TechnoLawyer: TL NewsWire

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

Practice Management That Perfectly Fits Your Practice

A doctor and a lawyer (that's you) walk into a bar. When asked about their profession, the doctor says "doctor" and you say "lawyer." The questioner asks the doctor "What kind of doctor?" but the questioner probably won't ask you "What kind of lawyer?" However, as we all know, legal practice is every bit as specialized as medical practice. Just as no one hires a podiatrist for heart surgery, no one hires a 1940 Act lawyer for a divorce. A company that develops a popular practice management system has taken note of this specialization with some specialized technology.

Needles Case Type Library for Needles 4.8.2 … in One Sentence
The Needles Case Type Library is a growing collection of practice area-specific setups for the Needles 4.8.2 practice management system.

The Killer Feature
The Needles Case Type Library eliminates the need to create your own workflows within Needles from scratch. They include everything you need for a given practice area such as forms and reports. Once imported, you can customize a Case Type further.

Currently, you can choose from 19 Case Types — Bankruptcy Chapter 7, Construction Civil Litigation, Criminal-Misdemeanor, Divorce, Custody, Property Division, Dog Bite, Estate Planning, Estate Probate, Immigration, Insurance Defense, Mass Tort Pharmaceutical-DEVICE, Medical Malpractice, Motor Vehicle Accident, Premise Liability, Product Liability, Real Estate Closing, Social Security, Third Party Collection, Workers Compensation, and Wrongful Death.

Needles created the Case Types in conjunction with its clients who over the years honed their use of Needles for activities ranging from client intake to billing to collections to closing matters. Needles expects the number of Case Types to grow both in number and in features as its community of clients shares more and more details about their best practices.

"In our more 25 years of business, we have strived to maintain a sense of community among our clients," Needles Director of Training Liz Teixeira told us. "There are few companies that can boast of a clientele so willing to share their wealth of knowledge. Client contributions have shaped and defined the case type setups that we offer as part of our new library."

Other Notable Features
The Case Types in the Needles Case Type Library take advantage of the latest features of Needles 4.8.2, which include a number of integrations with popular programs such as Outlook and QuickBooks, enhancements to the time capture tools, calendar, message system, and reports, and a phone dialer that works with traditional and VoIP telephone systems.

What Else Should You Know?
Needles 4.8.2 includes free access to the Needles Case Type Library. Just download the case types that best fit your firm. Learn more about Needles Case Type Library for Needles 4.8.2.

How to Receive TechnoLawyer NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The "In One Sentence" section describes each product in one sentence, and the "Killer Feature" section describes each product's most compelling feature. The TechnoLawyer NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers a practice management system compatible with most smartphones (see article below), software for automatically creating a table of authorities, and Internet-accessible network attached storage appliance, a GPS-enabled BlackBerry and iPhone app that helps you arrive at all your appointments and meetings on time, and an iPhone app that works with PCLaw. Don't miss the next issue.

Your Practice Management System in Your Pocket

Lawyers are a peculiar species. You earn your living billing by the hour, but spend a lot of time out of the office on non-billable activities like waiting to board flights, sitting in taxis, and countless other examples. Sure, client meetings, court appearances, and the like are billable, but they're surrounded by a lot of wasted time. And to make matters worse, lawyers often forget or underestimate billable events that occur on the go because they don't record them when they occur. A practice management system that has helped boost productivity in law offices for nearly two decades now has its sights set on boosting your productivity when you're out of the office as well.

LexisNexis Time Matters v11 … in One Sentence
LexisNexis Time Matters v11 is a client and matter management system with a mobile component for lawyers and legal professionals who use smartphones and other mobile devices.

The Killer Feature
The latest smartphone statistics show Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry each with a large percentage of the market. Meanwhile, Microsoft's deal with Nokia could make Windows Phone a contender.

Rather than create three or four device-specific apps, LexisNexis instead focused its development resources on Time Matters Mobility, a Web-based service that works with most modern smartphones.

