Post by Daniel Nunes, muchBeta’s Chief Financial Officer:

A client current-account represents the financial situation before a lawyer or law firm.

That being said it’s all very clear: when I (lawyer) issue a billing sheet to clients they owe me money, therefore I will log that debtor position on the current-account. By the time clients pay billing sheets, they no longer owe me any money, i.e. they now have a creditor position before me (lawyer). Thus, clients payments are always credited on their current-accounts. This is why, whenever a money provision is advanced for fees and expenses, I have to credit the client’s current-account.

Yet, a current-account that just reflects financial movements and responsibilities is not enough. A practical example:

A lawyer starts a new matter for a client and asks for a fee provision of $2,000. The current-account shows a creditor balance of $2,000.

Throughout one week, a lawyer has input 20 hours of work into the client’s matter. If that lawyer charges a $150/hour fee, what is the client financial position then?

For any usual billing software the answer would be: the client is creditor of $2,000. According to that application all is OK regarding this client.

But if that lawyer were a LawRD user, when checking the client’s current-account the information would have be:

LawRD displays two balances:

• A green one shows the amount of $2,000 representing a credit to the client, for the advanced provision.
• A red one with the negative amount of -$1,000.

This red -$1,000 stands for the real financial situation of the client towards the lawyer. By the end of the month LawRD will read the client situation as:

$2,000 (provision) - [20 hours input x $150] = $2,000 - $3,000 = -$1,300

LawRD displays two diverse concepts of current-account:

• The traditional, i.e. one that reflects the issuing of billing sheets and the client payments.
• And another, we call Global Current-Account, which mentions tasks and expenses already logged on the matter, but not yet issued  and billed to the client.

Given the scenario on the example, a lawyer faces two options: either a new provision is requested or all debts are billed to the client so that the balance is altered.

Looking at the first option and that a new provision of $2,500 has been added, the current-account will show a positive balance of $4,500, if only financial flow is considered. A positive balance of $1,500 is shown if the total input of tasks already accomplished but not yet billed is taken into consideration, though:

That $1,500 balance equals about 10 hours worth of work ($1,500 divided by $150) that the lawyer may use for that matter. Once that happens, the client will be in debt before the lawyer, again.

Should the lawyer bill all work to the client, the balance in both accounts will be the same: a negative -$1,000:

LawRD displays as negative and in red all the client’s debtor positions. This is a way to red flag the client’s debtor positions to the matter manager or anyone in charge of the administration.

So, what is the upside of showing two concepts of current-account? Here’s one: the client financial situation to the lawyer or law firm is displayed in real time. Billing never keeps up with the work actually done. By using LawRD, users are informed earlier when the client’s financial position is negative… and real time info is valuable for it allows swifter decisions without having to wait on the administrative time it takes for billing sheets to be issued and only then being able to decide.

LawRD is valuable data for your valuable time.

We have been asked whether muchBeta - developers of LawRD - Reports on Demand - issue invoices and receipts proving LawRD user monthly payment. Of course we do.

Our clients can use one of two ways to paying the monthly fee: credit card or bank transfer.

Should a client choose to pay via credit card, invoices and receipts are automatically issued thus being available on LawRD’s dashboard so they can be downloaded on PDF.

If the payment is done by wire transfer, LawRD will inform the client on the amount to be transferred and the IBAN account number.

The invoice and receipt will be issued once muchBeta has confirmed the due transfer is done (2-5 working days on average).

For clients to view their invoices and receipts, a LawRD administrator will go to the ‘Settings’ tab and click on:

The PDF containing invoices and receipts is reachable by clicking on ‘Current-Account’:

Finally, given that muchBeta is located within the European Union, our company is compliant to all VAT regulations.

Post by Nelson Teixeira, muchBeta’s Chief Data Officer:

The wage/hour value on LawRD is directly preset on the Users tab. By default, only those who have System Administrator profiles can access it:

In order to check the wage/hour value and fee of any given lawyer, just click their name and then click Change:

The Wage/Hour box displays the firm’s cost per hour for that lawyer and the Client cost box stands for the hourly rate billed to the client that very lawyer has worked on the client’s matters.

The Wage/Hour value is mostly used within reports and on the Timesheet tab within the Matters tab.

In reports, the wage/hour value is key when assessing lawyers profitability. The equation to assess profitability is:

The desired result for this indicator should be over 100%. Values under that bar mean that cost has surpassed gain during the period chosen to assess.

This indicator can be analysed through time for the same lawyer, compared against the same indicators referring to other lawyers and the firm’s global profitability indicators .

Thus, LawRD allows for comparisons throughout time and space!

