Zola Suite Manages More Than Just Client Information
Zola Suite practice management software is an all-in-one system with built-in CRM, firm accounting, document assembly, and more. Much of its strength comes from its all encompassing nature. Yet, it still maintains robust, relevant integrations where necessary.
Client Relationship Manager (CRM)
With Zola, law firms don’t need to add extraneous items to their legal tech stack just to fulfill their basic needs. Zola Suite has a built-in CRM, among other things. This means your firm can manage more than just your client contact information. You can take a file from a potential new client all the way to a satisfied, paying customer. All within one single source of truth.
Document Assembly
Since Zola is part of the AbacusNext family, their features go beyond just CRM. They integrate directly with HotDocs (also part of the AbacusNext family) to make your document assembly more streamlined. But this isn’t just a simple integration. Zola has partnered with HotDocs to allow users to access all the information in their system.
Zola Suite Interview
If you’d like to hear more about how an all-in-one system can help your law firm, check out Zack’s interview with Fred Cohen, from Zola Suite. Here, he explains why their idea of building, rather than integrating, benefits firms.
How to Get It
Want to learn more about Zola Suite? Check out our full review, where you can get user feedback, compare features, and see more demo videos.If you’re eager to jump right in, though, you can go straight to ZolaSuite.com and get a free demo.
CosmoLex Streamlines Virtual Law Firm Collaboration
Using remote-first organizational practices is the best approach to a more efficient law firm, even with a brick-and-mortar office. Remote-first law firms tend to have increased productivity and attract a wider client base. Supporting a remote-first law practice benefits both you and your clients, and provides flexible and dynamic services and communication. But, remote-first doesn’t necessarily mean working wherever and whenever you want. It’s about providing open and accessible communication channels to enhance online collaboration among staff and with clients. CosmoLex provides a valuable virtual law firm software to help kick-start or improve your remote-first strategy.
Challenges of Virtual Law Firm Work
Virtual and remote work can pose several challenges for distributed teams. Even attorneys within the same firm can have different approaches to work. Not everyone intakes clients or uses Outlook the same way. Some attorneys may even differ in how they digitally file matters or manage clients, causing confusion when documents are shared.
Benefits of CosmoLex Virtual Law Firm Software
Law firms using virtual and remote-first practices can alleviate inter-office idiosyncrasies by using CosmoLex. This cloud-based, virtual law firm software streamlines collaboration, standardizes practices, and provides an effortless way for staff and clients to work together. CosmoLex is especially useful for law firms as they intake clients, share documents, and communicate both internally and externally.
Security with Sharing
Of course, you shouldn’t start using any old cloud software for your law practice. Even if you’re just chatting about a matter with a partner online, you have to make sure your data is secure. When sharing documents containing sensitive client information or collecting payment data, strident security measures are key. One tell-tale sign that your cloud software is secure is if it has completed SOC 2 attestation.
SOC, or Service Organization Control, 2 is an auditing process that helps cloud companies assess data privacy and security standards. It’s an optional attestation, but it applies to nearly every cloud company. Companies that have achieved SOC 2 compliance have committed to robust security policies that third-party, certified auditors regularly validate. Using a company that is SOC 2 compliant means they have top-notch security, privacy, and confidentiality in their system. So, you can rest assured that your data is secure.
Enhancing Online Workflows
With CosmoLex, you can leverage your online functionality to create a streamlined and simplified workflow with colleagues and clients. Its SOC 2 compliant features cover everything from intake to closing, giving you and your clients an effortless and secure workflow.
Intake Customizations
Intake can happen not just during that initial client meeting, but throughout the duration of a case. It’s easy to overlook information you need when taking on a new client. While CosmoLex provides intake forms, you can customize those forms and create custom fields specific to your firm’s practice areas. Customize these forms and fields with help texts to aid clients in filling out those forms. Clients can complete those forms online, ensuring you have everything you need for a strong start to a matter.
Banking and Payments
CosmoLex also offers built-in trust-compliant accounting and payments. Refill trust accounts, reconcile your bank account, and provide bookkeeping access to your accounting all from one place. You’ll also be able to run comprehensive reports to ensure compliance.
Batch invoices and have your clients pay online via credit card or ACH. Send clients online invoices to securely pay without needing their payment information. Clients can also store their payment information in their client portal, saving them time, and helping you get paid faster.
Client Portal
Having a secure client portal isn’t just a convenient way for clients to pay invoices. It also provides a professional and polished experience for clients.
Communicate directly with clients using CosmoLex’s client portal two-way messaging system. All messages are logged directly to the matter. When you message your client, they’ll receive a notification to message you back. More secure than both email or text, this system allows clients to connect with you on their own time and terms.
Additionally, clients can upload important documents to their account. Set permissions on client access to prevent revealing certain records for added privacy and security. Don’t worry, you can revoke access to a single record or the entire portal if necessary.
Screenshot provided by partner
CosmoLex Software Integrations
CosmoLex integrates with several different apps, including Outlook, Google, DropBox, Office365, LawRuler, and Zapier, among many others. These integrations are available on a two-way sync to help you work more efficiently and comfortably.
Tasks Management
Never ping project updates again with the powerful task management solution within CosmoLex. Use tasks to create, delegate, and monitor work with users on the platform. Assign tasks through the task manager and directly respond to comments and questions. With everything in one place, you’ll save time and provide a more effective way to manage your team remotely.
Better, you can do all of this on the computer or through the CosmoLex mobile app!
Demo Video
Erica from CosmoLex recently gave us a demo of CosmoLex and how it can help your firm. Take a look at the video below to see a walkthrough she provided our Legal Tech Advisor, Zack Glaser.
How to Get It
CosmoLex is a cloud-based law practice management software that integrates accounting, time tracking, billing, document management, and tasks in a single application. If you’d like to learn more about CosmoLex and its robust feature set, checkout CosmoLex.com. From there, you’ll be able to schedule a demo or sign up for a free trial. No credit card needed.
Want to learn more about CosmoLex? Check out our full review, where you can see a features list, other demo videos, and community comments. Remember that Lawyerist readers get an affinity benefit through the review page.
LEX Reception is a virtual receptionist service specifically designed for lawyers. They are available 24/7/365, have bilingual services, and can make outbound calls on your behalf. What sets them apart from some other virtual receptionist services, however, is how they fit into your law firm’s legal tech stack.
LEX Reception and Your Tech Stack
LEX Reception has built both web and mobile apps to help you manage your incoming phone calls. Lawyers can update their call scripts, change forwarding numbers, and even make outbound calls using the system. It is a solid foundation for the broader virtual receptionist services LEX provides.
This app, however, wouldn’t provide much help to your firm if it was unwieldy or unusable. To that end, LEX Reception provides direct integrations with some of the most popular law practice management software providers. Although it is not necessary for LEX to integrate with your system, it is certainly helpful.
With this integration comes an added level of automation. Using some of the integrated CRMs, or practice management software, a firm could move a potential new client from initial call to accepted client with very little effort—even during non-business hours.
LEX Reception Interview
Zack sat down with Bree Swanson, from LEX Reception, to discuss how the integrations can fit into a lawyer’s complete tech stack. Take a look at their conversation below.
How to Get It
Ready to learn more? See more features and community comments at our full review of LEX Reception. Don’t forget to claim your Affinity Partner discount. Or, if you’re ready to jump right in, get a custom demo at LEXReception.com.
