If you’re away from the internet when you make a time entry, TimeSolv automatically syncs the next time you launch the desktop app when connected to the internet.

Draw Meaningful Conclusions

There’s no value in entering a bunch of information if you can’t use that data to make decisions. TimeSolv excels here too. Users and firm administrators see metrics on time entry and time entry behavior (e.g., contemporaneousness) for each timekeeper.

Speed Up Time Entries with Abbreviations

When creating time entries, speed and consistency rank among the top requests. TimeSolv addresses both concerns by supporting custom abbreviations for text fields, including time entries. Rather than sending a client a bill where some phone calls read “call with client,” a few read “phone call with client,” and still others “called to [or from] client,” create a simple TFWC abbreviation. When a user types “TFWC,” TimeSolv expand that shortcut to “telephone call with client.” The same activity reads consistently on bills, across all users and clients. Plus, it saves a bit of time too.

Manage Matter Budgets

While many LPMS vendors offer matter budgets, these are often overall dollar amounts for the matter. TimeSolv provides a more effective, timely, and granular version of budgeting. With TimeSolv, you can set limits on the hours billed on tasks. Such finely tuned control and tracking of expended effort means that no bill or overage surprises you or the client. If someone views a matter with overbudget tasks, TimeSolv displays a prominent banner alerting the viewer that “Plan Task Assignment fees and hours budget exceeded.” By using matter plans to set task budgets, both you and the client can keep a close eye on the meter.

Start Tracking Time for Productivity and Profitability

If you bill hourly and hate tracking time, you’re probably working for free, at least part of the time. If your work is flat fee or contingency, knowing your “cost of goods sold” requires knowing how much you expend in providing a service. TimeSolv gives you the tools to painlessly record and review time entries. Learn more about this feature and everything TimeSolv offers by visiting their website.

The post Measure Your Time, Don’t Just Track it with TimeSolv appeared first on Lawyerist.

One of the strongest cases for law practice management software (LPMS) is that it understands how legal professionals work. Practice management software excels where Outlook or the Google Suite fails because an LPMS works within the concept of a “matter,” something unique to the legal market. An LPMS combines a host of otherwise disparate data—emails, notes, documents, phone messages, calendar appointments, and more—under the umbrella of one collective (e.g., Smith v. Jones or the Thomas estate plan).

If an LPMS stopped there, it would nonetheless be a boon to legal professionals. But great, innovative practice management software like Rocket Matter reaches beyond the mere recreation of a casefile folder. Rocket Matter includes comprehensive LPMS features and supercharges those features with robust project management and reporting, available to Rocket Matter Pro and Premier customers.

Manage Matters Visually with Kanban Boards

For example, in a family law practice, one might have the following stages (i.e., columns) arrayed left to right across the screen:

• Prepare Initial Filings
• Temporary Relief
• Discovery
• Mediation
• Pre-Trial Discovery
• Trial
• Closing

As you work each family law matter, you move the card from left to right across the Kanban board columns as the matter progresses toward a conclusion. Experienced family law practitioners may notice a couple of things immediately: (1) these seven stages are excessive for some cases (e.g., an amicable “no kids, no property” dissolution) and insufficient for others, and (2) matters may “bounce” back and forth between stages—it’s not a linear path forward. Rocket Matter’s Kanban boards address both concerns.

You can customize the respective stages for each matter type. A family law attorney likely has several matter types, such as divorce, dissolution, custody, post-decree, and more. Each matter type possesses its own unique set of statuses, all customizable by the firm to meet how they work. Additionally, the Kanban view accommodates a matter card moving from any one status, which Rocket Matter calls “swimlanes,” to any other status. You could move a matter’s card directly from discovery to trial or flip back and forth between discovery and mediation a dozen times, if necessary. Rocket Matter built its Kanban boards with the flexibility to manage matters how you work.

In addition to managing your matter workflow visually, Rocket Matter’s Kanban view also lets you:

• filter the displayed matters by primary the attorney;
• view the total days a Matter has been in its current status;
• filter the board to see matters by client;
• filter the board by matter health (has “sat” in a status too long, based on timeframes you set); and
• jump directly to a matter’s dashboard by clicking its card.

These boards, part of Rocket Matter’s robust legal project management platform, offer a visual snapshot of case statuses, promoting efficiency and collaboration with their easy-to-use, customizable layout.

Project Management and Powerful Reporting

Kanban boards are but one part of Rocket Matter’s strong toolbox of legal project management capabilities. Other project management-specific features available to Pro and Premier customers rely on the matter status to:

• make calendar calculations unique to each status;
• add custom tasks that appear when a matter reaches a status; and
• display specific custom data based on the matter status.

