TechnoLawyer: TL NewsWire

Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers a practice management and client development system (see article below), an online marketing service for local listings, a wireless mobile scanner, a business intelligence service for law firms, and a free iPad magazine. Don't miss the next issue.

A Practice Management System That Costs Just One Dollar

After the initial breakthrough of organizing contacts and calendars by client and matter, practice management systems have experienced a number of major inflection points such as information sharing over a local network, integration of billing, and of course Internet connectivity and entirely cloud-based applications. But most practice management systems continue to have an inward focus. In other words, they help you manage all the work in your firm. But that work doesn't just appear out of thin air. A new practice management system has both an inward and outward focus with tools that help you attract new clients and better serve all your clients.

Total Attorneys Practice Management Platform … in One Sentence
Total Attorneys Practice Management Platform (Total Attorneys) is a cloud-based practice management and client development system.

The Killer Feature
Probably because I often find myself sitting in front of an $18 glass of barolo or franciacorta, I always marvel at how little tortilla chips cost. But even tortilla chips at $2 per bag at my local Trader Joe's can't beat Total Attorneys, which costs just $1 per user per month.

This price imposes no limits on any of the inward features, and even includes all of the outward features except for three — lead generation, payment processing, and virtual receptionist.

Other Notable Features
Those of you in consumer practice areas such as bankruptcy, criminal defense, divorce, personal injury, social security, and taxation can take advantage of Total Attorneys' lead generation service. You enter your practice areas and preferred zip codes, after which leads begin appearing in Total Attorneys under the Leads tab. You can adjust your settings anytime, and turn off this tool when you have enough business.

Total Attorneys also offers a secure client portal for agreements, communications, and document sharing. For example, you can have clients sign a retainer agreement. You can also provide clients with a collection of all the documents in their case that they can access anytime. The client portal doesn't require any plugins such as Flash so it also works on the iPad and smartphones. You can enable it on a client by client basis.

The calendar straddles the line between inward and outward features. It has all the functions you would expect, but you can also invite a client to a call or meeting via the calendar. And if you enable it, clients can schedule meetings with you. Similarly, Total Attorneys can log billable time and generate invoices, but it can also process online credit card payments that clients can initiate directly from your bills.

Regarding pure inward features, the Matter Overview Page serves as a dashboard for a specific matter, displaying all information such as open and close dates, lawyers, documents, billing records, etc. Contacts also serve as a dashboard. In addition to contact information, you'll see an activity log of appointments, documents, email, notes, etc.

Other features include bulk email and email templates for client alerts and newsletters (replies go to your regular email address), document management with access controls, and a tool for creating and tracking proposals (quotes).

What Else Should You Know?
Total Attorneys runs in any web browser. There's also an iPad and iPhone app. As noted above, you can use most functions for $1 per user per month. Leads cost $50 to $107 each, payment processing costs $35 per month, and a virtual receptionist costs $199 per 50 calls. Learn more about Total Attorneys Practice Management Platform.

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 document assembly software (see article below), an iPad practice management system, and iPad scanner, a cloud application for discovery document review, and a sound capture program for Macs. Don't miss the next issue.

Document Assembly Breaks the $100 Price Barrier

Some lawyers misunderstand document automation technology. They worry that producing documents faster will reduce their billable hours. On the contrary, it enables lawyers to earn more. With document automation software, you can set a flat fee per document type. The more efficient your document automation software, the more documents you can create without hiring additional employees. Still, lawyers have one legitimate concern — making a large investment in document assembly software that fails to pay off. This explains why one legal vendor has decided to dramatically undercut its competitors on price and complexity.

TheFormTool PRO … in One Sentence
Your Dollar Matters' TheFormTool PRO is a document automation program that integrates with Microsoft Word.

The Killer Feature
TheFormTool PRO doesn't require any programming knowledge to use. You can create a basic form (template) in a few minutes. Templates exist in Word format with TheFormTool PRO's tools above in the toolbar or ribbon.

Creating a form works as follows. At the end of a model document, TheFormTool PRO inserts a table with three columns — Label, Question, and Answer. For all the variable blanks in your document, you fill in the first two columns (e.g., Testator / Who is the testator?). With just a few clicks, you then connect each Label to the appropriate blank(s) in your document. When you need to create that document, you just enter your answers into the table. TheFormTool PRO inserts your answers (such as the testator's name) into the appropriate blanks.

