Adding to the new website and demo account, during this Fall 2009 other new features are now enriching LawRD. Such an upgrade results from our users community feedback, to whom we are thankful. The improvements are as follows:

• Events: from now on, it is possible to relate events to contacts and matters, by logging on LawRD important dates referring to actions and tasks needed to be acomplished. Such events are either public or private, in the latter case, they will be available only to whoever did add them.
  

• Setting fees per lawyer on matters: up until now, LawRD enabled billing matters accordingly to each intervening lawyer fee. Now, it is possible to set for any given matter, other fees different from the ones preset per lawyer.
  

  When setting up a matter´s team, LawRD will display the standard fees preset on each lawyer’s file, in case the fee is other than the preset one, just change it.
  

• Setting up a success fee in a flat fee matter: by the time a new matter is added, this value is a forecast which can be adjusted when the billing sheet is issued.
  

• Adding a new type of matter within the matter adding assistant: when adding a new matter, if it doesn´t match any of the existing types, now, one can create a new type without needing to close the matter assistant.
  

• The timesheet tab in Matter displays costs and fees columns: this makes way for a easier check on a matter profitability. At any time it is possible to have a grasp on the matter billing potential (Fee column) and the assigned lawyer internal costs (Costs column).
  

• Deleting contacts and matters: this new feature allows to delete unintended duplication of matters and contacts that usually occur during the early usage of LawRD.
  This feature is available, by default, to users on the Administrator and Manager profiles ( the latter can delete only the matters he/she manages and no one else’s) , but its settings can be changed by altering profiles:
  

• Billing sheet deduction row: when issuing a billing sheet there’s the possibility of mentioning a deduction to the total amount.
  

• New billing sheet PDF layout: the PDF billing sheet layout has been upgraded to a nicer look.
  

• Relating users to matters via users tab: that will make it simpler to relate lawyers to the firm matters which are logged in LawRD. Whenever a lawyer is related to a matter, Lawrd will email her/him notifying of that.
  

• Timesheet status: timesheets display now the following different status:
  No tasks: timesheet open by the user with no tasks logged in yet;
  Clear: timesheet open by the user wherein tasks have been logged but not yet approved
  To approve: meaning that the timesheet was sent for approval, but it hasn´t been reviewed and approved yet. In this instance there is the need for the user supposed to approve it to do so;
  Closed: timesheet approved.
  

• Searching through comments on matters and contacts:
  

• Self-suggesting tags: when adding tags, LawRD will suggest tags already added by users.
  

Other issues and glitches reported since the Summer 2009 upgrading are now corrected, e.g. retainers, reports and budget fee matters.

2010 will bring new developments, so we invite everyone interested in LawRD to keep posted on this blog. Thus, subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter or Facebook.

With the Fall of 2009 big news arose in LawRD. A new website to start with:

A much more insightful interface inviting those willing to see, test and adopt LawRD: there is an introduction video available, features are displayed in screens, security issues are shown in a bigger detail and depth, and we’ve added a FAQ area.

On our new website law firms and lawyers will find a rather useful feature: a Demo Account. The Demo Account is preset with believable data from a fictitious law firm, so that tasks and expenses can be inserted on timesheets, billing sheets can be issued and reports created by LawRD can be checked. Thus, our future clients can, effortlessly, apprise LawRD and confirm its reporting capabilities and what a childs play it is to log tasks and expenses into matters.

To try the demo account just click on

and, depending on the language the site is beeing seen, a demo presentation will run in english, portuguese or spanish:

And the Fall 09 news aren’t over yet: kepp posted to this blog. Soon we’ll announce newer features on LawRD.

Summer 2009 brings great new features to LawRD:

• New wizard when adding a new matter: now adding a new matter can be done in Quick mode or in Advanced mode. This improvement makes the different steps when adding a new matter, much simpler. For instance, selecting which team will work on that matter is now more intuitive.
  

• Matter types: this feature has a double goal: to categorize matters- a simple typification- and to allow flat-fee matters, payment plans included.
  

• New ways of billing type: adding to hourly rate and retainers, LawRD now enables matters to be billed on a flat fee or contingency fee basis. In matters billed by the hour, it is now possible to set a success fee.
  

• More ways of billing matters by the hour: when billing matters by the hour, the hourly rate can be differenciated accordingly to the employee that acted on it. Distinct hourly rates to different matters from the same client, can now be defined, too.
  

• Billing wizard: due to the broadening of the billing choices, a 3 step wizard is now available when issuing billing sheets.
  

• Time logging delegating option: it is now possible to delegate the logging of time to anyone else with clearence.
  

This development aims to answer the needs of our users, conveying a wider flexibility concerning fees and payment plans.

A much more detailed presentation will be available on this blog under Quick Guide.

Whenever users want to register the time actually spent on any given task (e.g. phone call, meeting, etc), now they have this Timer:

This Timer enables the time spent to be recorded within the timesheet, thus becoming available to be included on the billing sheet.

Just click ‘Start’ to begin recording time:

 
By clicking ‘Stop’, time recording can be stopped altogether or just paused, to resume recording just click ‘Start’ again.
 
Everytime the Timer is stopped LawRD will open a box for a description to be inserted in:

 
The recorded time can be inserted into the timesheet in two ways: by clicking ‘Insert’ the system will ask for the client and matter where to insert that time in; or by clicking ‘Save’ LawRD will store it for a later register in a matter:

 
Once  client and  matter are selected, just click ‘Insert Task’ for the recorded time to be stored in the timesheet.

Exporting data in XML format is now a feature in LawRD.
 
Users with system administration rights within LawRD can export all data including clients and other contacts, matters, billing sheets, timesheets, expenses and users’ data.

This feature enables LawRD’s data to be integrated with and analyzed in other systems, as well as read off-line (without being connected to the Internet).
 
In order to export data, a system administrator should go the system settings page:

 
and on the left, click in

 
The system will display all exports done so far:

 
To export just click on the ‘Start Data Export’ button. While the system is processing the export task, one can leave this screen and keep on working within LawRD. The application will generate a new ZIP file with all exported data in XML format.
 
To download the file to your computer just click ‘Download’ or the icon:

LawRD is always evolving so it can meet our clients demands. One of the advantages of SaaS applications is that as soons as updates are implemented they are immediately available to LawRD’s users.

Adding comments is a newly implemented feature - such comments can be either public or private and the status can be altered at any time - there is the possibility of attaching files to Contact and Matters.

The image below depicts a row of comments on a contact:

The feature works exactly the same way on Matters. To add a comment just choose that tab within Matters:

The comment must have a ‘category’ and it is up to the manager of the system to define the types of categories on LawRD settings:

Once the text is written, its status must be defined, i.e. public or private and attach a file (optional). Just click on ‘Save’ and the comment is added: