Reviews of Adobe Sign, Rukovoditel, Everything, Dictate Pro

Friday, September 21, 2018

Today's issue of TL Serendipity contains these articles:

Harold Dye, Review of Adobe Sign

Joni Mueller, Review of Rukovoditel

Miriam Jacobson, Review of Everything

Erica Todd, Review of Dictate Pro

Don't miss this issue — or any future issues.

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Our most serendipitous offering (hence its name), TL Serendipity consists of contributions by TechnoLawyer members who have important information to share. You'll no doubt enjoy it because of its mix of interesting topics and genuinely useful knowledge, including brutally honest product reviews and informative how-tos. The TL Serendipity newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

How to Make Your Paragraphs More Persuasive Plus 40 More Must-Reads

Thursday, September 20, 2018

Coming today to LitigationWorld: Our editorial team has selected and linked to 41 articles from the past two weeks worthy of your attention. Below you'll find a sample article from each section of today's issue, including our LitigationWorld Pick of the Week.

A Primer on Litigation Finance

Study Says Casetext Beats LexisNexis for Research, but LexisNexis Calls Foul

Ayfie Unloads New Ediscovery Program With Linguistic Context Expertise

On-Premise vs. Cloud Considerations for Ediscovery

Congratulations to Joseph Regalia of Appellate Advocacy Blog on winning our LitigationWorld Pick of the Week award: The Pitfalls and Power of the Paragraph

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All practice areas evolve, but none faster than litigation. Written by successful litigators and other litigation experts, LitigationWorld provides you with practical tips related to electronic discovery, depositions, litigation strategy, litigation technology, and trial presentations. You'll also receive in-depth litigation product reviews as well as links to the most noteworthy articles in other online litigation publications so that you'll never miss anything. The LitigationWorld newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Five Tips for Using Freelance Attorneys Plus 56 More Must-Reads

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Coming today to SmallLaw: Our editorial team has selected and linked to the 57 best articles, podcasts, and videos from the past week worthy of your attention. Below you'll find a sampling from today's issue, including our SmallLaw Pick of the Week. SmallLaw is free so don't miss the next issue — sign up now.

Congratulations to Dan Lear and Kristin Tyler of Law Practice Today on winning our SmallLaw Pick of the Week award: Five Tips for Using Freelance Attorneys

10 Ways to Differentiate Your Firm (If You're Brave)

How to Tell if You're Delegating Too Much and What to Do About It

Eight Ways to Engage on LinkedIn to Boost Your PR and Marketing Efforts

Top 15 Digital Marketing Tools for Content Marketing

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Small law firm, big dreams. Written by successful small-firm founders, managing partners, administrators, and legal technology and practice management experts, SmallLaw provides practical advice on management, marketing, and technology issues in solo practices and small law firms. Additionally, SmallLaw features comprehensive reviews of legal products with accompanying TechnoScore ratings. SmallLaw also ensures that you won't miss anything published elsewhere by linking to helpful articles, podcasts, and videos about solo practices and small law firms. Subscribe now for free.

Men and Women Rate Biglaw Firms Differently Plus Lateral Moves and Promotions (Sept 10 to Sep 16)

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Coming today to BiglawWorld: Our editorial team has assembled links to all the partner promotions and lateral moves announced by America's largest law firms during the past week in an easy-to-scan format. You'll also find must-read analysis, rankings, trends, etc. about large law firms.

We'd like to congratulate everyone who leveled up this week. Here's a sampling:

Gordon & Rees: Joseph Kracht Joins Gordon & Rees as Partner in the San Diego Office

Cravath: Katherine B. Forrest, Former U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York, Rejoins Cravath

Covington: Former FTC Commissioner McSweeny Joins Covington

Akerman: Akerman Bolsters Fraud and Recovery Practice With Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Gera Peoples

Jones Day: Jones Day Welcomes M&A Partner Patrick Belville to the Detroit Office

Congratulations to Elizabeth Olson of Big Law Business on winning our BiglawWorld Pick of the Week award: Men, Women Lawyers Look for Different Things in Firms: Survey.

