Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers interactive practical legal guides that you can customize to incorporate your firm's collective knowledge and workflows (see article below). In addition, you'll find links to the previous 11 TL NewsWire features, including our coverage of a law firm website design service that includes a library of legal content to save you time, personal injury practice management software with specialized tools for tracking settlements, liens, medical records, and marketing, and much more. Don't miss the next issue.
Lawyers often perform work within their practice area but outside their comfort zone. This is especially true of junior associates. In these situations, more than two-thirds of lawyers either consult colleagues or run a Google search, neither of which is particularly efficient. Ideally, your firm should have a reference for such tasks capable of tapping into external and internal knowledge.
SmartTask and SmartTask Pro … in One Sentence
Launched recently, Wolters Kluwer's SmartTask is a growing collection of interactive practice guides, while SmartTask Pro enables you to customize these guides and create your own.
The Killer Feature
Unlike competing services, SmartTask doesn't statically list a series of steps on a web page or in a PDF. Instead, steps link to corresponding resources such as forms, government agency websites, and treatises, saving you time. You can download forms in Microsoft Word or PDF format.
SmartTask Pro takes these guides further, recognizing that every law firm's unique culture influences its work product and how it gets created. Accordingly, SmartTask Pro enables you to edit these guides to better fit your firm's workflows. For example, you may have a model document that you prefer to the one in a SmartTask guide, or you may want to add several steps and link to internal resources in your document management system or SharePoint portal.
Custom steps in an existing SmartTask guide display an icon to distinguish it from those created by Wolters Kluwer. You can also create entire SmartTask guides of your own to unlock the many informational silos that exist in your firm, and harness and share this internal knowledge in a manner that increases productivity and benefits clients.
The SmartTask Pro environment resembles a word processor with the ability to create headers, format text, and link to any reference within your firm or on the web. Organizational tools facilitate breaking up complex tasks into multiple, nested steps.
"Attorneys face increased pressure to find new ways to make their practice more efficient," says Dean Sonderegger, Vice President & General Manager, Legal Markets & Innovation. "The SmartTask Corporate Suite provides a full set of resources, including workflow tools, that enables firms to standardize common legal practices, ensuring consistency and efficiency."
Other Notable Features
For some tasks, you may only need help for a specific step. A search bar at the top of each SmartTask guide enables you to run searches. Click a search result to go directly to that step.
Each SmartTask guide is written by a practicing lawyer with applicable expertise. Currently, the SmartTask library focuses on corporate and securities law, including amending bylaws, D&O removal, D&O indemnification, forming and dissolving corporations and LLCs in various states, preparing various SEC forms, issuance of shares, dividends, redemptions, stock purchases, and transfers, and much more.
SmartTask guides in other practice areas are in the works, including cybersecurity, employment, health care, and intellectual property.
What Else Should You Know?
Wolters Kluwer has priced SmartTask and SmartTask Pro to encourage law firms to run it alongside competing solutions. Also, your summer associates can use it for free. Learn more about SmartTask and SmartTask Pro.
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