"I specifically designed TheFormTool as third-generation document automation software," TheFormTool's creator Scott Campbell told us. "It's easily mastered by anyone, whether in a large firm or solo practice. There's no need to hire expensive consultants. Customers say it's fun to use."

Other Notable Features
Smart Answers enable you to fill in templates faster by eliminating typing. For example, a securities lawyer could create a list of shareholders from which to choose.

The Fields tool enables you to further save time by automatically having TheFormTool PRO take care of verb agreement, pronouns, and plurals (e.g., indicate that a person is female and your document will use "her," "she," etc. along with singular verbs). The Lists and Master Lists tools work similarly for entering boilerplate information like signature blocks.

Conditional relationships make your forms dynamic by adding or deleting words, phrases, sentences, or entire sections depending on an answer to a single question. For example, you can include a section only if the person is married. You can also take advantage of Boolean logic driven by multiple choice or yes/no answers.

Other features include date precedents to automatically calculate forward or reverse due dates for actions or events, summary edit pages listing all the changes made to a document, the ability to save answers to use across different forms, and network support for sharing forms, documents, and data throughout your office.

What Else Should You Know?
TheFormTool PRO costs $89, and works with Word 2007 and later. Your Dollar Matters also offers a free product called TheFormTool, which lacks some of the more advanced features. On the flip-side, for $350 you'll receive TheFormTool PRO plus the company will set up five forms for you. Learn more about TheFormTool PRO.

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 transcript review app for the iPad (see article below), a scanning service, a new mobile scanner, and two new electronic discovery applications. Don't miss the next issue.

Transcript Review Meets the iPad

As a young litigator, I used a Mac program called Ready for Trial to review deposition transcripts and generate reports of key testimony. Once when I presented a report to a senior associate to append to our brief, he rejected it because it looked "too slick." Now long forgotten, Ready for Trial was ahead of its time and on the wrong platform. Enter Apple's revenge, otherwise known as the iPad, which already outsells Macs and will likely outsell all PCs before the end of this decade. While most legal vendors have only dipped a toe in the iPad waters, one legal vendor focuses solely on the iPad, including its newest app for transcripts.

TranscriptPad … in One Sentence
Released earlier this month, Lit Software's TranscriptPad is an iPad app for managing and reviewing transcripts.

The Killer Feature
Transcript review seems straightforward, but somewhere along the way transcript software became increasingly complex and expensive. TranscriptPad seeks to reverse this trend, and disrupt the marketplace in the process.

TranscriptPad costs $49.99. That's it. This one-time price includes new versions and support. The company already has a track record in this regard. Last year, Lit Software released TrialPad for exhibiting documents. Version 2.0 added more sophisticated trial presentation features at no charge to those who bought version 1.0.

"Lawyers want to mark up multiple depositions on a train, plane, or their favorite easy chair without juggling highlighters, tape flags, and post-it notes," Lit Software CEO Ian O'Flaherty told us. "They don't want to create accounts, register their documents, host them on someone else's server, or pay for upgrades or per-seat subscriptions every month or year. We designed TranscriptPad to meet their needs."

Other Notable Features
You can import transcripts in TXT format into TranscriptPad via Dropbox, email attachment, or iTunes sync. TranscriptPad also supports exhibits in PDF format.

Once you load transcripts, you can organize them by client/matter, and of course review them. You can choose between manually flipping through transcript pages or having TranscriptPad automatically scroll (you can adjust the speed). A scroll bar along the side works like a scrubber, enabling you to navigate to a specific page and line of testimony.

You can also search through a single deposition, all depositions for a witness, or all depositions for a case. TranscriptPad's tools include the ability to flag and designate key testimony, and create and assign color-coded issues.

What Else Should You Know?
After reviewing transcripts, you can generate reports (e.g., designated testimony pertaining to an issue) in PDF or TXT format, and print or email them to yourself and colleagues. TranscriptPad works on the original iPad and iPad 2. Learn more about TranscriptPad.

