In today's special edition of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, lawyer and legal technology legend Dennis Kennedy covers three unique time-billing solutions that take a new approach to this age old activity. Don't miss the next issue.
Below you'll find one of the three articles from today's edition:
Track Your Activities and the Time Will Follow
By Dennis Kennedy
Why do so many lawyers still track their time on paper? PensEra set out to answer this question, and found that most time-billing software takes more time to use than a pen and paper. Using a pen and paper is also less distracting.
So did PensEra abandon all hope? Not quite. Instead, the company developed its TimeKM family of products, which include TimeKM Time and TimeKM Mobile. This software resides in just one location — on a server at your firm. Lawyers and their assistants access it via Web services. PensEra claims that TimeKM usually requires less than 15 minutes of training.
TimeKM provides lawyers with a variety of ways to capture time. Each method is designed to integrate into a lawyer's workflow. For example, at the office, after working in a Word file, just drag the file onto the TimeKM Time icon in the Windows Deskband. TimeKM will capture the name and date of the document, and enable you to enter the time spent. The idea is to quickly capture time now (thus creating a placeholder) and worry about the details later. Similarly, when you compose an e-mail message, you can cc TimeKM or forward the message to TimeKM to capture that activity.
TimeKM Mobile, used on your BlackBerry, Good device, or Treo, works similarly. You can use the "jot-it-down" tool for activities that cannot be tracked (such as your time in court) and the "tag-and-send" tool for activities that can be tracked (such as telephone calls). You can even set up reminders with the "Remind Me" feature. Making entries is quick and easy thanks to programmable codes. For example, type "mwc" and "Meeting with Client" appears on your screen.
At the end of the day, week, month, etc., you or your assistant can flesh out these "placeholders" and transform them into full-fledged time entries. You can then send these time entries to your accounting or billing system. Speaking of which, TimeKM integrates with just about any accounting or billing software, including Elite, Juris, QuickBooks, Timeslips, SAP, etc.
Pricing for TimeKM Time starts at $249/user. Pricing for TimeKM Mobile starts at $139/user. PensEra offers volume discounts. Learn more about TimeKM.
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