LawPay’s Card Vault Securely Stores Payments and Saves Time
Accepting credit card payments is becoming the norm for law firms. If your firm is still accepting only cash or checks, you’re missing out on a large portion of potential clients. Over 70% of Americans have at least one credit card. As of last year, credit cards made up nearly 40% of all transactions at point-of-sale locations. And when it comes to e-payments, card payments and ACH are the most popular options. It’s faster and more secure, for clients and merchants alike, to make payments by card. Firms that provide a variety of payment options can attract more clients, get paid faster, and collect more. To run a modern and efficient law firm, you must be able to accept credit card payments through an e-payment platform.
ePayments, Compliance, and Simplifying Your Workflow
Maybe your firm’s hesitation in accepting credit cards or ePayments is the ethics and compliance issues surrounding them. With ePayment options, attorneys can easily set up payment plans, flexible billing options, and charge for past-due invoices. These are all ways to streamline your time and increase efficiency. But, with each of these options, there are jurisdictional rules to consider. It can be overwhelming for attorneys to navigate those on top of the other day-to-day work to run a law firm. The better option is to work with a software company knowledgeable about legal accounting, including IOLTA and PCI requirements. You can easily manage your trust and operating accounts and client payments through a single system.
Working with a payment system built for law firms allows you to flow credit card payments into client accounts seamlessly. Those payments can go directly into a trust account or towards a deposit, helping you stay compliant. This workflow runs even more smoothly by having your client’s payment information on file, stored in a secured credit card vault. You’ll save time, get paid more quickly, and provide a more polished client experience.
LawPay was built exclusively for attorneys and their needs. They make it easy for law firms to get paid by securely storing client credit card and eCheck information in their Card Vault.
LawPay’s Secured Credit Card Vault
With LawPay’s Card Vault, you can store your client’s preferred payment method in a secure vault and update it later. There are two ways to store a client’s payment information: Add New Card or Request Card. Add New Card is where your firm inputs the payment information. This is useful when a client is in the office or wants to provide payment information over the phone. Your client can give you their credit card info and authorization to make charges to the card. Simple, straightforward, but potentially prone to data entry errors. Sometimes you want clients to input that information themselves.
Request Card sends an email to your client with a link to a secure form to input their card information. Clients will enter their own information so no one at your firm will ever see the card or account number. Clients are also able to input multiple payment methods. So if clients want to keep a credit card and eCheck on file, LawPay can support that. As clients fill out the form, they’ll also be required to give your firm authorization to make charges. This way, you’ll have a signed digital record of your client’s approval to keep their payment method on file.
After a client’s credit card information is collected and vaulted, only the last four digits of the card and expiration date will be visible. You can charge a saved payment method with just a few clicks and view those charges in minutes. Once a client makes a payment, you can create a payment schedule for future payments on the vaulted card. Need to make changes on vaulted payment methods? Simply click “Manage Cards” and edit payment methods without needing a full card number. Want to view transactions on vaulted cards? LawPay allows you to quickly run transaction reports and export into something like Excel in just a few clicks. Easy, right? It gets better.
With its flexible features, Card Vault, and LawPay, are 100% PCI compliant. This means it follows all industry and jurisdictional regulations, standards, and best practices. So if you’re a LawPay user, you’re also PCI compliant!
Dedicated Support
Being PCI compliant is great, but knowing how to handle difficult or complex payment issues is important, too. For example, in taking credit card payments, sometimes clients will dispute a charge on their credit card. If a client disputes a charge, credit card processors may attempt to take back money in the disputed transaction. Client funds are to be held inviolate. No other entity should be able to access those funds. This could mean a third party accessing funds deposited into trust, or money that potentially belongs to a different client. Either way, this is a big ethics no-no, and a complicated issue to resolve by yourself.
As a LawPay client, you’ll have a dedicated risk management team to help with chargeback cases. When you reach out to the LawPay risk team for help, whether by phone or email, you’ll always reach a real person. LawPay understands the legal market and can help guide you through tricky situations, like chargebacks. This is truly a special and unique feature.
And if you prefer to try and troubleshoot issues yourself, you can access LawPay’s comprehensive support library. Their support library is available even if you’re not logged into LawPay. Their library boasts hundreds of useful articles, templates, and even CLE courses to support and improve how you run and manage your firm.
Demo Video
Rachel from LawPay recently gave us a demo of the secured Credit Card Vault feature and how it works. Take a look at the video below to see a walkthrough she provided our Legal Tech Advisor, Zack Glaser.
How to Get It
If you’d like to learn more about LawPay and how its secured credit card vault can help you get paid more quickly, contact them at lawpay.com to learn more or schedule a demo.
Want to learn more about LawPay? Check out our full review for a features list, other demo videos, and community comments. Remember that Lawyerist readers get an affinity benefit through the review page.
Accel Drives Law Firm Visibility with Content and Social Media Management
Accel Marketing Solutions is a full-service digital marketing company focused exclusively on the legal field. They aim to build a law firm’s reputation and expertise through content marketing, social media management, and other digital means. Although they assist with all aspects of digital marketing, with Accel, content is king.
What Sets Accel Marketing Solutions Apart?
Content Marketing
Accel builds and maintains large websites by publishing consistent, regular articles for their clients. This schedule of unique, ongoing content not only contributes to the firm’s expertise, but builds their authority for SEO purposes. It not only helps you broaden your firm’s visibility, but also helps you attract your ideal client.
Yet, with this amount of content, Accel builds expertise for questions potential clients are actually asking, rather than just surface-level keywords. They answer questions like, “can I receive alimony in Georgetown”, rather than just “Austin area Divorce Attorney near me.”
Law Firm Social Media Management
Accel also helps your firm manage the promotion of its content—not just the creation. They will build a schedule, create content, and help you post consistently to your social media platforms. This social media management means that your law firm interacts with potential clients regularly and stays on top of mind.
Video Interview
Take a look at the video below where Zack and Accel Marketing Solutions president, Elliot Stern, discuss what makes his company stand out.
Tabs3Pay Provides Compliant ePayments for Trust Accounts
Trust accounting seems pretty straightforward: keep money that isn’t yours in a separate account. But not so fast! As your practice and number of clients grows, trust accounting is not as simple as it seems. You’ll have to navigate jurisdictional rules while dealing with banks and credit card processors that know nothing about those rules. You’ll also have to manage the ledgers, accounting, payments, and balances for each client’s trust accounts. Tabs3 Trust Accounting Software manages trust accounts for your clients accurately and easily.
Why Use Dedicated Software for Trust Accounting?
To effectively manage trust accounts, you need something beyond just using an Excel sheet. And switching between multiple programs isn’t an option either, unless you want to spend hours each week making sure your books are balanced. A better solution is to have a single software that can streamline trust account management and scale with your practice. You’ll want something with safeguards in place to give you peace of mind over trust transactions. This is where having dedicated software comes in.
Having dedicated software for trust accounting doesn’t just help you stay compliant with your jurisdiction’s rules. It also simplifies your accounting workflow, so you know exactly what to do and when to do it. These days, most trust accounting software is bundled in with other legal software as a suite of services. All of this is intended to help reduce the number of hours attorneys spend on administrative tasks. While many law firm software options say they have trust accounting features, they may not go far enough to reduce accounting headaches. Ideally, trust accounting should offer features that allow you to easily have an overview of where your firm stands with your trust accounts. It should also make managing incoming and outgoing payments from those accounts easy and help you stay compliant. This is something the Tabs3 suite of software and Tabs3Pay does and more.