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 program that tracks the time you spend in client-related email (see article below), a site that enables you to compare smartphones, a new online practice management and document assembly application, and an iOS app with a legal dictionary, settlement calculator and other such tools for lawyers. Don't miss the next issue.

Automatically Track Time Spent on Client-Related Email

Late last year, Business Insider, a publication that breathlessly covers startup companies and new technologies, admitted that the world is not changing that fast. The article noted that every minute people post 695,000 Facebook status updates (impressive), but send 168 million email messages (off the charts). Among lawyers, the numbers are likely even more skewed in email's favor. Because lawyers spend so much time in email, that's where they lose the most billable time. Did you spend 25 minutes or 35 minutes replying to your client? Most lawyers are honest so they under-guesstimate, but accuracy is not a crime. The new version of a popular time tracking program can help.

Chrometa 2012 … in One Sentence
Chrometa 2012 automatically captures and categorizes the time you spend working on your computer plus it can track offline time too.

The Killer Feature
Previous versions of Chrometa would tell you how much time you spent in Outlook or in Gmail throughout the day, enabling you to capture all that time. But it didn't list the time per message so if you read 25 work-related email messages, and sent 10 you'd have to look back at your messages and apportion the time among them -- a fair amount of work.

Chrometa 2012 now shows you the time spent per message, identifying each message by subject line, to/from/cc fields, and if applicable even the email folder name.

Chrometa 2012 achieves this feat via two free plugins for Microsoft Outlook and Gmail respectively. The Outlook plugin works with Outlook 2007 and 2010, while the Gmail plugin works with Google's Chrome browser on Mac and Windows.

"Our new Chrometa plugins for Microsoft Outlook and Gmail close the loop on email," Chrometa CEO Brett Owens told us. "Once you install our email plugins, you'll never lose another minute of billable email time or waste time reconstructing that billable time."

Other Notable Features
Chrometa 2012 captures time on Macs and PCs. It notices when you stop using your computer such as for a phone call and can ask you about it so you can also track offline time. You access and manage your captured time using a web browser.

Chrometa 2012 can automatically categorize the time it captures. For example, now that Chrometa can capture time spent per email message, you can create a rule for each client or even matter. Then Chrometa will place all email time per client or per matter into that category. The rules work for all the time Chrometa captures (e.g., time spent in Word documents). When you log into your Chrometa account, you can convert all the time captured in a category into time entries with one click.

Also new in Chrometa 2012 is the ability to create bills (invoices). In other words, Chrometa can now serve as your billing program, not just your time capture program. You can send bills directly from Chrometa via email or export them into DOC, PDF, or XLS formats.

If you already use a billing system, Chrometa offers a growing number of integrations, including Clio, FreshBooks, QuickBooks, PCLaw, and Timeslips. You can also export Chrometa time entries and import them into virtually any billing system.

What Else Should You Know?
You can choose from three versions of Chrometa (all single user) or from two versions of Chrometa for Teams (for multiple users). Pricing for Chrometa starts at $19 per month, whereas pricing for Chrometa for Teams starts at the same price per user per month. Learn more about Chrometa 2012.

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.

Originally published in our free TL NewsWire newsletter. Instead of reading TL NewsWire here, sign up now to receive future issues via email.

Prevent Inadvertent Disclosures and Other Email Mishaps

The early days of the web favored large firms. Tim Berners Lee gave the world HTML, and Marc Andreessen the web browser. But if you wanted a client portal — then known as an extranet — for secure communications and document sharing you had two expensive choices: build it yourself or use overpriced turnkey solutions. As a result, small law firms and even most large law firms still use plain old email for client communications. Now, email is fine for newsletters like TL NewsWire, but it's not ideal for confidential attorney-client communications or exchanging large files. Fortunately, even sole practitioners can now afford a client portal.

Privacy Data Systems All-in-One Privacy Suite … in One Sentence
Privacy Data Systems All-in-One Privacy Suite (PDS Professional) is web communications service that enables law firms to securely exchange messages and large files with clients.

The Killer Feature
Under immense pressure, many bar associations have given their blessing to email for client communications. So you need not worry about being disbarred if you misaddress an email message, just fired and maybe sued — with perhaps negative reviews on Avvo, Google Places, Yelp, and elsewhere too. Not good. A lesser problem but still a problem occurs when you correctly send an email message but it ends up unread in your client's spam folder.