These and other powerful automation capabilities rest on understanding and using matter templates.

Rocket Matter pairs advanced reporting and business intelligence along with these status-based workflows. As a Premier customer, dive even deeper into your matter and project management data with Rocket Matter’s Business Intelligence Module (BIM). With the BIM, your firm can review all types of data across matters, activities, contacts, and billing information. Using simple “drag and drop” steps, you can easily create reports that offer remarkable insights into your firm, its processes, case handling, and financials. Read this earlier article on Lawyerist to understand more about the BIM and how it can help you see more clearly.

Get Started with Kanban, Project Management, and Advanced Reporting

Rocket Matter offers an unrivaled combination of robust LPMS functions, project management tools, featuring user-friendly Kanban boards, and highly capable business intelligence reporting to draw meaningful, actionable conclusions to boost your business. If you want to build a better practice by elevating your firm’s productivity and strategic insight, visit Rocket Matter’s website to learn more about their comprehensive solution.

The post Seize Your Day with Rocket Matter’s Office Management Tools appeared first on Lawyerist.

Amy Reynolds, senior training specialist, walked Zack through CARET Legal’s new and improved features. Aimed squarely at helping smaller and mid-sized firms be productive, these features include an enhanced user interface, robust tools, and the latest in client communications.

Designed for Quick Access to Critical Information

Dashboard Views

The homepage shows user-customizable views of the day’s most important information alongside quick-access tools for frequently used commands. By default, users see their calendar, tasks, and email “above the fold.”

Global Searching

Click the magnifying glass in the header to begin a program-wide search. Type search terms and the program combs through everything, even Word and OCRed PDF documents.

Quick Add

The plus button in the header quickly creates new contacts, events, file notes, time entries, and more. With a pop-up-style window, you don’t have to leave what you’re doing when memory strikes. Instead, just click the plus, capture the information, and return to work.

Ubiquitous Time Capture

Attorneys know the importance of good timekeeping. All firms benefit from measuring how long it takes to complete a matter. CARET Legal helps by:

• Letting users run up to ten timers for easy task switching;
• Being able to start and stop timers from any device; and
• Permitting the firm to set standard, user-selectable billing narratives for consistency.

Watch this portion of our conversation with Amy to learn about CARET Legal’s powerful user interface.

An End-to-End Solution

A robust user interface must be backed by capable, approachable features. The product delivers an end-to-end solution providing valuable calendar and email, task, and matter management tools.

Calendar and Email

All calendar and email functionality throughout the program integrates bi-directionally with Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.

CARET Legal’s calendar lets users:

• Categorize and color-code appointments based on customizable event types;
• Calculate dates, like statutes of limitation, forward and backward with simple math, accounting for weekends and holidays; and
• Create suggested meeting attendees based on matter contacts.

With email, the integration is no mere “save to file” add-in for Gmail or Outlook. Instead, users directly connect their Google or Microsoft email, allowing full access to their inboxes and folders. Users can forward, reply to, and file emails, and attach and save documents. No flipping back and forth between an email app and CARET Legal required.

Tasks

Task creation requires only a name. Everything else is optional, and the program auto-fills where possible. For example, if a user creates a new “quick task” with only a name, CARET Legal automatically assigns the task to that user and sets a deadline of 5 PM the same day.

Other helpful task-centric features include:

• Task description fields permitting formatted text, hyperlinks, and multiple attachments;
• The ability to customize statuses between “start” and “finish”;
• Configurable alerts to the task assignee and others about overdue and completed tasks; and
• Sub-tasks and task templates.

Matters

Matters are “home base” in CARET Legal. Each matter contains every CARET Legal feature in miniature, pre-filtered to the selected matter.

Within a matter, users can:

• View financial information, including time entries;
• View and edit contacts, custom fields, emails, events, and tasks;
• Save and edit file notes, with support for formatting features like lists, pictures, tables, and hyperlinks;
• Create, review, and edit documents with a web-based editor, zDrive, or the Microsoft Word plugin; and
• Share those documents with clients via a client portal secured with multi-factor authentication.

Watch this portion of our conversation with Amy to learn about CARET Legal’s end-to-end toolkit.

Built for Modern Communication

CARET Legal furnishes two popular, client-facing, time-saving features: text messaging and intake forms.

Text Messaging

CARET Legal establishes a single virtual phone number for the firm. That one phone number applies to all matters in the system. To open a matter for texting, a firm user sends an outgoing message to the client and links that message to a matter. The system automatically ties the client’s texts to that initiating matter. Once begun, the text conversation is bidirectional, like regular texting.

