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.