PDS Professional eliminates email mishaps. For example, if you misaddress an email message, the unintended recipient won't be able to read it because they won't have the access code. When you correctly send a message, PDS Professional provides "immediate and irrefutable" proof of delivery.

"Lawyers and their clients need to communicate quickly, and share documents with each other, but standard email systems are not secure enough to maintain privacy," Privacy Data Systems Vice President of Operations Ray Blackburn told us. "We have put together an affordable suite of privacy tools that combines security with the ease-of-use of email."

Other Notable Features
PDS Professional provides your firm with a Secure Inbox — an encrypted web page branded with your logo — that you can provide to your clients. As a result, unlike other services, your clients need not register to send you secure messages and documents. Likewise, they don't need an account or any plugins to receive messages and documents from you.

PDS Professional includes a number of bank-grade security features, including view-only documents, watermarked documents, electronic signatures, rights management settings, message recall, and biometric authentication.

For example, the eSignature technology enables your clients to sign documents electronically using a process approved by the ESIGN Act. Rights management enables you to impose controls on messages such as preventing printing, downloading, forwarding, etc. With Message Recall, you can prevent delivery of a message you have already sent. If your client has already read the message, you can prevent it from being opened again.

What Else Should You Know?
In addition to all this security, PDS Professional enables you to send large files. Each licensee receives 2 GB of storage space, which you can increase if needed. PDS Professional works in all modern web browsers. It costs either $14.50 per month, or $145 per year. You can try it for free. Learn more about PDS Professional.

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.

Originally published in our free TL NewsWire newsletter. Instead of reading TL NewsWire here, sign up now to receive future issues via email.

The Time Tracking and Billing System Intuit Recommends

More than one million lawyers, paralegals, and other legal professionals need to track their expenses and time. And that's just in the United States. Sensing an opportunity, Intuit launched a cloud-based billing solution a few years ago called Time Tracker & Billing Manager. But it didn't pan out so the company recently shut down the service. Rather than leave its thousands of customers hanging, Intuit carefully evaluated its competitors, and then encouraged its customers to switch to a next-generation solution by a company whose management team has years of experience developing legal billing systems.

eBillity … in One Sentence
An Intuit Preferred Partner, eBillity is a secure cloud-based time tracking and billing solution with accompanying mobile apps.

The Killer Feature
Of all the professionals who bill for their time, lawyers likely have the most diverse needs. eBillity's designers focused on customizability and flexibility to meet these needs.

For example, you can create multiple billing rates — hourly, client, matter, employee, activity, overtime, etc. eBillity displays these options on a single screen. Once you create a billing rule, you can save it for future use — and these rules can include other aspects of billing such as expenses and trust accounts. In other words, eBillity enables you to automate your billing workflow.

Other Notable Features
eBillity contains a number of technologies designed to facilitate expense and time entry. For example, eBillity provides timers, custom categories, and batch entry (e.g., record all your time at the trial with one click, and all your associated expenses with another click). Also, eBillity is available via a desktop or mobile web browser, Mac and Windows applications, and native iOS (iPhone or iPad) and BlackBerry apps. The desktop and mobile apps work offline, and automatically sync with your account once you're online again, enabling you to capture time anywhere.

eBillity contains a number of legal-specific features such as conflict checking and trust accounting that go beyond typical offerings. For conflict checking, not only can you conduct full-text searches, but you can also create ethical walls to prevent designated employees from accessing one or more matters. eBillity's trust accounting includes the "eBillity Client Portal" through which your clients can view invoices, and make payments on those invoices. Clients can view the balance and activity of their trust accounts from this portal as well. Finally, clients can view and pay invoices using a credit card or PayPal via a button on every emailed invoice.

Other features include email alerts to stay in the loop when members of your team work on specific matters, QuickBooks Online synchronization, and customizable reports. Report types include timekeepers, clients, expense, trust accounts, productivity, receivables, rates, tax, and more.

"Our clients have found, on average, that they capture 15% more billable time using eBillity," Vice President of Product Douglas Dweck told us. "Having a tool that makes it this easy to capture time from anywhere on nearly any device ensures minutes don't get missed."