Manage Trust Account Payments with a Click
Tabs3 gives you a quick overview of where your trust accounts stand. It lets you know what you need to do at just a glance. When viewing a client’s account, you’ll immediately see the trust account balances. Tabs3 will also let you know when those balances are getting low. You’ll be able to set recommended amounts for trust accounts and get a warning when you’re at or below a certain level. And if you’re below that level? Simply click a link to generate a trust request to email to your client. The email will come directly from your law firm’s email address, and it will have a custom payment link for clients to pay securely via credit card, ACH, or debit card. Tabs3’s trust account features turn a complicated and time-consuming part of your practice into a streamlined solution.
Make it Easier for Clients to Pay
Emailing a custom payment link to clients isn’t limited to trust accounts. Anytime you send out invoices, you can generate an email invoice with a unique payment button for paying accounts receivable or depositing into a trust account. This ensures the funds will never go into the wrong account, helping you stay compliant. And, all processing fees come out of your operating account, even if a client pays into trust.
You’ll also be able to set up default hourly billing rates or charge contingency, flat fee, or retainers. No matter the charge, clients will receive clear, detailed invoices from your firm, so they’ll always know what they’re paying. Clients will even be able to pay through Tabs3Pay’s secure portal. This means you don’t have to manually enter information when clients pay their bills. Moving towards online invoices and payments brings you one step closer to a paperless firm. You’ll have fewer accounting errors, receive payments faster, and clients will feel confident that their payment information is kept safe.
Easily Accept (Credit Card) Payments
As mentioned above, Tabs3Pay allows attorneys to accept credit card payments from MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Discover, Diner’s Club, and JCB. This makes life easier for clients (over 70% of adults own credit cards!) and helps your firm get paid sooner. And, better yet, you’ll collect a higher percentage of your billable work than firms that don’t accept credit cards. Still, many attorneys may not want to accept credit cards as payments because of the associated processing fees.
For attorneys that want to accept credit card payments but don’t want the fee, Tabs3Pay gives the option to attorneys to surcharge those costs in client invoicing. Surcharging allows you to pass the cost of processing fees to the cardholder as a separate line item on invoices.
You’ll also have the option to accept payment from clients via debit card or ACH eCheck transactions. Clients will be able to pay through their checking or savings account, giving them more options and control over their payments.
Demo Video
Tabs3 recently gave us a demo of Tabs3Pay and how its features make trust account payment a breeze. Take a look at the video below to see a walkthrough they provided our Legal Tech Advisor, Zack Glaser.
How to Get It
If your law firm wants to learn more about Tabs3Pay or the Tabs3 suite of software to help make your practice management more efficient, contact them at tabs3.com to schedule a free personalized demo or sign-up for a free trial.
PracticePanther Text Message Payments Offer Clients Another Way to Pay
Adding to its growing list of native must-have features, PracticePanther has now released PantherPay. This fully integrated ePayments platform obviates the need for a software integration and streamlines the entire client payment process. Now, you can use PracticePanther to accept electronic payments by text messages to your clients.
PracticePanther Features
PantherPay
PantherPayments is an internal ePayment platform that works directly in PracticePanther. With it, your firm can accept Credit Cards, Debit Cards, and ACH transactions. Additionally, you can connect multiple bank accounts. And, since they are familiar with law firm accounting, transaction fees will never be debited from your Trust Account.
Universal Payment Links
Although you can easily send invoices specifically to your clients, PantherPayments allows users to set up a universal payment link. Firms can attach this link to any invoice or put it directly on their website to accept ePayments more easily. To allow for more control, users can create a number of these links for specific purposes—so you can keep Trust Account payments separate from Operations.
Accept Payments by Text Message
Since PantherPayments is an internal platform, law firms can easily accept payments by text message. Just use PracticePanther’s text message feature and attach a universal link or an invoice so your client can pay directly from their phone.
Demo Video
How to Get It
Want to learn more? Visit our full review of PracticePanther. There, you can compare features, read community comments, and watch additional demo videos. Or, if you’d like to jump right in, get a demo or a free trial at PracticePanther.com.
TimeSolv Saves Hours with Advanced Billing Features
Timekeeping and billing can be a huge time commitment for solo practitioners and law firms alike, which is why we recommend using timekeeping software to help make those processes more streamlined. And while timekeeping software can save hours of administrative work, there are always ways to make your time in that sphere more efficient. Utilizing features like speech-to-text, paperless pre-billing, split-billing, invoice automation, expense tracking, and a client portal not only cuts down on time spent on these tasks, but also helps keep your billing manager happy. Even if that’s you, who wouldn’t want features to make life easier?
TimeSolv Features for Advanced Billing
Speech-to-Text
Most people can speak faster than they can type, which makes it all the more helpful when you can dictate your time without having to type. When recording your time, rather than typing “phone call with client,” which leaves out a lot of detail, you can dictate to your timekeeping software, “had a phone call with a client where we discussed next steps and approach on [insert discussion item relating to matter].” Speech to text helps you be more specific in how your time was spent without needing to spend that much time to do it and can give your eyes some screen reprieve during your day.
Paperless Pre-Billing
Pre-billing, while important, can be an extremely time-consuming process, especially for firms that still do this process manually and paper-based. First, the draft bills need to be printed, then routed to the reviewing attorney, then the attorney’s notes need to be deciphered, the bills changed, and so on. This is a cumbersome process and can also introduce potential privacy complications. Going paperless with pre-billing allows firms to save paper, review bills and make edits more quickly, and better ensure the clients’ privacy.
Split Billing
If you’re working on a matter where you need to split your invoice ten different ways, needing to make a single edit or correct a single mistake can send you back to square one. But, if your timekeeping software has a sophisticated split billing feature, making edits is only a matter of a few clicks. With a true split billing feature, you could split invoices by hours, amounts, or split hours, then calculate amounts for each client (which is especially helpful if you have set rates for different clients). And if you’ve made an error while splitting, you can unsplit to make corrections, then split again. This feature can be a huge time-saver, especially if you’re splitting a matter between dozens of clients.
Invoice Automation
Generating invoices may require calculating your time or rate differently for each client or matter, printing out the invoice(s) in different formats, creating invoices individually, sorting invoices by the attorney, etc. With an invoice automation feature, you’ll be able to set-it-and-forget-it just the one time or create invoice narratives, depending on the type of invoice, on the matter, client or firm level, then generate hundreds of invoices specific to attorneys or clients or matters with just a matter of clicks. Then, you can download in single or multiple files for pre-billing, filing, printing out or emailing to clients, or whatever else you need. Invoice automation helps create a better overall billing process for your firm.
Expense Tracking
In addition to tracking billable, non-billable, and no-charge time, your timekeeping software should also be able to track expenses. Attorneys should look for timekeeping software that allows them to set up recurring expenses on matters, upload receipts, attach those receipts to invoices, and monitor those expenses through reports or dashboard view.
Client Portal
Once invoices are sent, clients need to pay. Having a client portal makes it easier for clients to view details on the work your firm has done for them, which means saving time on responding to routine questions on billing. Your clients should be able to create an account to view their balance, old invoices, attached expense receipts, work in progress, and even pay their bills through the client portal. Client portals are a great self-service way to interact with clients to offer a polished, secure, and professional experience.
How TimeSolv Can Help Your Firm Save Time
Saving time is not just about having features like the above. You want a robust and powerful timekeeping software that allows you to input granular detail on the client, matter, and timekeeping level whether you’re offline, on-the-go, or in the office, add your firm’s customizations and logos, apply interest, have built-in trust accounting, be able to generate different invoice formats (hello LEDES!), and run business intelligence reports and analyses to see how your firm’s time is spent, among other things.
Keeping track of all these items can quickly become complex, but TimeSolv makes it easy. With impressive and powerful features, like the ones mentioned above, add-ons, a user-friendly dashboard, and integrations with other software like Microsoft 365, Xero, and DropBox, TimeSolv is arguably one the most comprehensive cloud-based timekeeping and billing software out there.
Signing up for TimeSolv not only gives you access to a functional and powerful software, but you also get a personal account manager. In addition to having access to TimeSolv’s support team, vast resources, and training sessions, you’ll also have a dedicated person to help guide your through integrating and migrating your firm’s historic data from whatever system you’re currently using to TimeSolv, help you input your firm’s abbreviations, logos, and current invoices, and help you get your account set-up so you’re ready to go from day one.
Demo Video
The team at TimeSolv recently gave us a demo of their timekeeping software, its features, and how it can save law firms hours. Take a look at the video below to see a walkthrough they provided our Legal Tech Advisor, Zack Glaser.
How to Get It
If your law firm wants to learn more about TimeSolv, contact them attimesolv.com and get a free personalized demo. You can also sign-up for a 30-day free trial: no credit card needed.
Want to learn more about TimeSolv? Check out our full review, where you can see a features list, other demo videos, and community comments. Remember that Lawyerist readers get an affinity benefit through the review page.
PR Agencies Can Help Promote and Protect Law Firm Brands
Like any other PR, law firm PR is about building authority and visibility for your practice. Whether you use an agency or handle it in-house, Postali’s Tamara Sykes says you need to create a solid public relations foundation and then make a plan to manage and maintain your efforts.
Previously, Tamara walked us through laying a solid foundation with a healthy website, up-to-date social media, and good branding. However, once done, your office or an agency should consistently manage your law firm PR.
Managing Law Firm PR
Setting Clear Goals and Objectives
As with most endeavors, the first step is to set clear goals and objectives. Although the larger goal—which you should definitely start with—is usually to get more clients in the door, most of us should start with the buyer’s journey. What are our ideal clients looking for, and where are they looking?
Promote and Protect your Brand
Next, your law firm will need to make a plan around these goals. Look to promote and protect your brand—yes, protect your brand. Although most of us think of PR as selling, it’s really about storytelling and connecting with our audience (i.e., your potential clients). Promoting your brand is about finding where your audience is and talking to them in that channel (or channels).
In much the same way, protecting your brand is also about connecting with your audience. It’s just focused more on making sure you’re mitigating or minimizing things that might tarnish your brand. And, yes, this means scouring Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other media outlets for mentions of your brand, your employees, or even your clients.
Consistently Execute
Lastly, law firm PR is a long game. This is why agencies or a dedicated in-house team can be so helpful. Unlike advertising, PR is not something you can simply put money into and see better results. As Tamara says in the video below, you need to be persistent and resilient. In this space, half efforts are almost as bad as no effort.
Demo Video
Take a look at the video below to hear Postali’s PR Manager, Tamara Sykes, talk to Zack about the steps their agency takes to manage law firm PR.
How to Get It
Want to learn more about how Postali’s marketing agency can help you manage your law firm PR? Check out our full review, where you can compare features, read community reviews, and see other demo videos.Alternatively, if you’re ready to dive right in and connect with Postali, get a free consultation at Postali.com.
Grow Your Firm, Not Your Expenses with GNGF Legal Marketing Academy
Law firm marketing can be confusing to navigate on your own and you likely have questions. Should you focus on search engine optimization or paid ads? Is content marketing worth the effort? What’s a good lead magnet for your ideal client? Full-service marketing agencies can help you with these questions—obviously. But, if your office doesn’t have the resources to hire a third-party marketing firm, you’ll probably want to look into legal marketing education.
To that end, Get Noticed Get Found (GNGF) has a new, in-depth, legal marketing education offering. The Legal Marketing Academy is a resource for attorneys who are keeping their marketing in-house—and generally don’t have the budget to hire an in-house marketing professional. It’s an educational program and a community for law firm marketing. It can help you get started in your marketing journey or keep you moving forward with templates, workbooks, courses, videos, and other DIY resources. They even have weekly live sessions for members.
What is GNGF?
As a full-service marketing agency, GNGF supports lawyers in all aspects of their marketing efforts. They have been assisting the legal industry exclusively for over a decade. Although most of their efforts are focused on one-on-one, comprehensive law firm marketing, their company culture bakes in education.
Why Is Legal Marketing Necessary?
Law firms need clients. And, frankly, clients need law firms. Legal Marketing is about educating specific potential clients about their needs and how your firm can assist them. Essentially, it’s about connecting your firm with potential new clients.
Though, it’s not about the sheer number of potential new clients you can get. Spray-and-pray is not an effective marketing strategy—at least, not for most. Good law firm marketing gets the right people to notice you. And then, obviously, to take action when necessary.
However, this doesn’t generally happen without effort. Law firms need to understand and craft their brand, determine their ideal client, and create resources that connect the two. They may need to build social media campaigns on platforms where their clients focus their attention. And, they likely need to create a nurturing campaign to help their potential clients along their journey.
This wasn’t part of our law school education. So, law firm marketing is usually well outside of a lawyer’s wheelhouse. Regardless, we need to do it—which may mean we have to learn it ourselves.
Legal Marketing Academy
The Legal Marketing Academy is an online educational resource from GNGF. It has a multitude of courses and resources and a community of like-minded attorneys and law firms. It’s a way for law firms who aren’t quite ready for custom, full-service marketing to grow their firms and create a solid foundation for the future. Participating law firms will learn things like how to build and use a lead magnet and how to focus on their ideal client. In addition, all of these things can be accessed via mobile or web applications.
Legal Marketing Educational Resources
GNGF has always been exceptional with its legal marketing educational materials. They speak at conferences and CLEs all over the country, and their website has a tremendous amount of DIY information already. Mark is a host of Your Law Firm is a Business, Take it to the Next Levelpodcast, and they are currently on the fifth edition of their book Online Law Practice Strategies.
With the Legal Marketing Academy, GNGF has taken all of this experience educating lawyers and created new content—including tutorials, workbooks, and templates. Actually, they’ve created quite a lot of new content. Since the beta launch in May of 2021, they have released new tutorials at least weekly.
These tutorials, for their part, are versatile and chock-full of information. Here, users can follow a pre-set path to get started from scratch or pick and choose topics as they see fit. The teams that create bespoke content for GNGF’s one-on-one clients also create these tutorials. Which means, Academy members will work through the same processes GNGF always works through.
As an aid to these tutorials, GNGF has included workbooks that act as specific guides for the lesson. These include helpful information for users, as well as thought-provoking questions that will move your law firm through the course sections. For example, a workbook section might encourage your firm to ask your existing clients five specific questions that will help you narrow down your brand.
Community
In addition to all the coursework and new marketing education materials for law firms, GNGF has also built a community. Not only does each member get access to the GNGF team through the forum and specific office hours, they also get access to each other. Much like other masterminds, members can ask questions to the group and get thoughtful answers, encouragement, or even shared resources from other participants. Each law firm gets two seats with their membership. So, even though it’s DIY, you certainly don’t have to do it alone.
However, this community is broader than just the law firm participants. Since GNGF has been in the legal marketing space for over a decade, they can tap outside resources to bring in for particular situations. Specific questions about building intake systems in Clio Grow may spur a workshop or tutorial from an expert like Melanie Leonard at streamlined.legal, or Lawmatics implementation questions might warrant answers from their CEO, Matt Spiegel.
Take a look at the video below to see Zack’s interview with GNGF’s Founder, Mark Homer. Not only do they discuss what the Legal Marketing Academy has to offer, but you also get a peek under the hood at the mobile application.
How to Get It
Ready to get started? Test drive the Legal Marketing Academy with three free lessons at GNGF, on behalf of Lawyerist. Here, you can get a sample course, download templates for your marketing campaigns, and use their interactive workbook.
Building Thoughtful Media Relationships Helps Law Firms Thrive
At first glance, your law firm’s relationship with the media may not seem very important. After all, your firm is likely trying to stay out of the news—with client confidentiality and all. Yet, free, positive marketing is generally considered good for your firm. Further, being seen as a source for news articles can quickly build your reputation as an expert in your field.
In any case, this doesn’t just happen without effort. Even if you are an expert in your field, it’s hard to get quoted if media personnel can’t find you. There are some basic steps you need to take. Still, for lawyers who can foster their media relationships, an extra area of marketing opens up beyond content marketing, SEO, and ad campaigns.
To clarify, media relations is a specific sub-section of your overall law firm public relations efforts. And, although not every firm has media relations, whether you know it or not, your firm has public relations—some firms just don’t give it any thought. Sponsoring a scholarship to the local university may be great public relations, but getting an article in the paper about the recipient is good media relations. Both of these actions build your firm’s reputation and credibility.
Media Relations in Your Law Firm
Law firm media relations does not exist in a vacuum. It fits inside of your overall marketing strategy to help your firm build its reputation and credibility in your community and your knowledge area. In the grand scheme of your marketing strategy, it is more akin to networking than anything else. It’s about building mutually beneficial relationships between your firm and specific media outlets.
Building Good Relationships
To build these relationships, your law firm should at least have a basic foundation in brand management. As Tamara Sykes, the PR Manager at Postali, says, you’ll need a website, solid branding, and up-to-date social media profiles. This helps to build trust between you and a journalist—or other media professional.
However, those foundations are really just table-stakes. They ensure a partner can find you, contact you, and learn a little about what your firm has to offer. You’ll also want to establish a history of speaking or writing about a relevant subject and show that other people are interested in what you have to say. After all, you need to bring something to this relationship.
A simple way to do this is to develop your voice and grow a following on Twitter. Tamara tells us that journalists and other media professionals are generally frequent users of this space. Not only is it easy for them to research your previous writing, but they can see what kind of following you bring to the relationship.
Of course, this isn’t the only outlet to establish credibility (or lack of credibility, if you’re certain twitter users). In the end, the medium should match your goals. If you want to land the nightly news, you might create content on YouTube. Or, if you want to write guest articles in industry magazines, you may want to write long-form content on a platform like LinkedIn.
Goals of Media Relations
Ultimately, you need to keep your marketing goals in mind. In general, having a Twitter following for snarky fashion commentary won’t land you many more immigration cases. With media relations, speaking engagements, guest blogging, or even acting as a source for an article, the goal is to build your credibility and your firm’s reputation. This can take some time and requires steady effort.
Law Firm Media Relations Professionals
Here’s where media relations professionals come in. Although it is possible to handle these relationships on your own, it is likely not a good use of your time. You see, media relations professionals bring a host of capabilities to the table. Generally, these capabilities include proactive media outreach, media inquiry management, pursuing speaking engagements, cultivating awards and ratings, and—in some cases—crisis management.
Although the ultimate goal is for you or your firm to speak directly with (or write directly for) the partner you are pursuing, this may take some time. Law firm media relations professionals know the ropes. And, there may be some courtesies or conventions your media relations professional can clue you in on.
Getting Started with Media Relations
As Tamara Sykes says in the video below, it doesn’t happen with one phone call or the touch of a button. The process is about cultivating (hopefully) lasting relationships. So, if you want to leverage media relations in your law firm tomorrow, you’ll have to lay the groundwork today. First, if you haven’t already, determine what topic you want to build your reputation around. Then, consider what sort of publications would help you build that reputation (keep in mind where your potential new clients are likely to see you). Finally, get started creating. As you’ll learn in the video below, before you create content for someone else (or even comment on a story), you’ll likely need to create content of your own.
Take a look at the video below to see what Postali’s PR Manager, Tamara Sykes, says about building your reputation with law firm media relations.
How to Get It
Ready to make PR part of your law firm’s marketing strategy? Contact Postali. You can view some of their work, set up a free consultation, or even read a bit of their educational material. However, if you’d rather do a little more digging, head to our full review of Postali. There, you can read user comments, see a list of relevant features, and compare other providers.
Clio Strengthens Integrations with Revamped Outlook Add-on
Clio Manage is rolling out enhancements as it continues to hone its small-firm features. Recently, they’ve rebuilt their Outlook integration from the ground up, added features to their court rules functions, strengthened their Lawyaw connection, and built messaging templates for their online billing. This is not a company resting on its laurels. They’re obviously using feedback from their clients to create a better and better experience.
Clio Features
Clio’s Rebuilt Outlook Integration
Clio’s Outlook integration is faster, intuitive, and should still let you use Outlook as you see fit. The add-in lets you log emails, tasks, and time entries directly to your Clio file with ease. Additionally, the features will indicate emails already filed to Clio, which should save some confusion in multi-person firms. Check out the video below to learn more about these features and others, like time-entry templates.
Clio Court Rules
Clio uses CalendarRules.com as the engine driving their court rules functions. Recently, they purchased the company, bringing this capability directly into the fold. With this tighter relationship comes a greater level of integration and user control.
Lawyaw Integration
Although Clio purchased Lawyaw in 2021, this year continues to see enhancements to the relationship. Not only does Lawyaw offer document automation for Clio users, but they also have robust court forms for eight states (and counting) and the USCIS.
Bill Message Templates
Modern law firms use online billing. However, not all online billing platforms are equal. Clio has been at the forefront of small-firm online billing for quite some time. Recently, they enhanced this functionality by introducing templates for their billing messages. Now, users can create reusable templates—much like their automated documents—to send to their clients along with their eBills.
Demo Video
How to Get It
Ready to learn more? Check out our full review of Clio Manage in our Product Reviews. Here, you can read community comments, compare features, and see other demo videos. If you’re eager to jump in, head to Clio.com and get a free trial or demo.
Rocket Matter’s Business Intelligence Tool Helps Firms Make Data-Driven Decisions
Successful law firms measure their business’s performance—frequently. They determine key performance indicators (KPIs) for their firm, and take action based on what the data tells them. Tools like Rocket Matter’s Business Intelligence software can give a law firm a leg-up on the competition by informing where to spend marketing dollars, when to hire new teammates, or even what type of clients they are more effective at helping.
Why Should Law Firms Run Reports?
At Lawyerist, we believe firmly that running a healthy law firm is a multi-faceted endeavor. You should have healthy finances, healthy clients, a healthy owner, and a healthy team,to name a few aspects. Like anything else, to determine the health of something, you must take a measure of it. What you measure is entirely up to you. Each firm, likely, survives on vastly different numbers. However, it is safe to say some common categories help law firms intelligently measure their business success.
Financial Data
First and foremost, a firm should have a healthy grasp on its financial situation. Firms do this with Profit and Loss statements, aging Accounts Receivable data, and other reports that indicate where firm finances may be going. Many firms are already handling these using their current accounting software. Software like Rocket Matter’s Business Intelligence tool helps to connect this information to other data about your law firm.
Marketing Data
Most firms understand they must do something to bring new clients in the door. Whether it’s sponsoring a little league team, participating in a local club, or buying a billboard on the interstate, you have to take action, and there is a cost to that action. Many firms, however, have no idea just how much they benefit from these efforts.
By tracking things like marketing sources, lead conversion rates, and the average value of certain law firm client types, a business can start to understand the return on their investments. This, in turn, will help manage where future investments should go.
Client Satisfaction
With online reviews playing an important role in attorney selection, client satisfaction should be important to any healthy law firm. This is not to say we simply want to encourage good reviews and hide the bad. We can learn a lot from client feedback. A confusing intake process could turn potential clients off and a complicated payment system could delay revenue.
Other Metrics
We are sure your firm has other metrics by which you measure success. You could be concerned with the average billable hours per user per week. Or, you could look at the time it takes to return a web inquiry from a potential client. You could even measure how many hours your firm typically spends responding to discovery. The point is, there are many indicators of success in your firm, but you’ll never know what they say unless you measure them.
Where do Law Firms Get Data?
Simply understanding that your law firm wants to measure its business intelligently is a significant first step. However, you won’t get anywhere if you don’t have data on which to run these reports. Financial reports are commonly the most familiar to lawyers because firms tend to have accounting software that tracks it. Profit and Loss statements are easy to come by. So, to run reports on other data, your firm must first store the data somewhere.
Although most of this could be tracked using an excel spreadsheet, we generally don’t advise that. A law firm’s information should be tracked with software built to manage that information. For Marketing data, a client relationship manager (CRM) will often store the data you need. Likewise, most accounting software will work for your law firm’s purpose for financial data. Additionally, information about the management of your case files will generally come from law practice management software.
How do Law Firms use Rocket Matter’s Business Intelligence Software?
A truly data-driven law firm will find a way to connect all the disparate pieces of information they track. Some firms use Zapier or Power Automate, while others integrate their platforms using application programming interfaces (APIs). This allows the law firm to run intelligent business reports on information across all business functions. It means KPIs can be more complex and provide better insight.
Because it’s an all-in-one law practice management platform, Rocket Matter’s Business Intelligence tool can retrieve and interact with all aspects of your law firm—without integrations. This sets it apart from other business reporting tools for law firms. With it, a firm can track marketing efforts, intake funnels, client value, and billable hours all in one report.
Beyond the information that comes standard in Rocket Matter’s platform, the Business Intelligence tool gains a lot of value from a law firm’s custom fields. Rocket Matter allows users to add custom fields on both the Matter level and the Client level. Importantly, the Business Intelligence tool can connect with these fields when building and running custom reports. This means any piece of data you want to track in your matter or for your clients, you add it as a custom field, and you can start filtering, sorting, and tracking it in a custom-built report.
Although the Business Intelligence tool comes with some standard popular reports, most law firms will want to build custom reports themselves. Fortunately, you won’t need a data science degree to create these reports. Yes, there will likely be some learning curve, but the platform feels similar to the reporting tools in Hubspot, Zen Desk, or other platforms attorneys are familiar with.
Demo Video
The product team at Rocket Matter recently gave us a tour of their business intelligence tool for law firms. Take a look at the video below to see a walkthrough they provided our Legal Tech Advisor, Zack Glaser.
How to Get It
If your law firm wants to learn more about Rocket Matter’s Business Intelligence software, contact them at RocketMatter.com and get a free demo and trial account.
Want to learn more about Rocket Matter’s other features? Check out our full review, where you can see a features list, other demo videos, and community comments. Remember that Lawyerist readers get an affinity benefit through the review page.
LawPay ClientCredit Simplifies Client Payments With Buy Now, Pay Later Options
LawPay has just announced LawPay ClientCredit to help law firms get paid faster while still offering client flexibility. This feature rolls out in full force in mid-April but is currently in beta for existing and new users.
In the meantime, LawPay has extended its universal payment link functionality to include QR Codes. They also implemented their Card Vault functionality to streamline client payments.
LawPay ClientCredit
Although your firm may want to allow clients to pay in installments, your business may not be able to afford this courtesy. LawPay now offers ClientCredit, where you can get paid today, while your clients can pay through installments.
Through LawPay’s partnership with Affirm, your client can easily obtain financing while paying your invoice. This may be the difference between using your services and going elsewhere.
Although they don’t officially roll out ClientCredit until mid-April, existing and new users can use it in beta mode right now.
Universal Payment QR Codes
LawPay has had universal payment links for quite some time. This is where firms place a link on their invoices, emails, or even text messages, and clients are directed to a general online payment page.
Now, LawPay has integrated QR Codes into this functionality. In addition to these universal payment links, law firms can have their clients use QR codes to access those universal payment pages. This benefits those using their mobile phones to access the universal payment link.
Safely Save Credit Card Information
Since clients don’t generally pay in one single invoice, LawPay has made it simple for them to save their payment information safely and securely. Through Card Vault, LawPay allows you to safely keep client card information on file, while remaining PCI compliant. So, each time your clients need to pay an invoice, they can simply click “pay” instead of re-entering their information.
Take a look at the demo below to learn more about Client Credit from LawPay.
How to Get It
Want to learn more? Check out our full review of LawPay, including community comments, features, FAQs, and more demos.Ready to contact LawPay directly, request a free demo from them over at LawPay.com.
LEAP Legal has been working on mirroring their web platform in their mobile app. This way, you can access just as much information on the go as you can in your office. The app works on Android, and iOS devices, so you can use it on pretty much any device.
LEAP Legal Mobile App
Since it’s working to mirror the functionality of the web platform, the mobile app allows you to get a lot done. You can correspond with clients, manage and create documents, review and create financial entries, and even track time and miscellaneous fees.
If you use the LEAP mobile app to initiate calls to your clients, you can track the duration of the call and even make adjustments as you see fit. The call will originate from your cell phone. So, there are no extra applications to install.
LEAP’s mobile app also integrates tightly with the Microsoft 365 apps on your phone (as well as others). You can view, edit, and even create documents right from your mobile device. Better yet, the documents automatically sync to the LEAP database.
Your office can also see, adjust, and create financial entries from the LEAP mobile app. So, the next time you are going to court, you can easily input your expenses and make sure you’re tracking the checks you write outside of the platform.
Check out the video below to see LEAP’s mobile app in action.
How to Get It
Eager to learn more? Check out our full review of LEAP. While you’re there, you can read about more features, user reviews, and compare it to other products. Don’t forget, Lawyerist subscribers get a discounted Affinity Benefit.Want to skip the line and dive right in? Get a free demo at LEAP.us.
POSH in-App Calls and Text Keeps Personal Cells Phones Personal
POSH virtual answering service helps you manage the incoming phone calls for your law office. This is typical of a virtual receptionist provider. Now, however, they also help you make calls and send texts from your mobile phone without giving up your privacy.
POSH Mobile App for Law Office Answering Services
First and foremost, the POSH mobile app lets you manage your law office’s virtual receptionist (VR) service from your phone. You can let the VRs know you are available for phone calls, you can check messages, and change incoming call management. These are all things you can do from the web app as well.
For those who like to answer their business phones while in the office yet have them managed while out and about, POSH makes it effortless. You can easily control when to forward calls to the virtual receptionists. It’s as simple as clicking a button in the app. The “On” button sends the calls to the POSH VRs, while “Off” lets you take calls in your office normally.
More than managing your incoming calls, though, the mobile app lets you make outbound calls and text messages. These communications will be sent from your business line, not your mobile number. So, your clients benefit from communicating with you more directly, but they don’t get your personal number.
Check out the video below for more information on call forwarding.
How to Get It
Ready to learn more, check out our full review of POSH Virtual Receptionists. Here, you can read about more features of law office answering services, user reviews, and comparisons to other products. Don’t forget that Lawyerist subscribers get a discounted Affinity Benefit.
Are you ready to dive right in? Connect with POSH directly and get a free trial at https://posh.com.
Law Ruler Saves Time on Legal Intake through Automation, Integrations, and Reporting
Law firms looking to expand and grow or implement automated legal intake systems would benefit from incorporating a client relationship manager (CRM) into their tech stack. CRM software, like Law Ruler, assists in tracking your interactions with current, prospective, and past clients. It can reduce the amount of effort your firm spends on potential new clients (PNCs). And, good CRMs will help you track the return on your marketing investments.
Law Ruler, specifically, helps law firms in three distinct ways. They have:
Robust integrations and an open API (for non-native integrations).
Numerous methods of automating your workflows within the system.
Built-in, powerful reporting functionality.
Integrate With Other Software
Offices save time when they reduce double-entry of information. In fact, it’s one of the simplest ways to improve efficiency. And, since the intake process consequently gathers a lot of information, CRMs are a great place to begin reducing the number of times your office has to touch information.
By integrating your CRM with applications like your Law Practice Management Software (LPMS), you reduce the number of times your office needs to enter client information, as well as the amount of opportunities you have to mistype or make other mistakes. Because of this, Law Ruler has deep integrations with some of its partners—including Rocket Matter, TimeSolv, and CosmoLex. Additionally, their open API allows any other platform with the appropriate credentials to connect to information stored in Law Ruler.
Automated Legal Intake
As most firms know, automating repetitive tasks in their offices can quickly increase productivity. It can also reduce headaches and simple mistakes. To this end, Law Ruler has multiple areas that allow for automation.
First, their intake forms allow for conditional logic throughout the process. This means that once your office sets up it’s legal intake, certain decisions can be automated based on answers the PNC provides in the form. Most offices find that this means they can weed out clients who are not a good fit well before the consultation stage.
Additionally, Law Ruler has a comprehensive integration with HelloSign. The integration makes it possible to track the status of your contracts inside the Law Ruler application. This means you can see the status of each contract while it’s out for signature. After signing, each contract is sent directly into the document management area.
More than anything, though, workflow automation is where law firms will find the largest productivity increase. Law Ruler allows users to create tasks in workflow templates. These tasks can be dependent on each other, or the entire workflow can be dependent on a status change. This means that each different matter may have a distinct set of tasks based on actions taken by the PNC.
Use Reports to Make Smart Decisions
Law firms who track the value of their marketing and intake efforts can spend their dollars more wisely. Specifically, firms that can hone in on their best lead sources will be able to spend less time sorting through PNCs who are not a good fit. Beyond this, recognizing where your firm is going wrong (or right) in its lead conversions can help get the most out of the sources you are using. And lastly, tracking your return on investment (ROI) by assigning a value to each matter you have closed will assist your office in determining what marketing efforts are worth investment.
None of the above is possible without capturing the appropriate information and structuring it so users can get to it and compare specific data points to each other. Not only does Law Ruler have the built-in reports listed above, but it also allows for users to create custom reports to visualize a whole host of data your firm is tracking.
How to Get It
If you’d like to learn more about Law Ruler, just visit them at www.lawruler.com where you can schedule a demo for yourself and get ideas on how they can help you automate your legal client intake.
eDiscovery is no longer novel. You may not be eFiling in your jurisdiction, but the exchange of evidence, and the information likely to lead to evidence, is done primarily in digital format. In fact, the majority of evidence, at this point, never actually took physical form. Photos of accident scenes, text messages between landlord and tenant, and the opposing party’s bank statements have spent their entire lifecycle in digital form. Built with blockchain technology and military grade encryption, AXEL Go helps lawyers collect, store, and share these files securely. Now, AXEL Go has launched a new feature: metadata preservation when collecting files.
You see, all of this digital information comes loaded with its own cache of information about it—or metadata. This metadata tells us a lot about a document, a photo, a scan, a voicemail, or any other digital file. It can help authenticate a piece of evidence or even just give us more information to work with.
For some time now, lawyers should have been paying attention to metadata, although many haven’t. This is because the tools to preserve this information properly have classically been too expensive to obtain for day-to-day matters. So, many lawyers have not only been sharing files in an insecure way (read: unencrypted email) but have also been doing so in a way that could lead to spoliation. For example, if the question of when a document was last accessed is at issue, and you change that information during the discovery process, your argument may be negatively affected.
Secure Fetch File Sharing from AXEL Go
Since the introduction of Secure Fetch in 2020, AXEL Go has included a method for securely collecting files. Secure Fetch, as the name suggests, allows users to send a link to a third party in order to collect files. When the third-party clicks the link, they are sent to a secure webpage and prompted to upload their files. They do not need an AXEL Go account to send files back, and once the files are uploaded, they are encrypted and sharded during transfer and the file requestor is notified when the transfer is complete.
With the Secure Fetch’s new metadata preservation feature, AXEL Go is a defensible and easy-to-use option to collect evidence from clients while preserving crucial metadata. For smaller document collections and loose files, AXEL Go eliminates the need for costly forensic examiners
Importance of Metadata
The second issue lawyers tend to have when sharing, storing, or accumulating files for discovery is that it is easy to inadvertently change the metadata on a file in the process. By opening a file using MS Word, the lawyer may change the “last updated,” “last accessed,” or possibly more. This same idea goes for images, audio files, PDF files, and any other piece of digital evidence.
In modern litigation, though not always at issue, it isn’t uncommon for metadata to be used to prove a critical fact that the metadata speaks to. For instance, the creation date could play a large part in an intellectual property matter, or the date a file was last accessed may go to notice or potentially start a Statute of Limitations. If this metadata is not preserved, whether intentional or through neglect, it could negatively impact how your side can use the evidence.
AXEL Go File Sharing Preserves Metadata
Although metadata preservation is not uncommon in large eDiscovery cases, AXEL Go makes it more accessible for day-to-day matters. With the launch of this feature in Secure Fetch, lawyers don’t necessarily need a forensics expert to help them marshal smaller document collections.
