Once a timesheet has been sent for approval, it s up to the matter’s manager or a LawRD administrator, the needed approval. Only then, the tasks that such timesheet refers to, will be available to be included into the billing sheet.

To take this action, click the Approve Timesheets option:

LawRD will display a list with timesheets from all lawyers. That list Timesheet Overview, contains all timesheets chronologically sorted, from the most recent downwards:

On the first column, the timesheet’s status appears. The status can be one of the following:

• No tasks: timesheet open with no tasks yet submitted
• Clear: timesheet with tasks logged in but not yet sent for approval
• To approve: this timesheet is already sent for approval, but not fully approved. A single task with pending approval is enough for the whole timesheet to keep its To approve status.
• Closed: timesheet fully approved.

Matter managers should keep special focus on To approve status timesheets:

On the second column, the Timesheet Overview shows who submitted the timesheet user’s ID. On the present example, hoovering the mouse over CB we are informed that it was Charles Bartholomew who submitted the timesheet:

The third column shows the week that the timesheet refers to. The previous example depicts the one sent for approval by the resource CB, which reflects the 45th week of the year, spanning from November 2 until November 8:

The fourth and fifth columns report the amount of tasks on approval (7 in this case) and the total time spent on those tasks (18h25m on this example).

When approving a specific timesheet, just click on See Details, Weekly View or on Approve Now.

By clicking on See Detaills, LawRD opens up a window wherein tasks are sorted by client and, on this last category, by matter:

This screen is where the manager must select which tasks to approve and send for billing. To approve a task, the box on the approval: column must be ticked.

For an approved task to be billed to the client, the box on the bill: column has to be checked.

By default, LawRD considers as billable all tasks but the ones submitted to the General Internal Matter (this matter is automatically added by the system, wherein internal tasks not assignable to clients, are accounted for).

In case of an approved task, if the box on the column bill: is altered to unchecked, it won´t be billed to the client, though it will afect that matter’s profitability. On the depiction, if the task ”Meeting with the Head of Human Resources” is not to be billed, that will increase the cost of that matter on 1h20m x the lawyer hourly cost rate.

At any given moment, a manager can partially approve a timesheet by clicking on Save Current Selection. From that moment on, the selected approved tasks are available to be billed.

Please keep in mind that, it takes just one task to have its approval pending for a timesheet to keep its To approve status.

The button Approve and Bill all will set all tasks in the timesheet as approved and available for immediate billing to their matters. This is the best option for a quicker timesheet approval.

When a manager does not agree with one or more tasks, he/she must click on Reject, having the choice to inform who submitted that timesheet on the grounds for the rejection.

A task rejection will afect all other tasks within that timesheet:

• Tasks not yet approved can be changed by the user that submitted them;
• Approved but not yet billed tasks, can be changed by the user that submitted them;
• Approved and billed tasks can no longer be changed.

Upon rejection, a timesheet will remain in the Clear status, being the user that submitted it for approval, informed of the changes to be performed, so that timesheet can be sent again for approval.

Timesheet approval can also be done clicking on Weekly View:

The picture depicts a matrix identical to the one for submitting tasks:

Days (columns) and matters (rows) can be swiftly approved by clicking on Approve », thus being instantly available to be billed.

Approved days and matters are shown in green:

As it happens with the See Details view, the Approve and Bill all and Reject are available.

Click on Open details + to see tasks within a matter:

Here, as described in the View Details view, each task can be approved and/or tagged as billable. Click Save List to approve the selection.

Finally, quickly approve timesheets clicking on Approve Now turning the tasks immediately available for billing:

CRM – Customer Relationship Management. Some professionals in the legal area are acquainted to this notion which is increasingly standard in legal management systems.

In the IT field there is a growing care for technology and clients,for management of clients data in order to answer them back, to expand possibilities to close deals, etc. To speak clearly, a CRM system can be very effective for keeping in check which clients you have already proposed any legal service to, whether a client was one of yours long time ago and no longer is, etc. CRM has many control and management features for its users.

Nowadays there is a plethora of social networks: Plaxo, Orkut, Facebook, Twitter, Ning and many more. With that in mind, the IT people are developing CRM focused on social networks, which means we will be able to able to keep up with what is being written about us on the web, to answer to social networks surveys, i.e. to reinforce our interaction with our clients.

What is the upside of that?

Social networks are characterized by a function to which lawyers aren´t much accustomed to: clients praise,quarrel, discuss and ‘do the laundry’ on social networks. With this, their interaction  with lawyers is wider than it used to be. This leads to some of them being tagged as bad, sloppy and other ‘qualities’, throughout the web. While some are considering law suites for on line slandering, others are looking elsewhere for a new lawyer, after pondering.

Taking in consideration this factor of instant spread, interconnection and web organization, the need for a  CRM integrated with social networks is an important and interesting reality.