What Else Should You Know?
Three versions of eBillity exist — Free (3 clients and 5 matters), Standard (20 clients and 30 matters), and Premium (unlimited clients and matters plus eBillity Client Portal and payment processing). The Standard plan costs $19.95 per month for the first user, and $9.95 per additional user. All plans include free support via telephone, live chat, and email. Learn more about eBillity.

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 new practice management system (see article below), and a new mobile scanner (article available to TL NewsWire subscribers only). Don't miss the next issue.

Practice Management Meets Document Management

Is January just another month or does the beginning of a new year deserve all the hype? While gym check-ins plummet after a few weeks, a new year can bring about lasting improvements at law firms. Most law firm fiscal years match the calendar year so there's no better time to start using a new practice management system. Without having to retroactively enter data, you'll have an entire fiscal year's worth of appointments, billed activities, documents, tasks, and everything else a practice management system organizes. One legal vendor recognizes the special nature of January. Like clockwork, it ships a new version of its popular practice management system shortly after the ball drops in Times Square.

Amicus Attorney Premium Edition 2012 … in One Sentence
Released on January 3, 2012, Gavel & Gown's Amicus Attorney Premium Edition 2012 is a practice management system with integrated document management.

The Killer Feature
Law firm workflow revolves around email and documents. While Outlook has a lock on email, there's no similarly dominant product for document management despite a deep hunger among law firms for a simple yet powerful solution.

Amicus Attorney Premium Edition 2012 offers integrated document management via its new Documents module. Thus, you can quickly see a list of all documents associated with a client or file, and filter and sort the list based on various criteria.

Even better, you can run full-text searches for documents. Amicus Attorney uses Microsoft's Indexing Server engine, which handles all popular file formats, including of course DOC, DOCX, and PDF.

Other Notable Features
We only have one killer feature section in TL NewsWire articles, but vying for contention is the fact that Gavel & Gown has baked Google Sync into Amicus Attorney. With a free Google account, you can sync appointments and contacts in Amicus Attorney with Android smartphones and tablets, Apple's iPad and iPhone, BlackBerrys, and other mobile devices compatible with Google Sync.

In keeping with the focus on mobile, Amicus Attorney can email you your agenda every day, including phone numbers for contacts assigned to your daily events. Your agenda can take advantage of another new feature — Referrals, which enable you to see who sends you work. You can view and sort all client matter files referred by your contacts. If you also use Amicus Premium Billing (part of Amicus Attorney once you turn it on with a license), you'll also see the fees they helped you generate. You'll know for sure who merits some wining and dining at the best restaurant in town.

Other new features include the ability to output formatted information from unlimited custom fields and records, hyperlinks to files from appointments and tasks, email alerts when your assistant creates a phone message, and automated notation of returned phone messages on your phone records.

What Else Should You Know?
Gavel & Gown also shipped Amicus Attorney Small Firm Edition 2012 last week — a less expensive alternative for law firms with 1-10 users. The web site provides a feature comparison chart. Both the Premium and Small Firm Editions run on Windows PCs. Learn more about Amicus Attorney Premium Edition 2012.

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.

This special edition of TL NewsWire was originally published on December 15, 2011.

In 2011, we reported on 212 new products in TL NewsWire — far more products than any other legal publisher to my knowledge (TL NewsWire is one of nine TechnoLawyer publications).

For each product we cover, we track the number of clicks. Not for nefarious reasons mind you. We track clicks in the aggregate so that we can see which products you and your fellow subscribers find most and least interesting to help guide our future coverage. We also track clicks so that we can engage in one of publishing's most enduring cliches — the annual top 10 list.

Wait. Did I say top 10? Silly me. At TechnoLawyer, we always give you more for your money (even though TL NewsWire is free). Below you'll find the TL NewsWire Top 15 Products of 2011.

1. TrialPad

In the year of the iPad, it seems fitting that an iPad app tops the list. TrialPad replaces an ELMO for displaying documents. Lit Software recently released version 2, which contains more advanced trial presentation features. Will TrialPad disrupt incumbents Sanction and TrialDirector? Only time will tell, but Lit Software appears to be the leader among companies developing legal-specific iPad apps.

