Javelan Brings Large Firm Practice Management Functionality To Small and Mid Sized Firms
April 01, 2003
For our mid-sized law firm, having a comprehensive and powerful practice management system is critical to day-to-day operations and continued business success. At Hopkins & Carley, a 45-attorney firm located in San Jose, Javelan is the practice management system we put in place for managing client accounts and firm accounting and finance work. Besides managing our financials, the software also allows us to provide our professionals with the information and reporting details they need to manage our firm and client business effectively and efficiently.
How AutoCorrect Can Help in Document Creation
April 01, 2003
AutoCorrect is a Microsoft Word feature that allows you to automatically detect and correct typos, capitalization errors and general misspellings as you type. If you consistently type the word "can not" as two words (it should be typed as one word), you can have AutoCorrect change it to "cannot." This is an especially important example, since the mistake you made "can not" will not get picked up when you run Spelling & Grammar (both words "can" and "not" are correctly spelled).
Miss Your Codes? A CrossEyes Product Review
April 01, 2003
In 1999, two law firms, Piper & Marbury and Rudnick & Wolfe, merged to form Piper Rudnick, a business law firm that today consists of over 925 lawyers. One of the challenges the merger presented was the unification of our word processing applications. Piper & Marbury was using MS Word and Rudnick & Wolfe primarily used WordPerfect. Our internal IT staff was charged with transitioning this newly formed union into a predominately Word organization. To help with the physical conversion, our team turned to Levit & James Inc., a software company that specializes in document conversion and add-in products for Microsoft Word. Levit & James suggested CrossWords, a WordPerfect to MS Word conversion utility.
Microsoft SharePoint for the Legal Industry?
April 01, 2003
I am sure that everyone knows the name Microsoft. I am guessing that many of you, however, are not familiar with Microsoft's portal product "SharePoint." SharePoint presents an interesting opportunity for two reasons. First, it is a Microsoft product and chances are that your IT infrastructure and policies embrace Microsoft technology. Second, SharePoint is a relatively inexpensive portal solution. Okay, I know what you are thinking, another article about legal portals and how they will reduce your costs to nothing and increase your revenue by 2000%. I hope to provide something different here. The purpose of this article is to share my experiences working with SharePoint and provide some insight in how it can be used strategically in your law firm or law department.
Innovative Discount System Created With DirectInvoice
April 01, 2003
Our legal department at Atlantic Bank of New York was looking for an electronic invoicing system to make our outside counsel billing process more manageable. What we found was new technology and software that enabled us not only to improve the overall efficiency of our system but also to implement an invoice discounting policy that saves us money and gets our outside counsel paid quickly. The discounting policy lets us reduce payments to outside counsel by a set percentage if we pay their bills within 20 days and reduces the fees further in the event of late invoice submission.
Planning A Web Site With Some Punch
April 01, 2003
Law firm Web sites have largely converged toward a "standard model" that presents a few implicitly agreed-upon subjects. Consider the analogy to newspapers: Consensus has been achieved that the logical way to organize them is national news, opinion, local news, business, sports, lifestyle, etc. Within this consensus, tremendous variety in paper stock, layout, color, writing style and so forth can all thrive, but the "bone structure" is agreed upon.
Getting Wired Is Part Of Research
April 01, 2003
Just a few years ago, attorneys and their staff did a lot of waiting - waiting for papers to be served, or rulings to come in the mail, and for librarians to research and find relevant case information. The time lag created questions and the questions resulted in more client inquiries and multiple trips to the courthouse. Then technology came to the practice of law, and, as most attorneys who are "in the know" now recognize, there are plenty of options beyond PACER in the world of online case research technology. To get off the waiting line, technology-conscious partners should make it a point to stay abreast of the latest trends in the world of online case and docket research.
