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

Since we got LawRD out, we’ve had a two way approach as to spread its users community: the Internet and its social networks and the direct approach to legal practice professionals.

When contacting law firms for demoing LawRD (on the premises or online), we’ve systematically faced the ’software salesperson stigma’, which recalls them an array of bad memories from previous cases of IT deployment: the need for training, trying to figure how ‘this and that’ is done or bothering someone with tons of questions about it, trying to get in contact with the vendor to solve problems and glitches and never getting to solve them in due time, …

It’s by the time when clients realize that LawRD is altogether different from what they’re used to, or someone who has used or already using LawRD recommends us, that the ’software salesperson’ label gets yanked off. From then on things get smoother, our clients can immediately spot what sets our app from the rest: easy and intuitive use, available from any Internet connection, free 30 day trial, great pricing and no need for upfront investment.

Aiming to override this hurdle when presenting LawRD, we’ve come up with an affiliates program so we can support and reward those willing to make LawRD known and used by the most number of users. This means that we will pay a monthly amount for as long as 10 years, per active user each affiliate brings to us. Whoever has tested LawRD’s performance has the chance of having an extra source of income, helping us overcome the ’software salesperson stigma’ by scheduling LawRD demos.

We have a SaaS application for supporting the email contacts from our affiliates, which allows them to keep up with their contact performance and who have read their emails and when.

The challenge is set. It pays to pay a visit to affiliates.lawrd.com:

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

When we first started to develop LawRD, we were quite aware that, in many fronts, the concept we meant to come up with was going to be ground-breaking to most law practice professionals.

The innovation here, is the fact that LawRD is a service, not software sold in a CD-ROM demanding an upfront investment and periodical upgradings.

Being a SaaS, all its data is hosted in the “cloud” (Amazon data centers in LawRD’s case) thus being available through any Internet connection, freeing its users from concerns with servers, firewalls, viruses, IT infrastructure, compatibilities and safety.

LawRD has a mandatory free 30-day trial, no upfront investment and its monthly payment is done  accordingly to the number of active users. No long-term contracts or commitments, quit when you want to.

These facts are self-evident and, in our view, point to the new paradigm to which we move into at fast pace (thanks Gmail, homebanking, Salesforce and all other that paved the way to solutions such as LawRD).

The awareness for these advantages really stands out when a software “glitch” turns up, though. Usually, users call the software vendor presenting a complaint or asking for customer support. Then, a location visit from a technician is scheduled, which never happens as soons as needed, plus there are delays of all sorts, traffic jams and other setbacks until the problem is fixed and that support is paid for.

On the other hand, LawRD’s support is requested through the application itself:

Right away, LawRD team takes charge of the situation and, on most instances, users doubts are cleared or the problem is solved in a couple of hours. Most of our replies to help requests are just to inform our clients that the situation they contacted us for in the first place, is now solved.

Odd as it may seem, it is there and then, when doubts and problems arise, that we can better prove the edge that SaaS presents, being much more than software that one must pay for the the right to use it, LawRD is actually a service, provided by a team that stands only a click away, to solve any doubts or problems from our clients, in a quick and swift way, shortening waiting and offline times to a minimum.

To conclude, for LawRD, solving doubts and problems, is a deciding factor in our clients trust and satisfaction.

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.

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.

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.

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:
  

We got the following email from a client:

“I’m overwhelmed with your swiftness and efficacy.

I have to confess that it’s a pleasure to complain, when one gets an answer like this.

Miguel Moreira dos Santos
GIL MOREIRA DOS SANTOS, CALDEIRA, CERNADAS, FONTEMANHA & ASSOCIADOS
SOCIEDADE DE ADVOGADOS”

The feedback from high maintenance clients such as is Gil Moreira dos Santos, Caldeira, Cernadas, Fontemanhas & Associados enables us to constantly improve LawRD and make it evolve along with the needs from its users community.

Our service imposes a permanent high level of satisfaction from clients, everyday. So, we look at the feedback, complaints and sugestions from  users with the most attention.

Do keep on challenging us. The community of LawRD’s users will appreciate it.

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:

LawRD offers a fully functional free 30-day trial. Thus, all those who are interested can evaluate the application before safely subscribing it.

This is our suggestion for the most effective free-trial:

• Upload real data from the get go. Add your firm, system users, contacts and matters using real data.

• Sign up at LawRD. For this, go to LawRD website and sign up for free:

• After signing in, LawRD starts a welcome wizard. Select two or three matters in which you are currently working on. The goal is that all lawyers start to register time spent and expenses allocated to those matters in a daily basis. On step 0 (zero) you should not only choose the system language but the hourly rate you usually bill your clients as well.

• Invite users to your LawRD account. These are lawyers and other employees at your firm. Afterwards, they will receive an invitation sent by email with all the data needed for them to start using LawRD:

• Add clients. Don’t forget to check the box of the contact you are adding if it’s a client!

• Close the wizard. Click on ‘Save and Close’ to leave the wizard and proceed to add your first matter:

• Add your first matter. Follow the new matter wizard steps for adding a new matter:

• Make sure that all employees start using LawRD right away.

The procedure ends here. In 7 short steps you signed up for LawRD, set up your account and added users, clients and matters.

The next step is the systematic reporting of time spent and expenses. A good theme for the next post on the blog.