Post by Daniel Ray, lawyer and managing partner at Scott, Money, Ray & Thomas and LawRD user since summer of 2011:

I am the managing partner of a small firm outside Dallas, Texas. We have 6-8 billers, including attorneys and paralegals. Until recently, we had failed to find a cost-effective legal billing program. Any of the programs my partners and I used at large national law firms were extremely expensive and unwieldy for a small firm. We tried mass-marketed billing software that was inexpensive, but did not provide the functionality necessary for technical projects with variable rates and fees.

In the summer of 2011, we began using LawRD. We were skeptical of the low per-person price tag, especially because the software provides user support at no additional charge. However, we tried a thirty-day trial and were quickly impressed by the ease of use the program offers and the wide variety of customizations available for each client and case. We decided to switch to the LawRD software within a week.  We have seen an immediate increase in productivity due to the software and have been particularly impressed by the customer service.

We have only had minor complaints about the program – all of which were quickly addressed.  In one instance, we informed the support staff that it would be helpful to have a larger billing window to allow us to see multiple long entries at the same time. That issue was e-mailed to the support staff, and the program was changed within 24 hours.  At one very large New York-based firm I worked for, our overhead for billing was more than 5 times the cost of this program per user, and making user-requested changes was generally not an option – much less one that would be addressed so quickly.

I would recommend LawRD to any firm looking for software overhead savings and billing functionality.  The ease of use will allow you to spend more time billing and less time entering time, and the low per-user cost provides an immediate benefit to the bottom line.

Post by Nuno B.M. Lumbrales, lawyer, partner at Lumbrales & Associados and LawRD user:

The billing method is an issue that, mishandled, will cause nasty glitches in the relationships between lawyers and clients.

There are several ways of billing lawyer services, just like in any other area of business, bearing in mind the uniqueness and proper rules that apply in each country as to the legal practice.

One of the most common, and losing preference, is the hourly rate method, for billing lawyers fees. Such method has the quality of its flexibility thus enabling a balance between the service rendered by lawyers and its due compensation, overlooking the fluctuation that will occur unavoidably throughout the diligences.
On the downside, in this instance it is troublesome for clients to preview the cost of  the lawyer’s fee when a given period of time is agreed upon.

However, by demanding a specification for each of the billing invoices (as it is supposed) as to the description and time spent in each item clients can have some control. Without being utterly rigorous this will prevent costs from soaring.

A more classic method is a fixed rate that will settled upon for a matter (flat rate) or for a determined cycle of billing (retainer). This, being a quite clear method, has the advantage of eliminating almost any grounds for litigation on fee agreements (service quality and issues alike are not thus prevented, though). Its lack of flexibility regarding fluctuation of the amount of work through the procedures, come as a negative point.

One other billing method consists on agreeing to a percentage of the results that will come from the lawyer’s services on one or more legal matters. Many countries do permit this form of fee agreement in its pure sate, invoking that this will give way for the leayer to being too much as a directly interested part on the matter at appreciation in court for it will depend on the court’s decision, thus compromising the lawyer’s objectivity, impartiality and independence. A mixed form of this agreement with others is allowed, though.

These methods in their pure forms and an arrangement of different ones will give way for more ecletic and balanced billing methods.

The underlying question to choosing a billing method is the fare quantification of lawyers’ services, considering amount, quality and results they bring to clients.

To celebrate our presence at London’s European Lawyers event next June 5th, we’re giving a LawRD - Reports on Demand special offer:

• 3 months free trial of LawRD for all European Lawyers fans in Facebook.
• 3 months free use, extra, to all participants at the event.

This means a special offer of, up to 6 months, free use of LawRD.

To access this give away, just click the following fields in LawRD, when signing up for free trial:

We’d like to stress that during free trial, LawRD is fully functional for the better assessment of our app.

This is another initiative in order to strengthen our bond to European Lawyers, just like it happened with the 2009 Brussels event. We’re counting on all of you being there… if the Icelandic volcano doesn’t decided to alter our plans.

Legal on Ramp network gives us an excellent example, wherein an associated firm has 14 thousand members writing articles, questions and answers on the upside felt by clients and lawyers and a protected work.

How’s that?

Well, a network that contains countless lawyers and third parties, constitutes a real associative network thus benefiting both lawyers and their clients.

Looking for a lawyer in Manaus but you are in Sao Paulo? If your firm is in a collaborative network, you may have associates there.

The same goes for increasing partnerships, deals, better projects and initiatives.

There are some projects with this focus in Brazil, though American bigger proportions are inspirational.

How do you plan to collaborate with fellow lawyers?

