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.

Post by Jared Correia. Jared is the law practice management advisor with the Massachusetts Law Officer Management Assistance Program, providing free and confidential law practice management consulting to Massachusetts attorneys.  True to certain veiled promises, he makes his thoughts on law practice management available generally online, most notably through the LOMAP Blog and his Twitter account.

As a law practice advisor for Massachusetts’ Law Office Management Assistance Program, I am afforded a ringside seat for the viewing of trends in the legal field, through, what has become, my informal, detached study of modern lawyers’ habits.  One of the trends that I have noticed, over the time that I have spent in my current capacity, is that most of the attorneys with whom I consult are desirous of finding appropriate new technologies, that can: (1) unlock previously undiscovered efficiencies within their practice; and, (2) save them money. Given these qualifying motivations, it is, perhaps, unsurprising that many of the attorneys with whom I meet are ready, and most willing, to begin to incorporate SaaS solutions into their practices, to the extent that they have not already done so.

SaaS systems essentially (and, I won’t belabor this point, because if you’re a regular reader of LawRD’s “Your Law Firm in Progress” blog, you likely already know what SaaS systems are, and what they do) move the traditional software program from residence on your computer/system to residence on the web, accessible through a secure portal by you (and invited collaborators), following a set of security checkdowns.  SaaS systems, especially SaaS systems with practice management features, like the LawRD: Reports on Demand program, answer for the above-referenced requirements respecting efficiency and cost.  Online practice management systems are, in my experience, more accessible, easier to learn, more intuitive to use and faster in operation than those systems that continue to reside on your own computer systems. Given that certain systems, like LawRD’s, offer practice management components, for the better leveraging of client matter and contact management and for time and billing (among a number of useful features), the efficiency upgrade will be obvious in terms of adding a practice management system where, perhaps, none existed before; and, generally, the ease of use/intuitiveness, and speed additional to such programs, means that you’ll be working faster, and more efficiently, not harder.  Of course, one of the obvious reasons for the speed advance achieved with the use of SaaS systems is the fact that such programs are removed from your own computer system, and are not competing directly for space, memory and processing speed with the other applications that you have already downloaded to your machine; this also means that you’ve got fewer costs related to desktop/system support moving forward, and that the remainder of your traditional software systems will work faster, as well (competition having been removed), making you more efficient, saving you more money.  The cost savings of a move to SaaS are also inherent in the pricing models of most of these systems versus the pricing models of traditional software programs.  Generally, with traditional software systems, you’re paying a significant initial rate, plus for program updates, usually each year. With an SaaS system, you’re paying a fairly reasonable monthly rate (rather than a significant up-front cost), with updates taking place automatically, and behind the scenes, and without additional charge. The cost savings can become large-scale, depending upon the SaaS system you select, and depending upon the size (in terms of accessing employees) and needs of your firm; and, the additional efficiencies achieved through the immediate application of important updates and upgrades, without your spending any time to apply same, can also become significant.

If you want to learn more about SaaS, check out the “The Use of SaaS in the Legal Field” episode of my podcast.  With respect to the vetting of SaaS providers, and some of the security questions related to the utilization, by lawyers, of SaaS systems, look over my blog post respecting a North Carolina Bar Association proposed ethics opinion that attempts to provide some clarification in that space.  And, of course, you should continue to follow LawRD’s “Your Law Firm in Progress” blog, for product-related updates, and information relative to SaaS.

When deciding on the purchase of SaaS products in the legal space, you might consider LawRD’s flagship “Reports on Demand” program; you should also consider, as well, (LawRD parent company) muchBeta’s other useful SaaS product offerings: Teepin and Yoomit.

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 Nelson Teixeira, muchBeta’s Chief Data Officer:

LawRD’s reports are devised so that any law firm manager gets an immediate answer on data submitted to the system.

To that end, we’ve identified in the system, the main Entities to which data is associated to. These are: Clients, Matters, Lawyers, Rainmakers and Performance. These entities can be individually used as value aggregators or combined as data filters.

Next, we’ve also identified all numerical Pointers on: how much we have forecast on costs, how much are we actually spending and how much are we profiting. We have also crossed these basic pointers with invoices status and the partial amonts of these dedicated to expenses and tasks. This data allows us to know, among other important issues, the Net Worth logged in the system the Plan Accomplish Ratio or the Time Productivity.