Post by Braz Pereira, muchBeta’s Chief Commercial Officer:

From its genesis LawRD was devised in close proximity to law firms’ reality, so that their performance and ease of use needs are met.

During the stage of sorting procedures and requirements, the law professionals we’ve consulted were unanimous on the growing level of demand from their clients, regarding client support and on updating them on their matters.

More and more, clients want be informed and updated on the development and what’s being done in defense of their interests. To fulfill such legitimate yearning, they usually contact directly the lawyers or firms they’ve contracted. To keep their trust and satisfaction, one has to display professionalism, control over the matters and the ability to answer issues such as dealines, tasks undertaken, fees and payments.

With this reality in mind, we aim to ease the work of those who have the responsability of keeping updated and supporting clients, enabling, from a simple Internet connection, data related to any given matter thus allowing them answering, on the fly, to most questions clients ask.

Once the Matter is clicked on, the matter in question  selected, the following page opens up:

Besides the header showing the client’s contacts and matter ’s generic info, it is possible to consult immediately reports on: money, time, productivity and profitability. These provide for an overview and immediate grip on the matter’s status.

Questions on tasks already executed or billing sheets, can be answered through the Time tab, wherein one can find about: who, when and what!

Any doubts on matter expenses, a click on Expenses gives way to seeing all expenses, sorting the ones pending on approval, the ones already approved and the ones that have been billed:

The Comments tab gives access to comments submitted by the team working on that matter and other documents related to it:

The Events tab presents dates and events with significance to the matter:

The Billing tab adresses billing sheets, with the matter’s history and the billing sheets already issued:

Gathering all data concerning a matter in a single place, gives way to respond, on the fly, to the majority of concerns by clients, thus conveying professionalism, control over the matters, transparency, service quality and aiming the client’s satisfaction.  This approach ranks high on LawRD’s users degree of satisfaction, namely those who deal directly with client support.

Keeping up with a matter’s profitability is but one of the features on LawRD, reports wise. The Reports tab enables users with an array of pointers most useful to any lawyer or manager:

The following example shows how thoroughly detailed reports on LawRD are. Let us picture this: there’s this lawyer, who is partner in a firm, about to have a meeting with a client to debate the annual fee for the legal advisory service.

That lawyer logs into LawRD and on the Performace option, clicks on the Money report (data retrieved from our Demo Account). This report displays various firm’s financial data:

This report compiles data from all clients and matters: once the math is done, one can conclude that in the last 3 month period the firm billed a total amont of £131,635.94.

The lawyer, wants to see the data from this report that concerns the client Pub & Creativity, though. To do that, all that’s need is to use Filters, cliking on show filters:

To gather data from a single client just pick the name from the Choose a Client box, then click on Filter >>. The lawyer will then get from that report the following:

The lawyer has come to the conclusion that the client Pub & Creativity represents a revenue of £32,012.83, i.e., nearly 25% of the last quarter’s gross revenue (the time span of the report can be changed through filters). This is an important client… which will shorten the range for him to negotiate.

However, the report stands out an amount of £31,865.00 (Unbilled column) that has not been billed yet, during those 3 months. That makes the lawyer wonder: “Are we billing all the work my team has been putting into this client’s matters?”. By sellecting the Time report on the Performance option, he’ll get his answer:

Next, he has applied a filter to check the data concerning only the client Pub & Creativity:

.. to conclude that the team worked about 259 hours for that client, but only 143 of these were billed. This might prove to be a valuable argument when negociating with the client.

And all it took were 2 LawRD reports.. from a total of 24 that LawRD can provide, along with the possibility of customization (to be dealt with in future posts).

Transcription of an original post by Rui Amores, lawyer and partner at RA Law Office, from the Inconfidencias (content in Portuguese only) blog:

“The legal practice is the worst managed and most productivity challenged of all practices, probably. I’m talking about Portuguese legal practice, a small one, with little resources, few employees: solo practitioners, so to speak. It may not sound pleasant that the legal practice is not just of public interest but a livelihood for many who must support their families, pay for their children’s education, pay the bills, i.e. the  sort of needs that all PEOPLE have to face.

At times it seems to be a heresy, a gross fault when a law firm is profitable, well run and squanders neither  time nor money. It should always be available and willing to spend mercifully time away to whom may want to take advantage from us, may they be clients who happen to have forgotten their wallets at home and so not paying for the consultation, or simply the courts and Judges always counting on us to be at their service.

Well, it doesn’t have to be so. It can not be so. A law firm has to know:

• How many clients it has;
• How to contact them swiftly;
• The time spent on each task;
• Expenses and costs per matter;
• The matters there are per client;
• What is the billing at any given moment.