The Time Matters Mobility service has several advantages over device-specific apps according to LexisNexis. For example, it doesn't require any installation, setup, or synchronization on the device. Instead, you just login using any modern mobile Web browser, authenticate your smartphone, and then access Time Matters securely via an encrypted connection. Adding to the security, Time Matters Mobility does not store any data on your smartphone. All data remains on the server in your office.

With the Time Matters Mobility service, you can enter billable time and expenses, enter, edit and view your contacts and matters, including dialing telephone numbers, and create email messages from your mobile device.

"With the real-time access to critical information provided in the new Time Matters Mobility service, attorneys can continue to be productive and bill hours while on the go, without worrying about syncing for the latest updates or taking office staff off-task," Vice President and Product Champion Small Law Practice Management Jonah Paransky told us.

Other Notable Features
The development team also focused its efforts on enhancing the extensibility of the core Time Matters client/server software. For example, Time Matters v11 integrates with many third-party products such as HotDocs 10, Tabs3, QuickBooks 2010 and 2011, Timeslips 2011, WordPerfect X5, and Fujitsu ScanSnap desktop scanners. Furthermore, support for Microsoft Windows Terminal Server means you can dispense with local installations. Instead, everyone can run Time Matters from the server.

Time Matters v11 also features improvements to its core functions -- centralized case and matter management, extensive automation and customization tools, and security tools such as activity logs, conflict searching, and restricted access.

What Else Should You Know?
The Time Matters Annual Maintenance Plan entitles you to receive Time Matters Mobility service free of charge, as well as telephone technical support and exclusive access to LexisNexis University Time Matters Anytime Training on the Web. Learn more about LexisNexis Time Matters v11.

How to Receive TechnoLawyer NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The "In One Sentence" section describes each product in one sentence, and the "Killer Feature" section describes each product's most compelling feature. The TechnoLawyer NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers a trial presentation iPad app (see article below), an online document comparison service for Word files, software that enables you to access the file system of your iPhone and iPad, an iPad keyboard and stand, and a free eBay-like site on which lawyers can bid for cases. Don't miss the next issue.

Get Your iPad Ready for Trial

If Perry Mason could win murder trial after murder trial using nothing more than his superior legal intellect, why should you need anything other than your superior legal intellect to win the cases you litigate? Mason's clients didn't even have the benefit of Miranda rights let alone any highfalutin trial presentation technology, and they still won! Sadly, you don't practice in TVLand or in the 1950s. You practice in the second decade of the 21st century. So the next time you head to court you may want to bring your iPad instead of your legal pad thanks to a new app for litigators.

TrialPad … in One Sentence
Lit Software's TrialPad is an iPad app for presenting documents in court and other adversarial settings.

The Killer Feature
Apple's App Store is a textbook example of macroeconomics — a large demand, but an even larger supply, and extreme downward pressure on prices as a result. Thus far, it poses far more of a threat to video game makers than to legal vendors, but the makers of TrialPad clearly want to send a message to the old guard.

TrialPad costs $89 — significantly less expensive than document projectors such as those made by ELMO as well as traditional trial presentation software. The company also claims that TrialPad doesn't require the assistance of a trial presentation consultant.

Other Notable Features
TrialPad uses a folder to represent a matter. You can create an unlimited number. Once you create a matter, you can import PDF documents via Dropbox, email, or iTunes.

The documents you load appear in a list. You can rename, sort, and delete documents, and organize them in folders. You can designate key documents as "Hot Docs" for quick access.

TrialPad offers three annotation tools — highlight, marker, and redaction — plus the ability to zoom in and out. You can clear annotations so that you can practice beforehand. You can also rotate entire documents or specific pages within documents.

When presenting documents, you can toggle the external projector on and off or pause it on the current document while you pull up a new document to display.

What Else Should You Know?
Because it runs on an iPad, TrialPad can output to an LCD monitor, LCD projector, or HDTV using the appropriate adapter. It's available exclusively on Apple's App Store. Learn more about TrialPad.

How to Receive TechnoLawyer NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The "In One Sentence" section describes each product in one sentence, and the "Killer Feature" section describes each product's most compelling feature. The TechnoLawyer NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers a Web-based practice management system (see article below), a Web-based service that automates scanning tasks, an Android app to speed up text input, and an iOS app for moving information from your computer's Web browser to your iPhone and iPad. Don't miss the next issue.

