TechnoLawyer: Accounting/Billing/Time Capture

Coming today to SmallLaw: Our editorial team has selected and linked to 38 articles from the past week worthy of your attention. Below you'll find a sample article from each section of today's issue, including our SmallLaw Pick of the Week.

Don't Discount Your Fee: Use This Alternative

Passing on Credit Card Surcharges to Clients

Is Your Blog Destroying Your Website's Performance?

How Lawyers Can Perform an SEO Audit and the Tools to Do It

Congratulations to Karen Caffrey of Solo Practice University on winning our SmallLaw Pick of the Week award: The Biggest Health Problem Solos Face

How to Receive SmallLaw
Small law firm, big dreams. Written by successful small-firm founders, managing partners, administrators, and legal technology and practice management experts, SmallLaw provides practical advice on management, marketing, and technology issues in solo practices and small law firms. Additionally, SmallLaw features comprehensive reviews of legal products with accompanying TechnoScore ratings. SmallLaw also ensures that you won't miss anything published elsewhere by linking to helpful articles, podcasts, and videos about solo practices and small law firms. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TL Serendipity contains these articles:

Mary Brooksby, Technology Tips for the New Law Firm

John Hightower, Two Options for Converting Paper to Word Format

Mark Peneguy, How to Convert PDF to Word Using Acrobat Pro

Ben Ballard, Converting Paper to Word Format Easier Than Ever but Try This First

Cynthia Zook, Tip: Word and WordPerfect Can Convert a PDF Document

Don't miss this issue — or any future issues.

How to Receive TL Serendipity
Our most serendipitous offering (hence its name), TL Serendipity consists of contributions by TechnoLawyer members who have important information to share. You'll no doubt enjoy it because of its mix of interesting topics and genuinely useful knowledge, including brutally honest product reviews and informative how-tos. The TL Serendipity newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TL Serendipity contains these articles:

Wells Anderson, Beware Genius Rescue; TL NewsWire Due Diligence?

Charles Drayson, Review Of ActionStep And NetDocuments

Ted Jordan, Actionstep As A Cloud Replacement For Time Matters

Question Of The Week: What Do You Think Of FBI V. Apple?

Don't miss this issue — or any future issues.

How to Receive TL Serendipity
Our most serendipitous offering (hence its name), TL Serendipity consists of contributions by TechnoLawyer members who have important information to share. You'll no doubt enjoy it because of its mix of interesting topics and genuinely useful knowledge, including brutally honest product reviews and informative how-tos. The TL Serendipity newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TL Serendipity contains these articles:

Philip Franckel, Review of SmartAdvocate (Practice Management for Personal Injury)

Peter Conway, How I Keep Documents in Sync Without Cloud Storage Services

Paul Purdue, Review of Barron Henley for Microsoft Word Training

Paul Mansfield, Online Training for Microsoft Word

Jason Pink, Review of Legal Office Guru

Don't miss this issue — or any future issues.

How to Receive TL Serendipity
Our most serendipitous offering (hence its name), TL Serendipity consists of contributions by TechnoLawyer members who have important information to share. You'll no doubt enjoy it because of its mix of interesting topics and genuinely useful knowledge, including brutally honest product reviews and informative how-tos. The TL Serendipity newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to SmallLaw: Our editorial team has selected and linked to 43 articles from the past week worthy of your attention. Below you'll find a sample article from each section of today's issue, including our SmallLaw Pick of the Week.

How to Handle a Problem Employee

The Seven Deadly Sins of Succession Planning

Google Removes Ads From the Search Sidebar

Tools and Tricks to Automate Your Marketing

Congratulations to Arita Damroze of GP Solo on winning our SmallLaw Pick of the Week award: What to Do When Your Billing Process Stinks

How to Receive SmallLaw
Small law firm, big dreams. Written by successful small-firm founders, managing partners, administrators, and legal technology and practice management experts, SmallLaw provides practical advice on management, marketing, and technology issues in solo practices and small law firms. Additionally, SmallLaw features comprehensive reviews of legal products with accompanying TechnoScore ratings. SmallLaw also ensures that you won't miss anything published elsewhere by linking to helpful articles, podcasts, and videos about solo practices and small law firms. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers a practice management system that offers a desktop experience in your web browser (see article below), an online backup service with Dropbox-like functionality, a NetDocuments add-on for electronic signatures, and an iOS app for tracking packages. Don't miss the next issue.

Practice management software resides at the center of your practice. However, your practice is not always centered at your office. Therefore, it has become essential for practice management software to travel with you — but without you giving up any functionality.

Amicus Attorney Premium 2016 … in One Sentence

Launched recently, Gavel & Gown Software's Amicus Attorney Premium 2016 is a popular practice management system with a new focus on remote access.