• Do you find that exchanging ideas is the same as giving them away to the competition?
• Splitting fees on a suit is, for you, losing money?
• Do you think it’s a waste, investing time on a social network?

I suggest you think again about this issues.

Nowadays collaboration is more than an idea. It’s a matter of survival. We are living the social network era. The era of exchanging information, of growing together, of strategic alliances:

• We are partners, not competitors.
• We are the sum of ideas, not of monopoly and exclusiveness.
• We are the multiplication of projects and the division of dividends, unlike individualism.

Think and rethink your attitudes.  Your firm ’s future, as well as, all legal practice’s depend on: your vision, reflection and, mostly on the verb action, the action you’ll take.

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:

There is a new collaborator in LawRD blog: Gustavo Rocha.

Gustavo Rocha is a lawyer and consultant in management, IT and quality for law firms. He’s the author of Gestão.Adv.br , a blog through which he aims to spread and  “Bind legal knowledge with management and administrative know-how, along with IT and management tools (…)”

His expert voice has joined LawRD blog in order to enrich it with his insights on IT concerning the legal world.

We are most pleased to give this news. Brazil has been a target market to LawRD. Making LawRD available in Portuguese, as it is spoken on that big country, was just the first step. Adding this new voice is the second step towards adding value to all readers of LawRD’s blog.

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.

LawRD has taken another step towards introduction to the international market, by joining a restricted group of sponsors of the II Competencia de Arbitage Comercial that took place at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, from 24 through 28  September last.

The event, a joint collaboration of the Law College of the Universidad de Buenos Aires and the Jurisprudence College of the Universidad del Rosario (Bogotá), enrolled over 400 participants from allover Latin America, who were given the chance to work on practical matters on Commercial Arbitration, had the guidance of professionals from top level law firms in this legal area.

This opportunity was presented to us by Estefania Santos, an argentinian lawyer who is an expert on legal issues concerning IT and author of the blog Internet y Derecho, whose most professional support in the introduction of LawRD to the argentinian market made our participation possible.

According to Estefania, LawRD’s presence there was a successful one due to the fact that it is a SaaS, by its interface and ease if use, and the usefulness of its reports, accessible at any time from an internet connection, being these what  mainly made the app stand out from the competition.

This event stands as a milestone from LawRD in the latin american market, by delivering an innovative and insightful service.

Below you can see the LawRD video we made specially for the event and that caught everyone’s ear at the meeting:

It took place in Brussels on the 25-26th of September last the European Lawyers Brussels Conference.

The event was organized by the European Lawyers team. This group gathers presently 2.873 lawyers from allover the world on Facebook and is a perfect example of the power of networking that the internet enables like the BBC points out.

LawRD - Reports on Demand could not fail to support this event. The photo depicts our COO when presenting our law firm management SaaS application at the conference:

LawRD team wishes to say thanks to the organization and everyone at the conference for the nice and professional manner in which we were received.

Contacts are the stepping stone to LawRD just as they are to any law firm.

The business competition dynamics, the present crisis context and the broadening profile of those who recur to law expertise, demand for a wider reception from law firms. Clients seek for more information and to stay informed. Establishing a close and trustworthy connection to one’s lawyer becomes pivotal for clients holding fidelity to a law firm.

Given that Customer Relationship Management and the web of contacts of each one and all of those looking for judicial counseling is hard work and requires organizing, LawRD aims to be the tool for Contacts Management.

LawRD hosts three types of contacts:

• Clients;
• System users (registered LawRD users);
• Other contacts.

Clients, whether companies or individual, have a matter associated to them. A team or a single element report costs and time spent working on that matter.

Keeping up with a  matter or a client is usually dependent to the management a web of contacts:  providers,  other lawyers, state offices, solicitors, instituitions, relatives, other parties, etc. For this, LawRD enables connecting contacts, clients and matters thus optimizing all contacts management .  

Users may also manage their personal contacts on LawRD (family, children’s school, gym, restaurants, insurance agents, bank account manager, etc), though they should  not  share that information.

Adding a Person or Company contact is easy:

• Go to the Contacts tab and click on:
  
• Choose whether the new contact is a Person or a Company:
  
  In this example, the new contact is a Company.

• By default, the added Company is not a client:
  
  To turn the added Company contact into a client one, check the ‘Is this a client ?’ box and fill in the company data:
  
  When contacts  are clients they are shared by all users of the system. All other contacts can be private or shared by chosen users.

• Pasting a photo to a client: this option allows for a faster identification of the contact. When the contact is a company, a logo can be used ( usually can be downloaded from the company´s site). When it is a Person, a photo can be searched in places such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

• Click on ‘Save’ and a new contact is added: