The first Service Pack for Amicus 2008PE has been released. I have it live in one office and it is blazing fast. I also noticed that the integration of email between Amicus and Outlook is a lot faster. The Service Pack is around 400mb and is very simple to install. It is a requirement for anyone who plans on using Amicus Mobile which should start shipping next week.
Purchase Amicus Attorney 2008 Small Firm Edition Today and SAVE 15 %
Amicus Attorney 2008 Small Firm Edition is designed specifically for solo practitioners
and small law firms of up to 10 users. It includes all of the core functionality legal
professionals need - Calendar, Files, To Do's, Contacts, Communications, Time and much
more - all integrated and sharing information. Incredibly easy to use, the Small Firm Edition
is everything a solo or small law firm needs to power their practice.
• Manage appointments, tasks, deadlines and more
• Work better as a team - eliminate duplicated efforts by sharing information
• Reduce risk - deadline tracking, conflicts checking and more
• Plus much more...
• Organize your practice - keep track of all of the information in your practice
• Capture all of your billable time and increase your billable hours
• Easily manage your communication - email, phone calls and messages
Streamline your practice with Amicus Attorney Small Firm Edition
Here is the deal. It only works with Windows Mobile Devices, not with Blackberry's or Palm Based Devices, It is updated real time by a connection to your Firm's Amicus Server so you will not have to sync your device. It cost $149.00 a user.
You can view all your files on your phone
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After a phone call on your mobile, Amicus will ask if you would like to record the Phone Call and if you want to create a time entry:
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Check out these links for a full list of features:
You can grant specific Firm Members access to your Office as a Guest Assistant or a Guest Colleague. For example, you could assign a Guest Colleague to cover your work while you are on vacation.
Guest Assistants and Guest Colleagues have limited rights while in someone else's Office. By default, a Guest Assistant has more rights than a Guest Colleague. Their permissions are determined by the "Guest Assistant" and "Guest Colleague" Security Profiles, which may be customized by your Amicus Administrator. The default data rules and Profile settings are summarized below.
| Area | Guest Assistant | Guest Colleague |
| Access Control | Access to Amicus functions is restricted by the Guest's own Administrator and Librarian Designations, the Owner's Timekeeper Designation, and the "Guest Assistant" Security Profile. | Same as Guest Assistant, except that the "Guest Colleague" Security Profile is applied. |
| Office | Cannot access Preferences. (The Guest's own My Application, Document Management, and Document Assembly preferences are applied, but all other preferences are those of the Office Owner.) | Preferences: same as Guest Assistant. |
| Favorites | Unavailable | Unavailable |
| Files | Can view the Office Owner's Files, and edit as the Guest. | Can view the Office Owner's Files, and edit as the Guest. Cannot delete Files. |
| People | Can view the Office Owner's Contacts, and edit as the Guest | Can view the Office Owner's Contacts, and edit as the Guest, except for Contacts who are both assigned to a "Personal" Group and not associated with any Files that the Guest is assigned to. Cannot delete Contacts. |
| Time | Can view, edit, and post the Office Owner's Time Entries in the Time module and the My Time view of Files. In edited Time Entries, the Guest is marked as the person who last edited the Time Entry. | Cannot access the Time module or the Office Owner's Time Entries. |
| Calendar | Can view the Office Owner's Calendar, including the Owner's Diary and Personal Events. | Can access the Office Owner's Calendar, including the Owner's Diary. |
| Tasks | Can view the Office Owner's To Do's, including the Owner's Personal To Do's. | Can access the Office Owner's Tasks. |
| Comm | Can access the Office Owner's Communications in the Communications module and the My Communications view of Files and Contacts. | Same as Guest Assistant, except that cannot access the Communications module and cannot edit the Office Owner's Phone Calls and Messages. |
| Library | Can view the Office Owner's Library, including Personal Library Pages, and edit as the Guest. | Same as Guest Assistant. |
| Dailies | Can access the Office Owner's Dailies. | Same as Guest Assistant. |
| Notes | Can access the Office Owner's associated Notes in various modules, but cannot access the Notes module. | Same as Guest Assistant. |
| Search | Can use, add, and edit the Office Owner's Search Definitions. Searches are performed on the Owner's data. | Same as Guest Assistant, except that Time Searches are performed on the Guest's Time Entries. |
| Documents | The Office Owner's Documents are listed in the My Documents view of Files and Contacts. The Guest's own Document Management preferences are applied. | Same as Guest Assistant. |
| Document Assembly | Can generate documents using the Office Owner's Document Templates. The Guest's own Document Assembly preferences are applied. | Same as Guest Assistant. |
A Guest Assistant or Guest Colleague may see and edit only the Restricted records that both they and the Firm Member have Restriction viewing and editing rights to. For more information, see Setting record access restrictions.