May the Force.com Be With Your Law Firm

Clouds are deceiving. One minute they float by peacefully, but the next minute they turn dark and threatening — especially in Texas. As they famously say there, if you don't like the weather just wait five minutes. Perhaps Texas' unpredictable weather explains why a Texas-based company took a different approach to cloud-based practice management than its competitors. I recently met online with the founders to learn more about what they cooked up for law firms interested in Web-based practice management but concerned about stormy weather so to speak.

Advologix Practice Management Spring 2011 Release … in One Sentence
Advologix Practice Management Spring 2011 Release (AdvologixPM) is a comprehensive and configurable Web-based practice management system.

The Killer Feature
Many law firms have mixed feelings about Web-based practice management systems. On the one hand, they like the idea of no longer having to deal with locally-installed software, but on the other hand they're wary of four issues — data integrity, response time, security, and scalability.

Rather than build its own infrastructure from the ground up, Advologix addressed these concerns by building AdvologixPM on Salesforce's Force.com platform.

What does that mean? Salesforce is a successful public company that offers a Web-based sales management product. In addition, Salesforce enables software developers to build their own applications atop its infrastructure. As a result, if you use AdvologixPM, your data will reside on Salesforce's infrastructure, thus providing you with the same data integrity, response time, security, and scalability as Salesforce's customers, which include many Fortune 500 companies.

Advologix's use of the Force.com platform has three other advantages as well. First, it enables the company to focus all of its attention on customer support and adding legal-specific features rather than back-end management.

Second, Salesforce's AppExchange is an application store similar in concept to Apple's famous App Store. If AdvologixPM doesn't have a feature you need, you can add that functionality on your own by purchasing add-ons from the AppExchange (your firm can even become a Force.com developer itself).

Third, in addition to being able to access AdvologixPM from any capable browser platform such as the iPad, you can also access it with Salesforce's dedicated iPhone or Blackberry application.

Other Notable Features
Advologix has added a number of new features to its Spring 2011 release. For example, AdvologixPM now has a document management system called "Managed Content." When you view a matter, you see all related documents (you can also link documents to clients and contacts). Managed Content indexes your documents so you can search them. Other tools include the ability to collaborate on documents with others, add annotations and comments, and keep previous versions.

AdvologixPM's new billing technology streamlines the entry of time and expenses. You'll find full support for collections, retainers, and trust accounts. You can assign default billing rates by timekeeper or by client and matter, and override these when reviewing bills if necessary. Stop Loss Billing tells you when you have performed work that you have not billed.

AdvologixPM does not just integrate with apps from the AppExchange, but also with popular software. For example, AdvologixPM's contact management and calendar integrate with Outlook and Google Apps. Also, prospective clients who fill out a form on your site can become a "lead" in AdvologixPM, which can alert you via email so that you can follow up immediately.

AdvologixPM is customizable. You can add fields and make many other modifications to suit your workflow without any programming knowledge. Other features of AdvologixPM include conflict checking, dashboards, and reports.

"The Spring 2011 release of AdvologixPM dramatically extends our leadership in the legal practice management space and will provide our existing customers with many new features along with improved ease-of-use," Advologix CEO Bill Pickard told us. "Our new customers will benefit from our flexible packaging, complete functionality, and rapid time-to-value relative to their practice management needs."

What Else Should You Know?
Advologix offers two versions of AdvologixPM — Essentials and Premium. You can try AdvologixPM free of charge. Learn more about AdvologixPM.

How to Receive TechnoLawyer NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The "In One Sentence" section describes each product in one sentence, and the "Killer Feature" section describes each product's most compelling feature. The TechnoLawyer NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers a new eDiscovery program for litigation matters with a relatively small number of electronic documents (see article below), a Google Calendar enhancement for meetings, a Microsoft Office-compatible productivity suite for Android smartphones, and an email signature design service for law firms. Don't miss the next issue.

