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:”

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.

LawRD is a SaaS - software as a service - application, thus delivered over the Internet. Therefore, LawRD’s users data is stored on Web servers.

It is only natural for issues and doubts on data security to arise.

Before getting to the point, here is some food for thought: it is almost certain that you already bought something or did some sort of banking transaction on the Internet. Most definitely, you use e-mail.

The commom denominator to these 3 situations: with no exceptions, they all use Web servers.

With LawRD, we have implemented industry’s best practices in order to offering the safest data protection possible. Such procedures are:

• Data storing on Amazon servers via Amazon Web Services (AWS). Amazon web servers have physical security that equals the one found in military facilities. For instance, every access, be it physical or electronic, to data centres by Amazon employees is registered and audited regularly. AWS service security was good enough for NASDAQ to lodged store it’s Market Replay service.
  Adding to this, operational security is ensured by LawRD’s development team and suported by implementing firewalls and permanently updating the operating systems that support the Web application stored on Amazon servers.

• Safe communication between users’ browsers and the application servers. From the very first access to the site, communication is protected by HTTPS protocol through a 256 bits SSL digital certificate.
  
  HTTPS and the digital certificate assure that both communication between browsers and servers is encrypted (safe from prying eyes), but also garantees that users are actually accessing LawRD’s website and not an illegal surrogate.
  
  For a more in depth  reading on LawRD’s security, please go to
  https://www.lawrd.com/html/files/en/security.pdf

• Pledge of confidentiality: for us at LawRD confidentiality is a pledge described in our Privacy Policy document: https://www.lawrd.com/html/files/en/privacy.pdf. The #5 of that document states: 5 - muchBeta will not make any of the collected information available to anyone. We will never sell, rent, exchange or share your personal information with any third-parties (…)
  Another important issue: Although muchBeta owns the code, databases, and all rights to the LAWRD application, you retain all rights to your data.

Aware that data security is vital to all web application users, we ground ourselves to the best safety practices available and keep updated using state of the art technology.