A Guest Assistant or Guest Colleague may access a Firm Member's Office even if that Firm Member's Access Class is "Former Firm Member".
I was asked today what the link between Amicus Attorney 2008 PE and Worldox GX is like. First off, it is much better then the Amicus V series / Worldox link. Their is some setup at the admin level. Once that it done your users will click on the Documents Tab on the Amicus Brad
When they do, Amicus will query Worldox to do a search based on the client and matter id of that file and bring up the results in Worldox.
If you create a new client / matter in Amicus, the message below will show up and ask you if you would like to create the client and matter id in Worldox. It is pretty easy to use.
You have two options when using the accounting exchange. You can create matters in Amicus Attorney and exchange them into PCLaw.
When you create the file, Amicus will use the automatic numbering in PCLaw if the feature is turned on. If not, you can manually type in the client and matter id.
Disadvantage: You will then need to open up PCLaw and setup your billing settings.
You can also create Matters in PCLaw and then exchange them in Amicus.
In Files in Amicus go to Actions --> Accounting Exchange
Disadvantage: The files will only be assigned to the responsible attorney and no one else. You will need to open the responsible attorney's office, open up the file and then assign them to everyone.
I have been back from the Amicus consultant conference in Toronto for about two weeks and have been doing a lot of Amicus 2008 Premium. A lot means:
As some of you might know Amicus X and Amicus 7 were not the easiest programs to install and support. Lots of written off hours and some unhappy clients. I have stuck with Amicus for so long because hands down it is the most intuitive piece of legal practice management software out there. Law Firms have high turn over and it is not practically to spend 8 hours which each new staff member on how to use one piece of software. Most legal staff can get the core concepts of Amicus with an hour or two of instruction.
These 2008 installs went very smoothly. Warning: This is my experience in a two week period, so my frame of reference is not that great.
PCLaw Link: Very easy for me to setup. Pretty much followed the instructions and it worked perfectly. I remember Amicus 7 being a pain in the neck.
Outlook, Contact Calendar Task Link: Had a lot of problems initializing it. Once I got it working, no issues. My problems dealt with Vista and a user who had Calendar entries with descriptions that read like novels. With the help of tech support, I fixed these issues. None of my consultant friends have any issues with this link, just me.
Speed: Pretty good, nothing like the lags in X or 7.
Stability: Great. The only time Amicus crashed was when I was importing 10,000 contacts into the system on 3 different machines at the same time, which I should not have been doing anyway.
Email: Easy to setup and maintain. No issues.
Document Generation: No Problem.
The Library: Come on, no one uses the library! Actually, Our firm does use it to store menus of restaurants near the office.
SQL: To me, this is the big time saver. It is very easy to go into the actually database and make changes firm wide without having to go to each user's workstation. It was impossible to do this with the old Amicus Database
I once described Amicus 7 to a consultant friend as the really hot girl that you start going out with and think she is really cool and then suddenly discover she is completely unstable. (Caveat Lector, I somehow always date this girl, so I always use her in analogies). Amicus 2008 Premium is the hot girl you start dating and suddenly realize that it is time to take her home to mom, quit playing the field and make the investment for the long hall. Software divorces are pretty messy, especially with children involved, so I don't make this statement lightly.
Before I install Amicus 2008 Premium at a firm, the staff and I spend a lot of time planning and running pilot programs. This is not software you just decide to buy and install on the same day. Spend the time getting everything ready.
Not be a complete brown nosier, but I would also cut Gavel and Gown some slack for Amicus X and Amicus 7. Microsoft spends more on R&D then most nations GDP and they have put out some less then stable software like Windows ME. (I can't say Vista because all my experiences have been pretty good)
Microsoft Outlook 2002 (XP), 2003, or 2007
Microsoft® Office 2000, 2002 (XP), 2003, or 2007*, or Corel® WordPerfect® 10, 11, 12, or X3
Microsoft Word 2000, 2002 (XP), 2003, or 2007* - Corel WordPerfect 10, 11, 12, or X3
In my opinion these are pretty reasonable. Office 2000 is over eight years old. So is WordPerfect 9.
Here are several things I have learned
Actually this message sits behind an Amicus Window. You just have to wait it out. The task manger is not that reliable for this, so again wait it out. If you break it down into 1000's it should not take over an hour.
I am doing my first Amicus 2008 Premium install this week. It has been extremely easy setting up the link to PCLaw. It only took me about 20min where the Amicus 2007 would take me four hours. Anyway I have been trying to import 5500 contacts into Amicus and the import has been crapping out on me. Was getting pretty frustrated until I decided to save the contacts in a tab delimited file instead of a csv. Once I did this the import worked like a charm.