Computers are great and effective when assessing on the above goals, Up until recently we were dependent on software that generally was little user friendly; expensive since there was the need for a license for each user; it had to be installed on our computer or it  had to run on an intranet, which seldom happens in law firms.

On the other hand, law firm management software overlooked the fact that at this day and age, law practice happens not only in the office, as well as in the court houses, state buildings and generally wherever clients have their interests located. Adding to this, there is the fact that laptops are taking the place of the old pen and paper at courts lounges and court rooms.

Not long ago, it came to light in Portugal, a law firm management system that meets all these needs, namely, accessing at anytime and from anywhere an online platform and therein log everything that has been done for a client. LawRD, that is the name of such a platform that provides the answers to the issues afore described. It is quite worthy to give it a try for 30 days, completely free.

I did and I’m enjoying it.

If you want to know more on the system’s features and potential watch this video:”

Post by Susana Gonçalves, lawyer, partner at Advogados Associados and LawRD user since 2009:

“When I first started my practice, I was the youngest in a newly found firm and for that reason I was assigned to be the middle person with the IT service that we worked with, assuming that being the youngest equaled to be the most apt to understand IT’s procedures and language. To put it into context I’m talking
about 1993, the time when Windows OS was starting off in Portuguese offices - and on its way to be the universal tool it is now - and emails were timidly sneaking into our routines.

For this reason I was compelled to become acquainted with computers and programs, solely from the user’s view point. By the time I started my own practice, experience had taught me that I couldn’t do without an effective management program, but the ones available were expensive and very limited, which led me to give up IT completely and go back to the good old timesheet on paper, later turned into Excel when it was time to bill, with all inherent lapses.

However, when I found LawRD and the help I get from its support team at muchBeta, the scene changed and now I have and effective control on all relevant management elements, effortlessly and with no significant time cost, checking on data further than I used to be able to, in the little time I have for my practice management, withstanding the assessment of team work and profitability of the resources allocated.

It stands to reason that in order to get results from LawRD there is a need for discipline when it comes to submitting data, but pretty soon it became as natural as checking my email for new messages.

One of its qualities that I couldn’t let go without mention is the easy access it enables at anytime, anywhere, thus allowing me to log any task, even at night from my home and away from the office’s bustle.

And of course I have to stress the pricing: unbeatable and the most inexpensive.

LawRD makes it easy for me to fill in billing sheets, objectively assess performance and make more time for a much better work.

Thanks muchBeta!”

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:

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.

With this entry the Quick Guide is updated once the matters feature had a big improvement, as referred in New Features- Summer 2009 Collection.

One of the new features matter type categorization aims at two goals: sorting matters by type and allowing Flat Fee billing.

One acesses to the matter’s  type configuration by clicking Configuration when the Matters tab is selected:

Within the Types of Matters option an array of types is defined to which a matter can be assigned to, when it is added later. Such types have to be sorted before adding a new matter:

Types of Matters can also be used to set the flat fee value which is a new way of defining fees. For instance, if the firm has a standard pricing or has a specific one for a client, these are to be inserted in the Amount field and it should mention wether or not in that amount are included expenses, checking the Expenses Included box.

The second big update deals with billing methods. Now it is possilbe to:

• Bill matters by the hourly rates of each intervening lawyer or by the value specified to that particular matter. Billing by the standard pricing of the firm or by a client’s specific amount, still remains. It is also possible to bill a success-fee which will be settled when a new matter is added, being it adjusted by the time of issuing the billing sheet:
  
• Flat-fee. This option has a pre-defined by the lawyer database with services which relates to a payment plan, as said before:
  
  Configuring payment plans happens in the Configuration menu, when the Matters tab is selected and whithin Payment Plans a calendar for issuing the billing sheets is set:
  
  With this billing method, the matter’s manager is able to check its profitability and keeping up with issuing of billing sheets. In the following example, an installment is overdue and this matter’s networth is negative - the light green column on the chart on the left - the total time spent times the hourly rate of the employee assigned to the matter is superior to the amount already billed:
  
• Contingency fee. A percentage of the recovery amount can now be charged (it can be adjusted when issuing the billing sheet):
  
  Profitability check keeps on being available to the matter’s manager and the contingency is a quick glance away:
  

Finally, there is a new help  Wizard when adding new matters.  These can be added by the following modes: Quick Add and Advanced.

In Quick Add mode the new matter is billed by the hour (be it the standard firm pricing or a specific one for that client) wherein the employee assigned is its manager.

The Advanced mode enables all the possible options for a matter (team assignement and other contacts related to the matter) and is also the way to change or complete the settings of a matter added in Quick Mode:

A handy feature is the name suggestion that can be selected when the client´s name is being inserted in (it works on both modes):