When fetching data from another party, preserving the metadata is as easy as checking a box. When this happens, not only is the metadata preserved, but you get a verified certificate of those files with their metadata. Technically, you get MD5, SHA1, and SHA3-512 hash values of the files. This means you can easily compare the files to find potential changes..
In order to confirm the defensibility of Secure Fetch in AXEL Go, AXEL enlisted Rob Hook to test and verify the tool’s ability to preserve metadata. Rob has extensive experience in computer science, electronics, and the litigation environment with unique capabilities related to collection, investigation, and other forensic offerings. He has personally performed over 1000 collections. In the following video, Rob sat down with our Legal Tech Advisor, Zack, to discuss the importance of the new feature.
How to Get It
To learn more about secure file sharing with AXEL Go, visit get.axel.org/lawyerist. There, you can learn about their military-grade security, along with storage, fetch, and obviously, metadata preservation.
MyCase Accounting and Online Client Payment Solutions Lead New Features
MyCase, an all-in-one law practice management solution, is constantly growing and adding new features. Since MyCase acquired Soluno, CASEpeer, and Woodpecker last year, we expect some specific growth in their already robust functionality. In this Featured Product Update, we’re looking at MyCase Accounting, Universal Payment Links, and their recent integration with MailChimp.
MyCase Built-in Accounting
As expected after they acquired Soluno, MyCase has now incorporated a complete accounting system into their platform. This will centralize the law firm’s finances and allow for greater control and reporting. Although, they still have an integration with Quickbooks for those firms who are not ready to move just yet.
MyCase Universal Payment Link
By now, it’s clear that the easier you make it for your clients to pay their invoices, the more revenue you will collect. With that in mind, MyCase has added a Universal Payment Link feature to their accounting and finance functionality. You can place the link on your website, invoices, or in a text message so your clients can make an ePayment from just about anywhere.
MailChimp Integration
As an all-in-one platform, MyCase has a built-in client relationship manager (CRM). CRMs facilitate ongoing contact with current and potential new clients. Now, users can seamlessly run their email campaigns from that CRM with the new integration with MailChimp.
Check out the video below to see more on MyCase accounting and their universal payment link.
How to Get it
Ready to learn more? Head over to our full MyCase software review. There, you can see more features, compare other products, and read customer reviews.
Postali Marketing Services Builds PR Foundations for Law Firms
To many, public relations (PR) sounds like something only large law firms need to worry about, or maybe firms who have an image they need to repair. In reality, though, it’s something you already do at your practice—just not necessarily with intention. Postali would like to help you change that, to help you become more intentional with your law firm’s PR.
You see, you’re already speaking at events, meeting people at your social organizations, and sponsoring little league baseball teams. You may be posting about this on your social media or writing blog posts on your website. Postali will tell you that this is all PR for your law firm, and, it’s good for your practice—but you need a plan. The first step to the plan is laying your foundation.
Initial Foundation for Law Firm Public Relations
First, you can’t do anything without a basic (or, hopefully, solid) firm website. This is where you get to speak to potential clients and other members of the public on your terms. Many times, it’s the place where you will ultimately direct people to learn more about your law firm.
Second, you’ll want good branding. This means logos, letterhead, firm colors, and even (gasp!) a firm font (e.g., Matthew Butterick’s Typography for Lawyers). As far as law firm PR goes, branding is also about the tone your website, and other publications take when presenting information.
Last, you’ll need social media profiles, and they need to be updated regularly. If your last Instagram post is from two presidents ago, you might as well not have an account. You don’t need to use a platform that doesn’t fit your branding or doesn’t speak to your audience. Still, potential clients see your social posts, or—and this may be more important—they don’t.
Check out our interview with Tamara, from Postali, to learn more about how you can get started managing your law firm’s public relations.
How to Get it
Want to learn more about Postali? Check out our full review and see how their features stack up against other law firm marketing providers. Don’t forget, Lawyerist subscribers can claim an Affinity Benefit discount on Postali’s review page.If you’re ready to connect with Postali directly, head on over to their site at www.Postali.com and get a free consultation.
NetDocuments Helps Firms Organize, Collaborate, and Manage Legal Documents
Many legal technology companies (and other business productivity apps, for that matter) require you to use their product a single way—their way. You get shoehorned into their workflows, their dashboards, and their reports. NetDocuments, the legal document management platform, meets you where you work. Likely due to their experience in the industry, they allow many different approaches to accessing and using your documents. Whether you’re interacting with the dashboard, searching for a file, delivering, editing, assembling, or simply communicating about a document, you can approach the task the way you want to.
NetDocuments Dashboard
Initially, when you connect with NetDocuments through the web portal, you’ll see a dashboard with all of the quick links you need to operate your day. You can see your frequently accessed reports, your most recent documents, and other favorited items that you want to get to quickly. This dashboard can be personalized to fit your needs by you or others on your team—who you give access to your dashboard. You can easily organize, share, and collaborate, all using your specific dashboard.
Searching for Documents
Obviously, your dashboard isn’t the only way to access documents in your system. NetDocuments also has a global search feature that not only searches information about files, but also information inside of files. The platform performs optical character recognition (OCR) on each document uploaded into the system. Which allows users to essentially ‘shop’ for documents based on their contents.
Delivering Documents to Others
Ultimately, in most cases, a document you’re working on needs to be sent to another party—a client, a team member, or an opposing attorney. With NetDocuments, you can deliver them for Consumption, with a link, for Execution, via DocuSign, or Collaboration through their Collab Spaces. Each of these methods provides high levels of control to the user and extended functionality that lawyers often need—like receipt notification.
Editing Documents
Although storage, retrieval, and delivery of documents are vitally important to a law office, creating and editing documents is usually the heart and soul of legal work. So, NetDocuments has integrated their document management functionality directly into Microsoft Word. This allows you to work locally, and save globally, by checking out documents from the repository, and then saving them directly back into NetDocuments from your local Word app. This also allows for stellar version control.
For those looking for collaboration instead of versioning, however, NetDocuments has also integrated with Microsoft 365. Using the document editor online allows you to access a file with multiple users simultaneously. This may not be your cup of tea, but it is another way NetDocuments allows users to approach their data in whatever way they are most comfortable.
Document Assembly
NetDocuments doesn’t just assume that its users will need to deliver single documents in Word format. After all, it’s a legal document management platform. Using their Setbuilder function, users can assemble large PDFs for delivery to other parties. These documents can be easily bates-stamped, indexed, and turned into a PDF-A document. Additionally, you can customize the document and make it appear the way that you prefer (i.e., numbered sections rather than Roman numerals).
Communication
Whether we like it or not, many of us live in our email system. We’ve created complex filing methods in our local Outlook app, and our day is directed by reminders and tasks built into that system. NetDocuments has built its Outlook email integration with these lawyers in mind. Most of the document management functionality you can find on the webapp also lives inside Outlook. Filing emails and incoming files, and even attaching documents to outgoing messages, are seamlessly integrated into NetDocuments.
If you’d like to learn more, take a look at Zack’s recent demo with NetDocuments. You can see all the above features, and more, in action.
How to Get It
Ready to learn more? Head over to NetDocuments.com to see their solutions, resources, and even an ROI calculator.