The Killer Feature

The new version of Amicus Premium offers full access from any web browser, including on Windows, Mac, and iPad. Your firm's data remains on-premise at your firm.

Amicus Premium in the browser offers the same features as the core Windows program with an optimized user experience. For example, on an iPad interaction elements are sized for fingers rather than a mouse pointer. When you login, the main dashboard displays appointments, telephone messages, unbilled activity and unposted time entries, tasks and deadlines, and a tip.

Other Notable Features

During a demo, Gavel & Gown president Ron Collins said that law firms want to reduce the number of products they need to buy and manage. To this end, Amicus Premium offers significantly enhanced document management. New features include versioning so that you never lose any work, preview and zoom for viewing documents in hundreds of formats, and check-in/out for preventing changes while you work on a document.

Searches list the current version of documents by default, but you can also search prior versions. With Amicus Premium's famous "Do" button, you can now launch Word, time your work, and save the document to the appropriate matter. Integrations with Microsoft Office further enable you to capture all email and documents in Amicus Premium.

Gavel & Gown also lavished a lot of attention on communications. Amicus Premium now groups calls, email, and internal messages. Related features include rules-based auto-filing, and a filter for finding messages by date, matter, to/from, etc. Integration with Office 365 and Exchange powers the email functionality.

A new Client Portal with your firm's logo and letterhead enables you to exchange secure messages with clients, have clients complete forms for documents, and share documents.

Other new features include improved mass billing, support for LEDES billing formats, client receipts, an Apple-like installer, and automatic updates. In all, you'll find more than 35 new features plus of course the core practice management functions — contacts, calendars, matters, billing, notes, research, etc.

"Amicus Premium 2016 is packed with features and enhancements to help legal professionals stay ahead of the ever evolving demands being placed on them," says Collins. "We focused on simplifying workflows, saving our users valuable time while equipping them with the necessary tools to beat the competition."

What Else Should You Know?

Amicus Premium supports Office 2016 and Windows 10 as well as earlier versions. Pricing starts at $849 with upgrades at $649. Learn more about Amicus Attorney Premium 2016.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to BlawgWorld: Our editorial team has selected and linked to 41 articles from the past week worthy of your attention. Below you'll find a sample article from each section of today's issue, including our BlawgWorld Pick of the Week.

Firm Central Offers Exclusive Integrations and New Billing Features

CosmoLex and Casemaker Integrate

Our iPad Pro Case Picks

Texting While Walking Isn't Funny Anymore

Congratulations to Susan Harkins of TechRepublic on winning our BlawgWorld Pick of the Week award: How to Use Word Templates Effectively

How to Receive BlawgWorld
Our newsletters provide the most comprehensive coverage of both legal technology and mainstream technology of interest to the legal profession (e.g., monitors, smartphones, scanners, the iPad, and more). But not the only coverage. BlawgWorld enables you to stay on top of all the noteworthy legal and mainstream technology articles (and podcasts and videos) published elsewhere without having to hire a research assistant. Even when you're busy, you won't want to miss each issue's Pick of the Week. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers a practice management app with a new billing component and deep integrations (see article below), an app for tracking referral fees vis-a-vis other lawyers, a cloud dashboard for New York lawyers, and a business book summaries service. Don't miss the next issue.

One of the underappreciated benefits of cloud applications is their ability to integrate. This becomes especially powerful when the integrations are among first-party applications.

Firm Central … in One Sentence

Thomson Reuters' Firm Central is a cloud practice management application with a new billing component.

The Killer Feature

Firm Central integrates with a growing number of Thomson Reuters services. These exclusive integrations give Firm Central bragging rights as a one-stop practice management system for small law firms.

For example, you can search Westlaw from Firm Central, and access recent research. When using Westlaw, you can save research to a matter in Firm Central. Citations in documents stored in Firm Central contain live KeyCite flags.

Other key integrations include Deadline Assistant, Doc & Form Builder, Case Notebook, CaseLogistix, and Practical Law. Deadline Assistant calculates court deadlines and enters them into Firm Central calendars. With Doc & Form Builder, you can auto-populate forms with client data from Firm Central.

Third-party integrations also exist, chief among them Microsoft Office. You can save Word documents to Firm Central, and move email directly from Outlook into integrated Firm Central matters and folders. The email messages you move into these folders become accessible in Firm Central.

"Many of the features we've added in recent months came as recommendations directly from our customers," Managing Director, Small Law Firm Segment Karl Florida tells us. "The result is a highly intuitive, customizable, and affordable product that offers integration with Westlaw, Practical Law, and much more — all wrapped within the utmost security for our customers and their clients."