2. Workshare PDF Professional

You have to give Workshare a lot of credit for its insane pace of software development. It's the Adobe Systems of the legal industry. Speaking of which, Workshare PDF Professional takes aim at Adobe's Acrobat with a low price of $79.

3. Canon imageFORMULA DR-C125 Scanner

As someone who appreciates elegant design and feels there's too little of it in our industry, the imageFORMULA DR-C125 captured my attention because of its space-saving upright design and U-turn paper path. Apparently, many of you agreed by ranking it third.

4. LexisNexis Firm Manager

SmallLaw columnist emeritus Mazy Hedayat (Crazy Mazy) is a tough lawyer to please. So imagine our surprise when he praised Firm Manager, LexisNexis' cloud practice management system. Thanks in part to Firm Manager, 2011 marked the turning point for cloud applications in the legal industry.

5. Workshare Point

Document management remains the most popular topic among TechnoLawyer members, but I didn't realize how many of you have an interest in Microsoft SharePoint until we covered Workshare Point, which transforms SharePoint into a legal-specific document management system. Kudos to Workshare for having two products in the top five.

6. MyCase V2.0

The second cloud practice management system on the list, MyCase uses Facebook-like technologies for interacting with your clients, including billing, communications, and document sharing. Perhaps the more apt comparison is Salesforce.com's Chatter.

7. Smartsheet

Another hot area — project management, especially for law firms charging flat fees or under pressure from clients not to exceed engagement letter estimates. Traditionally, you practically needed the equivalent of a medical residency to use project management software. Smartsheet is a cloud application that attempts to simplify this once obscure (for law firms) discipline.

8. Kodak SCANMATE I920 Scanner

Too little too late for this troubled American icon? Well, many of you found Kodak's entry into the sheetfed scanner market of interest. Like Canon's scanners, the SCANMATE i920 supports supports TWAIN and ISIS applications.

9. Nylon Sleeve With Handles

Easily the biggest surprise on the list. Why? Because it's the only product among the top 15 that we covered in a roundup article as opposed to a feature article (roundup articles appear below the feature article in each issue of TL NewsWire so they're not as prominently, um, featured). Incidentally, I have two of these sleeves — one for my iPad 2 and one for my MacBook Air. It was my search for a sleeve with handles that led to our coverage of this product.

10. RogueTime Version 1.1

RogueTime ties into your iPhone's Phone app so that you can convert phone calls into time entries (iPhones capture the time of each call). Apps like RogueTime could persuade lawyers to use their iPhone as their only phone.

11. KnowledgeTree

KnowledgeTree is a cloud document management system. In our coverage, we focused on the new KnowledgeTree ExplorerCP, a desktop application that connects to the mothership.

12. Doxie Go

I think we covered this portable scanner before any other legal publisher. Its cable-free and PC-free design seems liberating. Doxie Go will soon have some competition. We received a pre-release demo this week, but I can't tell you about it yet. Stay tuned to TL NewsWire.

13. Sohodox

Cloud skeptics at small law firms rejoice — a document management system for 1-20 users that runs on your own damn hardware.

14. NetDocuments R1-2011

Yes folks, another document management system. And none other than the undisputed champion of cloud document management systems. NetDocuments redesigned its user interface this year.

15. ClearContext Professional 5

This Outlook add-on learns your habits so that it can start taking care of tasks for you. It can even make email messages disappear for a specified period of time so that you can fool yourself into thinking you've achieved zero inbox.

You Want More?

So there you go. The top 15. What's that? You want a top 20? Okay, okay. I won't write about them, but numbers 16-20 were (drumroll please):

16. AdvologixPM

17. ActionStep

18. Pathagoras 2011

19. Credenza Pro

20. Chrometa

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 high-tech court reporting service (see article below), a new Microsoft technical support site, and ipad document management app, an email marketing utility, and a web analytics service. Don't miss the next issue.

Court Reporting Goes High Tech for Less Money

Court reporting companies once consisted of mom and pop shops that competed by giving lawyers gifts like invitations to swanky holiday parties and hot tickets. I know because as a young litigation associate I once got the plumb assignment of sending requests for proposals to these companies for a multi-defendant litigation that would have required 60 or so depositions had it not settled for $60 or so million. Of course, I tried not to let all the attention influence me, but back then these companies didn't differ from one another all that much. The times have changed. Increasingly, court reporting companies now offer their own technologies rather than gifts to give them an edge.