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BiglawWorld keeps you apprised of lateral hires, internal promotions, mergers, new offices, accolades, and other inside baseball at America's largest law firms. Because we organize this self-reported news by practice area and law firm, BiglawWorld takes just a few minutes to scan yet its comprehensiveness makes it the only source you need. Each issue of BiglawWorld also links to insightful articles, statistical reports, rankings, podcasts, and videos about large law firms. Subscribe now for free.

PracticePanther Adapts to and Automates Your Firm's Processes

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers cloud billing and practice management software designed to automate your practice through tags, document assembly, process automation workflows, and third-party integrations (see article below). In addition, you'll find links to the previous 11 TL NewsWire features, including our coverage of backup software that backs up operating systems, files, databases such as Outlook, and cloud storage services such as Dropbox, and which includes ShadowProtect for faster restores, OCR software that automatically finds unsearchable documents in your document management system, Windows PCs, and cloud storage services, and makes them searchable, and much more. Don't miss the next issue.

Because of their internal processes, no two law firms are alike. These processes become the foundation of the firm's culture. New employees experience culture shock until they learn these processes. Likewise, your billing and practice management system will never fit in unless it too can acclimate to your firm's unique set of systems.

PracticePanther … in One Sentence

PracticePanther is a cloud-based billing and practice management system that emphasizes customization and which integrates with dozens of third-party applications for additional flexibility.

The Killer Feature

"Tags are a key PracticePanther differentiator," says Senior Account Executive Sam Alkoubey as he begins my demo. He's referring to the ability to append descriptors to any data in PracticePanther — contacts, events, clients, matters, time entries, prebills, invoices, etc. You can restrict tag creation to administrators to foster consistency and prevent near-duplicates.

Tags enable you to create applications within PracticePanther without any programming skills. For example, you can create a customer relationship management system by creating a set of tags to track contacts as they move from prospect to client. You could then email all prospects who complete an initial consultation within the past month but have not yet signed an engagement letter.

PracticePanther also offers custom fields, which work in conjunction with tags. You can group a set of related custom fields such as for a practice area intake form and associate this group with a tag. Then you could generate a report comparing your firm's practice areas across a range of metrics.

Other Notable Features

CEO David Bitton tells me that PracticePanther has surpassed older rivals in terms of overall functionality. "With contact and matter management, automated time tracking and invoice generation, document and workflow generation, email and calendar sync, and countless more sophisticated features, we are proud to offer the highest-rated and most intuitive law practice management software that is used in over 170 countries worldwide," says Bitton.

PracticePanther has a main dashboard as well as dashboards for each major function. From the main dashboard, you can access each of these functions, including an internal messaging system. Additionally, this dashboard lists your firm's overall financials if you have access rights, your billable time and targets, and recent activity in your matters. To the right are active timers and the ability to start new ones.

The billing system accommodates all business models — hourly, flat, contingency, and even subscription (recurring payments). You can set rates by timekeeper and matter, use UTBMS task codes, customize invoice templates with your logo and terms, enter multiple time entries simultaneously, edit prebills on the fly, receive a notification when clients view an invoice, and accept payment by e-check and credit card via LawPay. PracticePanther includes both trust and general ledger accounting, and also offers QuickBooks integration.

Other features include a list view for the calendar and color-coded events, integration with Box and Dropbox for document management, document assembly that takes advantage of custom fields, automated workflows that consist of dependent tasks triggered by preceding tasks or date calculations, dozens of reports ranging from incomplete tasks to origination of matters, and a client portal with support for web forms.

What Else Should You Know?

PracticePanther runs in all major web browsers. You can also use the free iOS and Android apps. Choose from three plans — Solo, Essential, or Business — that cost $39, $59, or $79 per month respectively with an annual commitment. Learn more about PracticePanther.

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So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.