Affordable Electronic Discovery on the Desktop

While both large and small firms differ in some respects and certainly differ from corporate legal departments to an even greater degree, litigators in all three environments routinely handle relatively small matters. But you wouldn't know it given all the big iron products in the electronic discovery market. Even if a law firm has one of these expensive products, it might be overkill to use it for a lawsuit involving a handful of witnesses and a few thousand email messages and other documents. We recently learned about an eDiscovery program designed specifically for this common scenario.

Digital WarRoom Pro … in One Sentence
Gallivan, Gallivan & O'Melia's Digital WarRoom Pro (DWR Pro) is an all-in-one desktop eDiscovery program designed for litigation matters involving up to a million documents.

The Killer Feature
General counsel often complain about the spiraling costs of electronic discovery. These costs start from the very beginning because litigation service providers typically charge per gigabyte for the the initial processing of documents from key custodians. Even a small case can become costly with such processing — plus you're paying to process a lot of documents that will eventually prove irrelevant.

DWR Pro eliminates this cost. You literally drag and drop the custodian's documents into the program, which automatically handles the processing. For example, DWR Pro will preserve all the metadata, threading, and attachments in email files, unzip a collection of documents from .ZIP or other container files, and then index and create a searchable review database.

I met GGO's CEO Bill Gallivan at LegalTech New York earlier this year. "An estimated 70-85% of all matters involve smaller volumes of data," he told me. "The industry focus on high-end tools and custom processes has tended to disregard the cost and technical challenges faced by corporations, sole practitioners, and larger law firms alike when handling small and medium eDiscovery matters. DWR Pro levels the playing field. An individual litigator or litigation support professional can install DWR Pro, create a matter database, and conduct eDiscovery review on several gigabytes of documents within a few hours."

Other Notable Features
As Bill noted, DWR Pro doesn't just process email and other electronic documents, it also enables you to review this information. The "Robust Search" feature supports Boolean queries. Its "stemming" technology returns all words that use the same root (e.g., searching for "view" will also return documents with words like "viewing").

The "Find Similar" feature offers concept searching. Sort of like a thesaurus on steroids, it uses cognitive synonyms (synsets) to help you find documents with related key words that you may not think to enter in your search. For example, searching for "content" will also pull up documents containing words such as "photograph." You can toggle this feature off when you know exactly what you want.

When you start reviewing documents, you may not yet know the key witnesses. DWR Pro's "Who to Whom" technology graphically displays patterns of communications involving key words, enabling you to quickly identify the key custodians as well as other people of interest whose email and documents you may not yet possess.

Other features include de-duplication, issue code tagging, "Electronic Binders" for organizing key documents for depositions and productions, an activity and decision log to help demonstrate that you conducted your review in a defensible manner, unicode and multilingual support, and 30 reports to help you stay within your budget and on deadline.

What Else Should You Know?
DWR Pro runs on Windows and costs $895 for a single desktop license. You can use it for an unlimited number of matters, each of which can contain up to one million documents. There's no annual maintenance fee. If a case grows in complexity, you can move it from DWR Pro to one of GGO's products for larger cases — DWR Server (onsite) or DWR Remote (SaaS). Learn more about Digital WarRoom Pro.

How to Receive TechnoLawyer NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The "In One Sentence" section describes each product in one sentence, and the "Killer Feature" section describes each product's most compelling feature. The TechnoLawyer NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers a new version of a popular document assembly program (see article below), an iPad app for signing PDF documents, an Android and BlackBerry app that automates conference calls, an online time-tracking service that integrates with QuickBooks, and a thermometer and accompanying iOS app that helps you cook steaks and other meat to perfection (though it won't fetch you a beer). Don't miss the next issue.

If You Can Drive a Car, You Can Use This Software

I would bet you dollars to doughnuts that the most popular legal software of all time is … "shelfware." For those of you unfamiliar with this term, it refers to software purchased with the best of intentions but quickly abandoned or never used at all. Many software purchases end up on the shelf because lawyers find them too complex or overwhelming. To use an analogy, a lot more people drive cars than fly airplanes. It takes very little time to learn how to drive a car. Airplanes require significantly more training. A software company in Virginia has a new product that attempts to make document assembly as easy to use as driving a car, which means you might actually use it instead of placing it on your shelf alongside that model airplane.

