It's About Time

Timeslips 2011 Service Release 1 and Time Matters

If you use both Time Matters and Timeslips, you should delay the installation of Timeslips 2011 Service Release 1.  As of today, there have been several reports of linking problems between the two programs after the Timeslips 2011 service release has been installed.  

We will keep you updated as to when a new or additional service release is available for Timeslips 2011.

Can Law Firms do Business without a File Server?

Can you move your business to the "cloud"?  I just read an interesting article written by Seth Rowland for Technolawyer.  He gives a good overview of cloud computing and how it might impact your practice.  I'm going to try to give you a synopsis of what he had to say.

File Server Costs

When you look at the total cost of ownership, you need to include ongoing operational expenses, maintenance and support agreements.  Factor in the costs of software along with the installation, configuration and training.  The average costs breakdown something like this:

• $8000.00 - Server Hardware
• $6000.00 - Server and Network Configuration
• $3000.00 to $8000.00 - Software for 5 users
• $17000.00 to $22000.00 Total initial costs

• $1000.00 - $3000.00 - Annual Software maintenance
• $2000.00 - $4000.00 - Server Maintenance

• $3000.00 - $7000.00 Annual Recurring total

These fees do not include the intangibles such as security, administration, daily backups, test restores, application of updates and patches and a host of other tasks.

Alternatives

Practice Management:  There are currently four good hosted options:  AdvologixPM, RocketMatter, Clio and HoudiniESQ.  You can try these for free and then pay a monthly fee for each user.  The prices range from $50 to $100 per user per month.

Online Backup:  You have consumer products like Carbonite, Mozy and IDrive.  Business-level software includes JungleDisk, Barracuda Backup Service, Iron Mountain and Rackspace Backup.

There are also hosted options for online document management as well as hosted Exchange server with Blackberry and SharePoint.

So what's the downside?  Security is one of the big concerns everyone has about moving to online data storage.  The reality is that most service providers provide secured encryption data transfer.  The security of a cloud provider is far greater than the network security found in most small law firms when it comes to protection from hackers and intruders.

Data ownership is the other issue.  Your agreement with your service provider specifies your rights to data ownership.  You should read this carefully.  Most provide a mechanism for local backup.

Access Risk:  What if the Internet goes down or the service provider is offline?  The reality is that if the Internet goes down, you will have difficulty conducting business, since so much is done via email.  If your server goes down you could be out of business for hours or days; if your server hard drive fails and you can't recover your backups, you've lost a lot more than just time.  It can take several days for a retrieval service to recover data from a crashed hard drive and there is no guarantee that they will restore everything.  

On the other hand, cloud service providers have up-time commitments that range from 99.9 to 99.999%.  Some even support off-line mode if you are in transit without an Internet connection.  Remote access to the cloud is generally far superior to remote server access.  

CONCLUSION

Cloud computing isn't for everyone, however there are very real benefits:  freedom of movement; pay only for the processing power and storage you need; add up to 100 users; grant secure access to clients via custom portals; there is no need for disaster recovery in the event of a fire or other natural disaster. 

I think most firms will start by trying one or two applications and gradually move more and more of their operations to the cloud.  I encourage you to try out one of the free trials that are offered. 

More on Credenza

Just in case you want to read more about Credenza, the Practice Management add-on for Outlook, click here to connect to another article on the subject.  They give some pretty good pros and cons.  It's worth taking a look at if you are considering Practice Management software.

Practice Management Software for Outlook

I just read about a new add-on product for Outlook:  Credenza.  It looks like it might be the answer for people who like the consolidation features of Practice Management programs (email, documents, time entries and phone calls all in one client folder), but aren't interested in the high cost; extensive set up time and learning curve associated with those products.

While I'm not an attorney, I have used practice management programs in the past mainly because I liked the idea of having everything in one client folder.  These programs are generally very expensive and require a lot training and great deal of time to set up before you can even begin to use them.  They are just chock full of features, however, most people use only the basics and many times, these programs aren't used at all because they are just too cumbersome.  

I just went back to using Outlook.  It is lacking in many of the features I want, but it is easy to use.  I might give Credenza a try.  It just adds a few more things to the existing Outlook screen that allow you to add your client files, time sheets and track phone calls.  They give you 15 days to decide whether or not it will work for you.  If you decide to keep it, pay just $9.95/month.  Sounds reasonable enough for what sounds like a really simple solution.

I'd love to hear from anyone that has used this product and what they like or dislike.

Automatically Create Time Tickets from Phone Calls and Emails

Proximiti has a rather unique automatic time-capture product called WorkTRAKR that will integrate with Timeslips.  What makes this product special is that it works in the background.  You make calls (on your smart phone or office phone) and send emails as you normally would. WorkTRAKR logs the time and then suggests a matter that can be associated with the contact.  You can either accept its suggestion or change it.  The more you use it, the better the suggestions.  All the billable events can then be automatically downloaded to Timeslips.  You also have the option of receiving daily, weekly or monthly reports.  This is a subscription-based system.  The price for 1-3 users is $29.95 per month/per user or $299 per year per user.  There are also some other activation fees, based on how you are planning to use the program.  They claim that this program will help users capture an additional 2.8 hours per month.  Plus it significantly reduces adminstrative costs associated with making time entries into a billing program.  They offer a 30-day trial for up to 10 users which allows you to try it out and determine if it would be a cost-effective investment.  I'd like to hear from other users who may have tried this product or who are using other products that are similar.

Adobe Redaction

If you are interested in learning how to do redaction (that's the permanent deletion of privileged or sensitive information from documents), Adobe has a free tutorial that you might be interested in:

Watch a one-hour Redaction and Metadata Removal eSeminar

Amicus Attorney Case Management

If you considered using a case management system, but were put off by it's complexity, you might want to consider Amicus Attorney 2008 Small Firm edition.  It was specifically designed for solo practitioners and firms with less than 10 users.  Amicus Attorney was designed by an attorney.  I think that is one of the factors that make it so intuitive.  The program works the way an attorney works. 

While it looks simple, Amicus Attorney has all the functions you need:  calendar, document management, to do lists, contacts, email and more.  What makes it powerful is the integration.  Just imagine each of your cases in folder that contains everything that pertains to that case:  all the documents, emails, videos, appointments, time billing entries, random notes, follow up tasks, related contacts.  When you open a client folder in Amicus you see it all in front of you without searching. 

One of the other features that we like is the timekeeping capability.  Time tracking is very easy and most attorneys find that they are capturing 30 percent more billable time when they use Amicus Attorney.  The time that you capture in Amicus can be easily integrated with Timeslips (or other time and billing packages) to generate your bills. 

If you are interested in ordering this program, you can download the order form and save 15% on your order during the month of July.  There is also a free trial that is available on the web site.

Download amicus_jul08_sf_prices.pdf