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.

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).

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.

Sam Glover, Editor in Chief at Lawyerist.com, posted a review on LawRD - Reports on Demand titled: LawRD: Affordable Law Practice Management Software as a Service.

Beyond welcoming a new competitor in the SaaS world aiming at law firms, Sam Glover points out:

• The features that make LawRD stand out from the competition: “LawRD has some features the competition lacks, such as smart, preset billing configurations, always-present contextual help, and a great interface.”
• The reports issued by LawRD: “RD stands for Reports on Demand, and LawRD excels at providing helpful, good-looking reports for all aspects of your law practice, from productivity to profitability.”
• LawRD pricing: “But for all that, LawRD’s best feature may be its price. (…) LawRD has a realistic pricing structure, just $20 per user, a third of the others”

One more thing to clear the issue on server location: LawRD uses Amazon’s AWS, therefore the datacenter is not located in Portugal

Sam Glover wraps up saying the following: “Overall, though, I was quite impressed with LawRD”.

LawRD issues reports on demand on 6 entities: Clients, Matters, Rainmakers, Managers, Lawyers and overall firm performance.

For that purpose it is necessary that time spent and expenses on matters are inserted in LawRD. Thus, such data must be input in a quick, simple and swift way.

These were the guidelines presiding the development of LawRD’s user interface, and so making it user friendly for lawyers.

There are 3 ways to input time spent and are found in the Timesheet tab:

• The Timesheet matrix: by clicking on the cell found on the junction of the client/matter line with the date column,  users insert  the time spent that day and on that matter:
  
  In case the matter is not yet available, it can be added using the -Add Matter- field.

• The quick insert box. This box enables an easy way to insert time spent  when the matrix is busy with lots of lines. LawRD, by default, shows the present date as the one in which the matter is being input with the time spent:
  

• The Timer:
  

Expenses are inputted in the My Expenses tab, and once data is written just click on Create Expense for it to be included in its due matter:

LawRD will display a list of expenses already inserted and their status (approved or not approved):

If contacts are the starting point for LawRD, matters are the roads where data runs through. It is because a matter is related with a client that lawyers spend working hours and make expenses which later, may or may not be billed to the client.

LawRD has implemented this data register environment, to the purpose of outputing reports that answer to simple questions such as to determine whether a matter is profitable or not. LawRD - Reports on Demand, says it all!

The picture below depicts a screenshot of Matters:

LawRD presents to the user all matters wherein he/she intervenes either as manager (user’s initials show up in a red circle) or a resource (initials shown in a blue rectangle).

All matters are associated with contacts defined as clients. The matter General Internal Matters (depicted in a green rectangle) is the only exception. This particular matter is reserved for the office using LawRD to register time and costs which will not be billed to clients (e.g.  time spent on internal affairs).

The system will present set-by-step tips to add a new Matter:

• Go the Matter tab and click on:
  
• Choose an existing client:
  
• If that client already has matters added, LawRD will display a list for you to check whether the matter you are about to add is in the system or not:
  
  In case it isn´t, just click on ‘It’s not. Create a new one’ and proceed:
  
• Add who will be in charge of this matter (manager):
  
• Set the kick-off date:
  
• Who’s related to this matter. At this stage it is selected who will work on this matter and later register time and expenses. It’s always possible to add new users:
  
• Adding others associated to the matter. All sorts of contacts can be added to the matter. People working at a company that  is a client and who we communicate with, solicitors and other party lawyers, for instance, can be added here:
  
• Create the new matter:
   
  LawRD will display a screen with a header summing up the new matter’s data:
  

With LawRD, lawyers and law firm managers can control the critical variables on their practices:

• The revenue per client and matter;
• Tracking time and productivity of their teams.

The main goal is the issuing of reports on the fly, whenever and wherever there is an Internet connection: LawRD is available as SaaS application!

Check on this presentation all functions of LawRD, in our SlideShare space:

The deployment of IT in legal offices is usually related to big investments on expert labour to install, upgrade and maintain. Simultaneously it is demanded from the staff time and availability to attend training, to get acquainted with the features, to streamline procedures and to make the most out of the applications.

Taking the human factor at its core, LawRD is an intuitive tool allowing users to fully and immediately use it, with no need for training.

LawRD doesn’t aim to do everything. It’s goal is only the essential in a simple and effective way:

• Register all billable and non-billable, tasks, expenses and resources in a newer, easier and swifter way;
• Team work and data sharing from anywhere at anytime;
• Improve Customer Relationship Management, create timesheets and schedules, manage tasks and costs;
• Permanent control and update on clients, files, bills, current accounts and on employees’ productivity;
• Management reports on: billing, profitability, billable hours and risk and safety management alert system.

All of this through an Internet connection.

You’ll be the judge of that. Try it for 30 days, free and fully functional.

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.