Intake Forms

Intake forms are customizable questionnaires. For example, internally, call screeners might use them for leads. Externally, clients could supply matter-related information securely. Creating and completing forms feels familiar and approachable, like a web-based survey. When used externally, the client and firm can add information to the same intake. They could even walk through it together on the phone.

Watch this portion of our conversation with Amy to learn about CARET Legal’s communication tools.

Get Started

Learn more about CARET Legal and start a free trial at https://caretlegal.com. 

The post Create Space in Your Day with CARET Legal Practice Management appeared first on Lawyerist.

Every business needs a website. Unfortunately, many law firms lack one, or if they have one, it serves no purpose beyond being a digital business card. Most firms want more, but time and other commitments preclude it. Fortunately, CosmoLex Websites makes creating and updating a powerful business website simple. 

It’s “Done for You” 

CosmoLex Websites operates on the “done for you” model. Your firm works with experts at CosmoLex to design and implement a modern, feature-rich website. There’s no need to hire or be a web developer, marketing strategist, or WordPress administrator. 

As Erica Birstler, VP of Product Communications & Support at CosmoLex, puts it, CosmoLex Websites, “take[s website development] off your plate and [you] have a great end result that can impact the growth of your business.” 

Watch the video below to see Erica walk Zack through a beautiful sample site demonstrating valuable website features and tight integration between the CosmoLex LPMS and a CosmoLex-created website. 

The Three Cs of a CosmoLex Website 

The value proposition of having an LPMS vendor build and maintain your website becomes apparent when you remember that the LPMS is a core source of contact information. Good customer relationship management is integral to effective legal marketing. Good marketing naturally involves the web. Having a website that feeds prospects into your LPMS is advantageous. 

CosmoLex Websites rests on the fundamental principles of clean design, credible content, and convenient features. 

Clean Design 

Say goodbye to bland, cookie-cutter law firm websites featuring people in suits and icons of courthouses and gavels. CosmoLex Websites ditches those stereotypes in favor of a clean, modern design that the firm selects to fit its image. 

CosmoLex employees work with your firm to distill your desires into a fresh business website with top-notch features like: 

1. Mobile-responsive webpage layouts; 
2. Easily found and click-friendly links for phone numbers and emails; and 
3. Inclusive, accessibility-focused widgets for text size and spacing, tooltips, color, saturation, and on-the-fly language translation. 

Credible Content 

Your firm’s website is where potential clients learn about you without ever speaking to you. As prospects peruse your site, they form judgments about whether your firm fits their needs. CosmoLex Websites offers a library of website content, like blogs, articles, and explanatory pages, for you to choose from. 

You work with CosmoLex to select and customize content relevant to your target audience. CosmoLex makes available easily modifiable templates and sources of information. They have fine-tuned their curated content for heightened visibility through keyword and search engine optimization, improving your site’s placement in search results. 

Finally, no matter how perfect a firm’s website is on launch, all firms face the challenge of keeping their website current and relevant. CosmoLex addresses this issue with quarterly content update meetings to address site changes. 

Convenient Features 

A firm’s website is not only a marketing tool.  It can also help you serve existing clients. Because your website links directly to your CosmoLex LPMS, you can offer client convenience features: 

1. Contacts: Create a web form that feeds information directly into CosmoLex. 
2. Consultation: Set up a consultation button on your site so clients or prospects can schedule appointments via integrations with Calendly and Microsoft Bookings. 
3. Pay Now: Offer clients the ability to pay via credit cards. Payments feed directly into CosmoLex.  You can classify the payment type (e.g., retainer or invoice) and link them to the appropriate client and matter. 
4. Client Portal: Make available matter information you choose to clients, who can log in and review it when convenient. Sharable information includes invoices, documents, and calendar information. 

A Better Law Firm Website with Less Burden 

CosmoLex Websites alleviates the burden of designing, building, and maintaining a website. Its streamlined integration with a top LPMS vendor keeps vital information handy. Erica said her biggest passion is “to help lawyers run a better business.” As attorneys, you want to practice law and serve clients, not bury yourself in HTML, APIs, or SEO. 

Visit cosmolex.com for a demo and free trial to see how a CosmoLex-based website helps your firm reach prospects, boost profitability, and focus on being a competitive player in the legal field. 

The post CosmoLex Extends its All-in-one with CosmoLex Websites  appeared first on Lawyerist.