Do you use CRM in your practice?
Do you  professionally or personally use social networks?
How do you interact with your clients?
How many of your clients have never contacted again since the conclusion of their actions?
Do you know what legal services have you proposed to any one of your clients?

If you have no answers to these questions and more importantly, if you don´t know how to start answering them, I suggest you begin to interact with your clients by taking on a legal management CRM integrated system.

Picture this: if your dentist contacts you by surprise because its been 6 months since your last cleansing, you’ll feel happy even if you don’t take on the invitation. However if they only contact to charge you for the latest root canal you had, you feel like looking for a different dentist. The same goes for lawyers.

Use over and over again CRM to manage clients, partners and deals. The growth of your practice and income will appreciate it.

The tasks submitted into the timesheets must be approved by the matters managers. Upon such an approval, managers will examin and validate data remaining available for future billing sheets.

To do that, just select the day(s) to be sent for approval. The user below chose only November 9 to be sent:

LawRD lets you select a complete week to be sent for approval, in a single click. Just go to that week’s tasks total amount (in this example the box underneath 6h21m was ticked). Thus, the totality of tasks on the days in that week is automatically selected:

Once the days are selected, the user will click on send for approval to get to the ….

… Description box wherein, data that the managers may find relevant is to be displayed. The Approve now box will automatic approve the timesheet, when the user is also that matter’s manager. For instance, in case the user is also the manager of the D015 matter, the 2h21m task will be immediately approved.

To finish off just click Send it.

An interesting, even impressive, number on a post in Larry Bodine ’s blog: there are over one million lawyers registered in LinkedIn. According to it, at least five thousand of them have got their professional profile in LinkedIn.

With those many American and lots of Brazilian lawyers using LinkedIn, what can we do with this tool? A lot. And that goes for other social networks such as Facebook, Plaxo and Twitter.

Interact, this is the motto. Many may think that success on a social network is the amount of friends or posts one has there. Absolutely not. If you’re following 300 people (maybe less) on Twitter, you won’t be able to keep up with your friends’ posts and to do your work at the same time. You might even fail to answer to an important invitation or any other issue of interest. There’s no way to keep up with it all on the fly.

Here’s the secret: focus. Interact with focus.

In order to place my brand on the social web I must focus on themes, subjects and goals I’m interested in.
An example: I register in LinkedIn  looking for partners in the US. There I start to interact in lawyers groups, to post articles written in English etc. Thus I’m working focused. If I’m looking for new clients, participating in social webs is interesting, unlike in lawyers groups. Except for rare cases, lawyers will be more lawyers, partnerships or mutual businesses, but not final clients.

So, use and over use the social web. Just remember the secret: interact with focus!

Uplifting news to start 2010 with: DreamSimplicity.com website ranked LawRD - Reports on Demand on its Top 25 web solutions:

http://www.dreamsimplicity.com/top25.html

DreamSimplicity is a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) solutions directory wherein one can find articles, news, videos and events on this industry.

We stress out one of the main features of SaaS solutions: there’s nothing to install and start working right away. It is easy as pie working with LawRD on your daily life: it just takes an Internet connection, a web browser  and link to http://www.lawrd.com.

We are waiting your visit.

Today’s post takes its title from a 1984 movie: 2010 - The year we make contact the sequel of 2001- A space odissey.

Looking back on 2009, I find it a fruitful year regarding the legal and entrepreneurial areas. We had a lot of technological developments, more lawyers are facing their practices as companies, more management, technology and quality are embedding the judicial minds. This was a year of big legal marketing, social networks and strategic alliances.

And what has 2010 in store for us? Dreams, longings, wishes and mostly work.

Yes, I wish you dream a lot, for dreams feed our hope and bring happiness from the smallest thing, from the minimum acomplishment, from what is palpable.

May your wishes come true. Hope for good things and they will come true.

May the yearning fill your life. Hope for happiness, love, friendship, endearment and after dreaming, thinking and whishing, do the main thing: work. May work guide your path in 2010. Not just in the professional acomplishment sense. Work as a verb of construction. Work as a will to change. Work as a new way to see the world.

I think that the movie predicted legal practice and entrepreneurship in 2010.The legalpractice and its marketing, as well as entrepeneurs are totally interconnectd through this word: contacts. This is how networks emerge, be they virtual or face-to-face. This is how people trust each other. This is the way to hire a professional.

Everything is contacts! Not the contact per se, but the display of trust, i.e. forwarding. Learn that forwarding is as important and should be as criterious as establishing contacts is. When you forward a contact, you commit your name, your good name and you give credibility.

Learning to deal with social networks is key for 2010. It is not enough to be connected and have thousands of followers on twitter, facebook or plaxo. Be connected and interact with this audience.

2010 will be the year we will make contact.