Silk Deposition Services … in One Sentence
Silk Deposition Services is a litigation support company that focuses on developing proprietary technological solutions and services for the legal community, with a specific emphasis on reducing costs.

The Killer Feature
Many court reporting services charge per page. With the help of an advisory board of litigators, Silk developed a new format for transcripts that increases the density of words on each page while improving readability over standard transcripts, resulting in a savings of 20-25% per page versus its competitors, according to the company. Silk also provides many complimentary services, including customizable binding options and a deposition CD loaded with the transcript in all the common formats.

"In today's very challenging economic climate there's no reason for a law firm of any size to throw away money on litigation costs," Silk Deposition Services Senior VP of Business Development David Kennedy told us. "Our clients tell us that our Silk transcript format reduces their costs while providing a quality product. They love it."

Other Notable Features
Silk offers a number of other deposition technologies. For example, the company can summarize your transcript for you at a lower cost than hiring a contract paralegal (plus it's a hard cost that you can bill to clients). Its WIN Depo technology creates a secure WiFi network (if none exists already) in the room in which your deposition takes place, enabling you to access the Internet and take advantage of realtime services.

SilkWeb is an online repository in which Silk securely stores all your transcripts at no extra charge. SilkWeb also provides tools for color coding and annotating transcripts as well as sharing work with third parties. You can also schedule depositions, view your upcoming and past depositions, and download invoices. If you have a deposition in New York but don't live there, the "Sleep N' Save" feature enables you to book a hotel room as part of a package deal (Silk Deposition Services has arrangements with several hotels at special rates).

What Else Should You Know?
Silk Deposition Services offers its court reporting services on three continents with offices in New York City, London, and Israel. In the United States, it has court reporters in all major metropolitan areas. Learn more about Silk Deposition Services.

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 new document assembly program (see article below), an iPad practice management system, a cloud-based document syncing and sharing service, an iPad note-taking app, and an iOS printing utility. Don't miss the next issue.

Simple Assembly of Complex Legal Documents

Legal documents are among the world's most complex. They often require specific layouts, paragraph numbering, tables of contents, etc. And that's just the formatting. The content is equally complex (that's why you get paid the big bucks). This fact explains why so many companies offer document automation software. Ironically, many of these expert systems are complex in their own right, making the adoption rate lower than that of other types of legal software such as practice management systems. One company has attempted to buck the complexity trend while simultaneously rolling out new versions at a furious pace.

Pathagoras 2012 … in One Sentence
Pathagoras 2012 is a document assembly program that works with Microsoft Word.

The Killer Feature
Pathagoras has escaped much of the complexity of its competitors by using Plain Text Variables that you can see within each template rather than hidden fields, and by not requiring a heavy duty database.

That said, databases serve a purpose — for example mail merges. Whether you store such information in a simple Excel spreadsheet or a relational database, Pathagoras 2012's new Instant Database module can connect to just about any database so that you can populate documents automatically.

Other Notable Features
Another new feature — Document Packages — enables you to generate a collection of related documents for a task that you often perform. The templates in these packages behave like other Pathagoras templates for document assembly purposes except that you can fill all the variables across the documents simultaneously.

"Recently, a user wanted a way to select a package of documents that would be automatically saved in a client's folder," President and Chief Programmer of Pathagoras Roy Lasris told us. "We didn't yet have that feature, but we liked it. So we programmed it."

Now officially out of beta, Pathagoras' bar code scanning enables you to insert clauses into documents using bar codes, which you may prefer if you're not a proficient typist.

Other new features include improved search technology, improved table controls, faster access to Pathagoras' major functions thanks to a new navigation system, and resizable screens.

What Else Should You Know?
Pathagoras 2012 sells for $379 for the first license and $250 per license thereafter. Volume discounts are available (e.g., $799 for a three-pack). Alternatively, you can pay $25 per month or $125 for six months rather than license the software if you prefer the software subscription model, which includes all new versions. Learn more about Pathagoras 2012.

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