Other Notable Features

When you first log into Firm Central, a customizable Home dashboard displays your calendar, tasks, notifications, and recent activity. You can pin integrated services such as Westlaw and Practical Law along the side. Universal search and buttons for adding contacts and documents reside on all screens.

New in Firm Central is Time & Billing. A timer facilitates contemporaneous time entries. You can use the timesheet for multiple entries. Firm Central includes standard ABA billing codes (you can create your own custom codes). A dashboard displays all matters and their status such as outstanding balances. Settings enable you to customize billing parameters.

The Pre-Bills workflow enables you to apply discounts, write-offs, and other adjustments. QuickBooks Online integration eliminates double entry when invoicing and applying payments. Firm Central's trust accounting, including three-way reconciliation and reporting, gives you the ability to track retainer deductions and balances.

A secure client portal enables you to share documents, deliver invoices, and even assign tasks. Before accepting a new client, Firm Central's conflict checker searches all contacts, matter information and the full text of documents (including stored legal research). The resulting conflicts report features live links to relevant documents.

What Else Should You Know?

Firm Central offers three plans — Core ($40 per user per month), Essential ($65 per user per month), and Premier ($105 per user per month). Essential adds the new Time & Billing component, while Premier adds Deadline Assistant. All plans include KeyCite. Learn more about Firm Central.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers a practice management system that can also power your law firm's website (see article below), an iOS app for capturing and organizing your handwritten notes, and two apps for discovery document processing and review. Don't miss the next issue.

The fewer moving parts in a small law firm, the better. More complexity tends to increase administrative costs. In the technology realm, the more your practice management system can handle, the more you can dispense with single-function products.

LEAP … in One Sentence

LEAP is a legal accounting and practice management system that encompasses both front and back office tasks.

The Killer Feature

For your front office, LEAP offers document assembly and management of contacts, calendars, documents, and email. For your back office, LEAP offers billing and IOLTA-compliant trust accounting. It integrates with QuickBooks Online for your general ledger.

LEAP is a hybrid cloud solution — you access it from a Windows desktop app but the data is securely hosted on U.S.-based servers. The LEAP mobile app for iOS and Android take advantage of your smartphone's capabilities. For example, you can capture telephone calls with clients for time entries, and scan a document into LEAP using the camera.

"LEAP is for small law firms wishing to become more efficient, more flexible, and make more money," CEO of LEAP Chris Stock tells us. "LEAP's integrated system enables small law firms to do more work with the same number of people."

Other Notable Features

Because LEAP is a Windows app, it offers deep integration with Microsoft Outlook and Word. You can start new documents and email messages from LEAP, and automatically record the billable time you spend on them. LEAP can convert documents into PDF format when you email them. The Outlook integration also extends to your calendars.

LEAP can manage all of your firm's information. For example, it captures and automatically files inbound email, and integrates with scanners. You'll want to start new documents in LEAP because of its forms and templates. The company continually adds templates in many practice areas plus you can create your own.

Other document management features include audit trails, versioning, document viewer, document comparison, and combination of PDF files. Perhaps best of all, rather than email a document to colleagues, you can email them a link to the document so that the final version remains in LEAP.

LEAP's electronic timesheet with autocomplete enables timekeepers to enter their time. LEAP also handles cost recovery and expenses with the ability to group disbursements into a single line item. You can output bills in Word or PDF format, and email them from LEAP so that they get filed in the corresponding matter. Trust accounting enables you to manage retainers and apply payments.

What Else Should You Know?

LEAP includes LEAP Websites at no extra charge. This service includes mobile-friendly templates from which you can choose, a WordPress blog, email newsletters, and search engine optimization. Some LEAP customers that already have a website use LEAP Websites for a second website around a practice area. LEAP starts at $129 per user per month with a 12-month money-back guarantee. The company reinvests $6 million per year into new features for LEAP. Learn more about LEAP.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TL Serendipity contains these articles:

Mark Werner, Solo On My Own Terms And Not Far From The Cutting Edge

Jerry Gonzalez, Cloud Storage Concerns Overblown; Review Of AxCrypt, AESCrypt

Philip Franckel, Why Dragon NaturallySpeaking Beats Typing And Transcriptionists

Steven Finell, What Starts Digital Stays Digital

Don't miss this issue — or any future issues.

How to Receive TL Serendipity
Our most serendipitous offering (hence its name), TL Serendipity consists of contributions by TechnoLawyer members who have important information to share. You'll no doubt enjoy it because of its mix of interesting topics and genuinely useful knowledge, including brutally honest product reviews and informative how-tos. The TL Serendipity newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.