Luis Suarez, who works for IBM from the Canary Islands, got tired of wading through piles of e-mail, so he moved most of his communications to social networking tools, especially blogs. To keep up with his co-workers, he used an RSS reader (I use Google Reader for the same thing) to stay on top of their blogs.

Lawyers can make use of social networking tools, as well. A litigation team could make extremely effective use of a blog to track ideas, due dates, documents, and more. It would need to be a non-public blog, obviously, but this would be easy to accomplish.

One of the problems with e-mail is it is sent, received, and then lost. If team members communicated on a blog, that information would be constantly available and frequently reviewed.

I Freed Myself From E-Mail’s Grip | New York Times

Rocket Matter is a fairly new online practice management solution. From the demo, it looks very smooth. If you are in the market for an alternative to the bloated, crashy practice management software offerings out there, Rocket Matter might be a good option.

A couple of caveats.

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The description from Minnesota CLE:

Tech Tuesday: Free and Open-Source Software for Running the Whole Law Office
Presented by Presented by Samuel Glover; moderated by Todd Scott and Peter Berge

Tuesday, March 18, 2008, 12:00 - 1:00 p.m. CST
1.0 law office management credit
Tuition: $75

Part of the ongoing “Tech Tuesday” webcast series, streaming the third Tuesday of most months.

The standard commercial software for running a law office is by no means cheap. There are, however, alternatives. In this Tech Tuesday webcast, attorney Sam Glover, the author of the SoloSmallTech.com blog, will talk about free and open-source alternatives to standard operating systems and office suite, calendar, tickler, and file management applications. His conclusion, surprising to some, is that free and open-source software has progressed to the point that it competes toe-to-toe with its commercial counterparts and meets all the requirements for electronic filing with the courts.

Presented by Sam Glover, Samuel J. Glover & Assoc., Minneapolis; moderated by Todd C. Scott, Minnesota Lawyers Mutual, Minneapolis, and Peter H. Berge, Minnesota CLE, St. Paul.

Register Now for Free and Open-Source Software for Running the Whole Law Office

A little over a year ago, I posted about my frustration, both with the speed and stability of Time Matters with Billing Matters Plus v7 and with the CIC Solutions Forum, which purports to be a place where users can get support from certified consultants, but where my post about how to speed up TM7 was quickly quashed.

The post has been popular, attracting a significant portion of the search engine traffic to this site and a number of posts from similarly-frustrated Time Matters users and IT professionals.

I have not used Time Matters since shortly after that post. While I said there that Time Matters was a time saver, even with its flaws, I quickly found the opposite to be true once I stopped using it. I used the Billing Matters portion until last September, when I switched my business form and closed out my books, but those were frustrating months, even though I hired a consultant to work with me.

I have never been happier. Case management is much easier without Time Matters, and a good deal faster. I use Outlook, Evolution, Thunderbird with Lightning, or several other programs as they catch my fancy. I am much happier keeping my books using GnuCash, although I would use Freshbooks if I had more hourly-fee clients to bill.

Commenter Wells Anderson is undoubtedly right that Time Matters is a popular piece of software. So is Internet Explorer 6. Neither are particularly good programs; many users simply are not aware that there are better alternatives. Or don’t care.

Here is MCLE’s description:

Part of the ongoing “Tech Tuesday” webcast series, streaming the first and third Tuesday of every month.

In this Tech Tuesday program, Sam Glover will be the guest speaker. Sam is a solo practitioner practicing consumer law in Minneapolis, and is also the author of the SoloSmallTech.com blog. Sam will be discussing how to use software you probably already own—such as your e-mail client, word processor, and desktop search software—to form an effective and safe case management system.

Presented by Samuel J. Glover, Samuel J. Glover & Assoc., Minneapolis; moderated by Todd C. Scott, Minnesota Lawyers Mutual, Minneapolis, and Peter H. Berge, Minnesota CLE, St. Paul.

You can register here.

No matter what you use to manage your practice, whether a case management product like Time Matters or simply Outlook (or Evolution, or whatever) and the file manager, the efficacy of the system depends on good procedures. No software eliminates the need for good procedures. However, modern technology, especially in a paperless office, means adhering to procedures may be far less onerous than it used to be.

The most important procedures revolve around making sure it is easy to find all contacts, appointments, tasks, e-mails, and documents associated with a case.

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I have mentioned the Activities tab in Outlook several times, but I don’t think I have explained exactly how to get to it. The Activities exists as a tab in Outlook 2000-2003, and as a button in Outlook 2007. Open up any contact and look just under the task bar and menu, and you should see several tabs (2000-03) or the Ribbon (2007). The second tab is the Activities tab. The Activities button should be visible on the default Ribbon in 2007. Click it, and all your e-mails to and from that contact should show up in a few seconds. If you have linked any contacts, appointments, or tasks to that contact, those will show up as well. This is how I track cases (using contacts in a separate folder as cases) similar to the way

Outlook is, by default, set up to organize your life by contact. The “activities” tab (or button, if you have upgraded to 2007), connects you to all the tasks, appointments, and contacts associated with a particular contact. This works well in some worlds, but not so well for law offices, where you really want to track all the to-dos, appointments, and e-mails associated with a particular case.

The solution is pretty easy, actually. At left, you can see how I organize my folder tree and my “Matters - open” folder. E-mails are automatically associated with contacts, so you just need a way to group a set of contacts (parties, attorneys, witnesses, etc.), tasks, and appointments. I just set up a separate folder for my open cases and name them with my file number and case name. I associate the file with the contacts relevant to the file, and link all tasks and appointments to the “matter” contact. That way everything is linked. Click on the “Activities” tab/button of your matter to bring up all the contacts, tasks, and appointments, on that case. Click on the individual contacts to get to the e-mails associated with the matter.

When creating a new task or appointment, just use the “Contacts” field at the bottom of the form to link it to the matters. If you get an e-mail related to a matter but that isn’t from a contact in your address book, just right-click on the e-mail in your Inbox and select “Message Options.” One of the options is a “Contacts” link where you can associate that message with your matter.

And there you go. Matters-based organizing in Outlook. Easy as pie.

Edit: The key to organizing in Outlook by case/matter is getting to know your “Activity” tab/button (Outlook 2007 at right–yes, I am evaluating Office 2007, but I am holding off on my review until I have lived with it for two weeks). In Outlook 2002/2003, this is a tab in every Contact form. Open up the contact, click on the Activity tab/button, and you can see every e-mail to and from that contact as well as every contact, task, and appointment you have associated with that contact. You have to associate everything but e-mails manually, but it is just as quick as doing it in TM. Quicker, actually, as long as TM takes to save a form.