Pathagoras 2011 … in One Sentence
Innovative Software Products of Virginia's Pathagoras 2011 is a document automation system that works within Microsoft Word.

The Killer Feature
Are you a programmer? If not, you're in luck. Pathagoras requires no programming. Instead, you create document variables by typing simple "from the keyboard" characters.

Your templates contain "variables" such as "testator." These variables enable you to quickly assemble highly personalized documents by simply replacing these variables with names and other such information.

You can save the values you assign to your variables for reuse in any number of other documents. The company refers to this method of saving and resusing variable/value pairings as an "Instant Database" because there's no setup involved.

"From the first day I began programming Pathagoras, my goal was to create a fully functional yet easy to use document assembly system," Innovative Software Products of Virginia founder Roy Lasris told us. "I knew that that more power, more functions, and complex setup don't lead to more use. So, with the KISS principle firmly in mind, I created Pathagoras to operate wholly within the host word processor using simple variables."

Other Notable Features
Pathagoras 2011 offers a number of other new features. For example, it now automatically creates data collection and interview forms so you can literally create documents in realtime with your client sitting in front of your desk.

Pathagoras' popular Drop Down Lists now support up to 10 folders located anywhere — locally, on a network drive, or on a cloud storage service. These folders store your most-frequently used variable clauses.

Before you can "assemble," you must disassemble. Thus Pathagoras enables you to deconstruct existing model documents into their component clauses, saving you time when you want to use Pathagoras to create a new document type.

Other features include administrative controls for organizing and renaming your growing collection of clauses, document management from with Microsoft Word, and a new version of Pathagoras' "Absolute Basics No-Setup Guide" for new users.

What Else Should You Know?
Pathagoras runs on Windows within Microsoft Word. The first license costs $379. Additional licenses cost $250 each. The company also offers a "3-pack" for $799. Technical support is unlimited without any annual maintenance fees. You can try it for free for 90 days. Learn more about Pathagoras 2011.

How to Receive TechnoLawyer NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The "In One Sentence" section describes each product in one sentence, and the "Killer Feature" section describes each product's most compelling feature. The TechnoLawyer NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

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

Automatic Billable Time Capture for iPhone Calls

You're waiting for the bailiff to call your case. Your client calls you. You're driving home. Your client calls you. You're on the runway. You remember an urgent call to a client you must make now. Will you record all the billable time you spent on these telephone calls? If you forget, you can hardly blame yourself given your hectic schedule. Given that your iPhone is by many accounts the smartest smartphone, shouldn't it have the ability to keep track of all your billable phone calls? That's the idea behind a new iPhone app.

RogueTime Version 1.1 … in One Sentence
Advantura Technology Group's RogueTime downloads and categorizes the call logs on your iPhone by client and date, and calculates the amount due.

The Killer Feature
Advantura Technology Group informed us about some recent studies showing that lawyers neglect to track up to 25% of their billable hours. The chief culprit — calls outside of the office on your iPhone.

These calls often occur in the middle of other activities, both leisure- and work-related. Translation — they're quickly forgotten.

RogueTime automates the capture of these calls so that even if you forget about them you still get paid for them.

"Payment for all your hard work is essential for survival in a tough economy," Advantura Technology Group's President Victoria Girdziunas told us. "RogueTime prevents you from leaving money on the table by tracking your mobile calls."

Other Notable Features
According to Advantura Technology Group, RogueTime's "intuitive interface" requires no manuals or training. It integrates with your iPhone's address book to import clients. You can also manually add clients to RogueTime.

You can enter a standard billing rate as well as override it for specific clients. RogueTime generates reports showing the time spent and billable amount. You can export these reports by emailing them to yourself or your assistant for entry into your billing system or print attachments to invoices.

What Else Should You Know?
RogueTime currently works with AT&T iPhones. Advantura Technology Group will soon release an update that will work with Verizon iPhones as well. RogueTime sells for $6.99 in the App Store, and does not have any recurring fees. Learn more about RogueTime Version 1.1.