PracticePanther, the comprehensive law practice management solution focused on small to medium-sized law firms, spends a lot of time listening to its users. This ongoing conversation helps it refine and expand its features to serve its growing customer base better. Recently, Jonathan Prosperi, product manager at PracticePanther, sat down with Lawyerist’s Zack Glaser to talk about their approach to product development and some of the changes rolling out to customers in the latest updates.

PracticePanther’s Approach 

PracticePanther works with clients and partners to ensure it’s building the best, newest, and most thoughtful features to empower law firms and help customers have a better, more complete experience. All the changes Jonathan highlighted emerged from his team’s conversations with end users. 

Product managers meet with users to know on-the-ground needs—no guesswork or ivory tower theorizing. Any PracticePanther client can request a meeting with Jonathan directly within the application. These meetings help people feel connected to the platform, be heard by the company, and know their ideas are going somewhere. 

The result? PracticePanther frequently updates their platform to enhance their user experience. In this instance, they implemented ways to make current workflows faster and increase control of matters and financials. Here, the team made simple but effective user enhancements that illuminate existing powerful tools. 

User Input Drives Feature Enhancements

PracticePanther’s workflow and interface improvements focus on activities, intake, matters, billing, and system performance.

Increased Visibility of Firm Activities 

With a new firm Activities screen, leadership can keep a watchful eye on their processes and efficiency with ease. PracticePanther’s Activities screen shows all tasks and events within the system. Previously users could set task due dates and mark them completed. Activities now show the completed date alongside the due date, making it easier to see firm productivity. Users can separate these two data points in the Activities window and view them side-by-side in columns.

Default Intake Form 

PracticePanther provides a new default intake form with “most requested” questions, so it’s immediately usable by new firms. Rather than leaving it up to the attorney to make a form, the platform lets users hit the ground running. When prospects complete the intake questionnaire, that information flows directly into PracticePanther. 

Flexibility is essential too. PracticePanther makes it simple to add and remove questions to fully customize the form to meet each firm’s needs.

Enhanced Matter Visibility 

PracticePanther has also added the ability to see the corresponding rate in the matters list. Each matter could, and still can, have its rate set by matter type or user. Customers can now see the rate in the matter list and the report tables. They can also quickly sort or filter by rate. 

Additionally, users can now archive matters. If a potential new client doesn’t convert or a matter is paid out the firm doesn’t completely lose the data. Previously, the only option was to delete matters. Now, users can easily look back at previous case information without cluttering their working dashboard. Archiving matters removes them from the active list without eliminating them from the system. It speeds up searches, removes unnecessary information from reports and filters, and declutters the user’s view.

Greater Billing Flexibility 

Daily or monthly billing rituals have been made easier with the updates to financial tracking and contact-level invoices in PracticePanther. 

For any matter, the unapplied dollar amount is money the firm holds in its operating account. This is cash it has received from a client for a matter, but not yet applied against that matter’s balance. With a recent change to the matter list, users can now see the unapplied amounts in the default view. Additionally, users can quickly determine which matters have earned and paid money that merely needs to be applied against an invoice. 

A second change to billing concerns contact-level invoices. When one client has multiple matters with the firm, is it preferable for the invoice to list matters by name or by matter number? PracticePanther employees and users hotly debated the topic, with about 50% on each side. So, developers did the sensible thing and allowed users to organize matters either way on invoices. 

Small changes like these permit users to work quicker in ways they want to work. 

Accelerated System Performance 

The final focus area for recent revisions is general system performance. PracticePanther sped up lots of little things. Each second saved may seem inconsequential in isolation. But you’ll notice the benefit with bulk operations like generating invoices—particularly during “rush hour” at the beginning of the month. Similarly, PracticePanther improved global search speed and the display and refreshing of data tables. For example, the data just snaps in when generating a report housing dozens or hundreds of clients. Snappy and seamless performance is one of those things that never makes the “cool feature” checklist, but users appreciate it every day. 

As Jonathan said, the folks at PracticePanther want to “make sure people feel good about using our software.” 

Check Out PracticePanther 

Our video conversation and the five items above highlight only a few of PracticePanther’s ongoing enhancements. If you’re a current user, visit their release notes section to learn what’s new and upcoming.

If you’re not already a user, learn more by visiting www.practicepanther.com or contacting Jonathan at [email protected], who’d be delighted to hear from you. The ethos of PracticePanther comes through in listening to customers, continually improving the product in big and small ways that make a daily difference, and the words Jonathan closed with: “I take a lot of pride in connecting with people who care about our product. I want to know what they’re thinking about, what they want to see in the future, so I make myself available.”

The post PracticePanther Promotes Process Productivity with New Features  appeared first on Lawyerist.