This data analysis will enable the end user with a tool for spotting, in an analytic fashion,  the causes for an atypical billing period, a decrease on revenue, growth or slowing trends. When examining the issues we’ve mentioned, LawRD’s reports will tell us about: Who, to Whom, What, When, Brought by Whom, under Whose Responsability and the ever wanted HOW.

In order to ease the equation of problems, reports are sorted by Entities, each having four analysis groups: Money, Time, Profitability and Productivity. Every group contains a set of pointers clustered by the entity previously chosen. If willing to do so, users can also filter data through a form containing all six entities.

Example: lawyer John presents a 25% decrease on productivity for this month. Given his quite up to standard and regular performance over the past few months, I’m having some trouble pin pointing what is the cause for that. The issue may present three possible angles:

• John is losing focus and is just not keeping up with his usual performance, as the productivity report states.
• The firm is going through a rough spot. That can easily be concluded by the time line of the report on Turnover.
• Jonh is working on a matter that turned out to be a black hole. To check on this case, I must select the matter entity, the Time analysis group and the filter lawyer John. A discrepancy between the logged time and the billed time will sort the cause for this problem.

Given the large amount of data used in every report, which involves nearly all application’s data structures, we had to devise a strategy of data cache in order to simplify and streamline data selection. The sole minor issue here is that, data is not displayed in real time (updating happens every half hour), but when it is imperative, users can override this by manually updating it in a single click.

Sometimes there’s the need to go back to square one. This should have been the first post ever on LawRD’s Blog: LawRD, what is it good for?

There’s a debate going in the law milieu on whether or not hourly rates are the best way for charging  legal services. We will not go into that! It is not up to us to tell lawyers what is best for them on that concern. What we can state for sure is that LawRD meets the several models of fee convention that lawyers choose for their clients’ matters. LawRD allows you to bill hourly, flat fee, contingency fees and success fee.

Whichever way a lawyer chooses when billing fees, there is an unavoidable fact: lawyers do invest time on matters. An example: when emailing to a client during working hours, a lawyer is investing  time which has a cost that is equal to the lawyer’s hourly rate times the total time spent on that task.

An issue arises here: how can lawyers account for their cost per hour? That calculus can either be simple or complex. In a law firm the cost can be achieved by adding the lawyer’s salaries, bonuses and other costs that are to that person related, divided by the total amount of hours the lawyer worked during a certain period of time (a month, a year). A solo practice will have to bear in mind a minimum amount so it is profitable. For instance: if a lawyer needs to have a minimum of $15,000/month proceeds and is willing to put in 150 hours, the hourly cost will be $100.

Knowing the cost is just the half of it. The other half is logging the time spent on each matter. Any way… there is only one way of doing that: using a timesheet. Such a sheet can be as simple as piece of paper stapled to the folder wherein they will hand write down the time spent. That will do the job, but can it help answering swiftly to issues such as:

• How much time did I spend on a matter?
• What is the total cost of a matter?
• Is the matter profitable?

This is where LawRD - Reports on Demand comes into action! Use LawRD and the answers are just a click away. Check this example from LawRD’s Demo Account:

The Total line displays an amount of 62:30 which has a cost of $8,210.25. This is  a hourly rate matter and there is an amount of $14,370.00 billed, therefore it shows a profit of $6.159,75. There you have the answers for the previous questions. It just took a click on the Timesheet tab.

The Timesheet tab still remains relevant for matters that are not billed by the hour. The reason why is very simple: there is the need to match the fee agreed with the client with the actual costs of that matter. Recurring again to the Demo Account, you can notice that the amount of €1.500,00 was agreed with the client:

By clicking on Timesheet you can answer to:

• How many hours were spent on the matter? A: 9:35
• What is the total cost of the matter? A: $1,012.25
• Is this matter profitable? A: yes, it shows a $987.75 profit, at the moment.

Now we can answer to what is LawRD good for? In a sentence: LawRD allows for a swift answer on any matter’s results.

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:”

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:

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.

Welcome to LawRD … it’s now online to pro-fit your practice !
   
LawRD is a SaaS application aimed at lawyers and legal office managers, as well as those who run companies’ legal departments.
  
Get permanently updated reports on clients, files and employees, on the fly. Control efficiency, profitability and costs.

Any internet connection stops low activity times and allows for “Productivity 2.0″.
   
Being web-based, it’s safely accessed from anywhere at anytime, enabling team work to users. LawRD aims lawyers’ ever growing demand for mobility and their need to instant access to data in an easy and simple way.
  
Register for a free try now!
 
The LawRD team.