How to Receive TechnoLawyer NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The "In One Sentence" section describes each product in one sentence, and the "Killer Feature" section describes each product's most compelling feature. The TechnoLawyer NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

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

Take Two for the King of the Tablets

Apple's iPad took the crown as the most influential technology product of 2010. It may well define this entire decade. Consider that apart from mobile phones, the iPad is the fastest-selling consumer electronics device in history with Apple moving 15 million units last year. The iPad has sold faster than Apple's own iPhone and iPod not to mention DVD players, which previously held this title. That was 2010. Today Apple announced its encore.

iPad 2 … in One Sentence
Available March 11th, the iPad 2 is Apple's second-generation iOS-based tablet computer.

The Killer Feature
For a company with many fans ("fanboys" as some call them though plenty of women like Apple's products too), Apple sure doesn't care that much about creating enemies by crushing entire industries — like case manufacturers for example.

In addition to the iPad 2, Apple announced the iPad Smart Cover. Though sold separately and though it's not a case, this add-on may inflict pain on case manufacturers because of its tight integration with the iPad 2.

The iPad Smart Cover magnetically attaches to the iPad. When it covers the iPad's screen the iPad goes to sleep. When you roll it back, the iPad awakens. The cover doubles as a stand when rolled back below the iPad. It comes in a variety of colors in two materials — polyurethane ($39) and leather ($69).

Other Notable Features
Thin is always in with Apple products. As expected, the iPad 2 is thinner and lighter than its predecessor — a 0.34 inch depth and a 1.33 pound weight.

Apple has added two cameras to the iPad 2 — one in front for FaceTime videoconferencing and one in back for taking photos and shooting high-definition 720p video. The new dual-core processor and graphics chip boost performance — graphics by nine times over the original iPad. As a result, the iPad supports 1080p mirrored output to a compatible television with an optional HDMI adapter.

What hasn't changed? Ten hours of battery life and the choice of WiFi or WiFi + 3G models with 16, 32, or 64 GB of memory. However, for the 3G version you can now choose between an AT&T or Verizon model. Also, the multi-touch screen still measures 9.7 inches with a resolution of 1024x768 pixels at 132 pixels per inch. Similarly, the prices have not changed, ranging from $499 to $829.

What Else Should You Know?
Alongside the iPad 2, Apple announced iOS 4.3 and some new companion apps (GarageBand, iMovie, Photobooth). iOS 4.3 includes support for a personal WiFi hotspot, WiFi syncing with iTunes, and enhancements to AirPlay (wireless broadcasting from your iPad to your Apple TV) and Safari (the Web browser). Learn more about iPad 2.

How to Receive TechnoLawyer NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The "In One Sentence" section describes each product in one sentence, and the "Killer Feature" section describes each product's most compelling feature. The TechnoLawyer NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers an online practice management system (see article below), a digital dictation system, an iPhone app for court rules and deadlines, an Android and iOS flight tracker, and a desktop Mac program for Gmail accounts. Don't miss the next issue.

A Trusted Name Enters the Web Practice Management Game

Over the past few years, startup companies offering Web-based (SaaS, cloud-based) practice management systems have faced competition only from one another. But given the large number of solos and small law firms that don't use any practice management system, this situation could not last. Sooner or later, the incumbents would take note and enter the market with their own offering. One such company took the time to work with hundreds of lawyers to develop a Web-based practice management system, which seems to have paid off judging from the praise at its recent unveiling.

LexisNexis Firm Manager … in One Sentence
The Firm Manager application is a secure Web-based practice management system designed for sole practitioners and small law firms with an introductory price of $44.95 per month per user.

The Killer Feature
Having to look for what you need slows you down. If you have to look, you lose valuable time and you may miss something.

The Firm Manager dashboard enables you to view everything critical to your practice on one screen, including upcoming appointments, meetings and tasks, and a special display of deadlines that have slipped and recent email messages. From the dashboard, you can drill deeper into your data. For example, you can pull up a client's contact information, view your entire calendar, read an email message, etc.

"You never have to worry about missing an appointment or critical client task again," Michael Lipps, LexisNexis' Vice President and Managing Director of Legal Business Software Solutions told us. "With one glance, you can see everything you need to prioritize tasks and organize your time — what needs immediate attention versus what can wait. We've previewed this screen with almost two hundred attorneys and nearly every one of them loved this feature."

Other Notable Features
The Firm Manager application offers Client Intake tools to help you strengthen your client relationships and focus your marketing efforts. You can start using it at the start of each new relationship, recording how a client found you as well as their legal needs now and in the future.

As you would expect, the Firm Manager application offers contact and calendar management. However, it also offers the unexpected — Bidirectional Outlook Synchronization (Outlook 2007 and 2010) thanks to LexisNexis' longstanding partnership with Microsoft.

Other features include time and expense tracking, email and on-screen alerts for appointments and tasks, conflicts searching, document management by client/matter, and email and live Web support.

The mobile Web interface enables you to access Firm Manager features from smartphones such as the BlackBerry and iPhone and tablets such as the iPad. LexisNexis' 99.9% Uptime Guarantee for the Firm Manager application ensures that if you have an Internet connection you'll have access to your data.

What Else Should You Know?
You can try the Firm Manager application for free during its current public beta. Those who sign up before May 1, 2011 can take advantage of the introductory price noted above. If you cancel your subscription, you'll have up to six months thereafter to export and expunge your data. Learn more about Firm Manager.

How to Receive TechnoLawyer NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The "In One Sentence" section describes each product in one sentence, and the "Killer Feature" section describes each product's most compelling feature. The TechnoLawyer NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers a Web-based automated time-tracking service (see article below), a shopping search engine for electronic discovery service providers, an online local services directory that costs less than a yellow pages listing, and iPhone app for navigating airports. Don't miss the next issue.

Track Your Billable Time Without Wasting Your Time

In his best-selling novel The Naked Sun, Isaac Asimov envisions a world whose inhabitants live on vast estates with thousands of robots tending to their every need (think Mario Batali cooking for you every night). Some people have all the luck. Lawyers like you would be happy with just one robot designed for one purpose — to keep track of all your billable time automatically and unobtrusively without interrupting you. While it hasn't developed a robot, a software company in California has created a product with a lot fewer moving parts that essentially performs the same function.

Chrometa Web App … in One Sentence
Chrometa Web App is an online service that captures your billable time automatically while you work.

The Killer Feature
Chrometa began its life as a Windows program that quickly attracted fans among TechnoLawyer subscribers (we were the first to report on it in this newsletter). Of course, Mac users immediately started complaining about being left out.

Given the growing number of devices on which lawyers now work, Chrometa realized that rather than just build a Mac version it should build a Web version.

Chrometa now works as follows. You install the Chrometa Data Collector on your computer (Mac or Windows), which runs in the background recording your activities. You then log into the secure Chrometa Web App to view all your data and convert billable activities into time entries. For example, if you work on a Windows PC at the office and a Mac at home, Chrometa can track both computers and combine the data for you to view on the Web.

"Our customers are using more and more computing devices to get their work done these days," Chrometa CEO and Co-Founder Brett Owens told us. "They wanted a way to capture and sync up their billable time so we took Chrometa to the cloud by buidling a secure Web app that enables them to easily categorize their time entries."

Other Notable Features
Chrometa enables you to create rules that automatically categorize your activities by client/matter. For example, suppose you represent Apple in a deal with Facebook. Chrometa can categorize anything containing the word "Facebook" under Apple/Facebook.

Chrometa also offers Active Search, which works like Google's Instant Search. Results begin to appear in realtime as you type.

What about meetings and telephone calls? Chrometa captures these activities too. When it notices you have not used your computer, it displays the Away Time pop-up reminder. If you just engaged in a billable activity, you can enter it and later create a time entry on the Web.

Once you've created time entries in Chrometa, you can export them or send them to a compatible third party billing or practice management system (Chrometa's open API facilitates these integrations).

What Else Should You Know?
Chrometa offers three plans — Basic ($19/month), Premium ($49/month), and Ultimate ($99/month). Basic enables you to track three devices and keep three months of data. Premium tracks up to five devices and keeps one year of data. Ultimate tracks up to 10 devices and keeps your data forever. Learn more about Chrometa Web App.

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