Law Office Technology

New Practice Management Implementation Sheet

Created this Practice Management Implementation Sheet, that should be could for anyone implementing some practice management software, weather it is TimeMatters, Clio, Practicemaster, Amicus or anything else.

 

https://www.box.net/shared/static/9h06y5vhjc.pdf

Add Outlook Signature to Amicus Premium

 

Go to Communications and go to Actions –> Outlook Email –> Set Outlook Signature

 

This will your outlook signature from Amicus

2nd Annual Louisiana Solo and Small Firm Conference

Many thanks to Adriana Linares who took these pictures of Tom O’Conner and I goofing off in the Amicus Booth.  New Orleans attorney Doug Goff pretended to be interested in Amicus (He has had Amicus for years).  I was lucky to have the wall to projected on, which during the breaks all the exhibitors and I watched march madness.

 

Converting Amicus V to Amicus Premium (SQL Editions) 57%

Just a little FYI when you run the conversion.  Amicus seems to get stuck at 57%.  Just ride it out, it will keep moving again.

A Review of Legal Tech

I was at LegalTech this Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and have several observations: 

• E-Discovery is in trouble.  Most legal shows that I got to, 60-75% of the vendors are E-Discovery firm.  This did some to be the case this year.   I get the sense that a lot of these E-Discovery firms are either going under or getting acquired by larger firms. 
• Mobile if a hot topic.  I worked the Amicus Booth while I was out the show and most people who came up were interested in Amicus Mobile which runs on Blackberry and Windows Mobile.
• Attendance was down around 15% which probably good with this economy.  In my take besides Corporate Law,  most other types of practices are doing well.  Most of the attorneys I met were with firms 50 or less.
• Kobe can shoot.  I got to watch him score 61 points at Madison Square Guardian which is the most points a single player has scored there.
• Twitter is becoming more popular.  I heard a lot of people talking about twitter.  I think that I am going to have to start using twitter more.
• Amicus Accounting has come a long way.  I have not had much experience with the product.  Frankly Law Office Technology has been so busy that we have not had a lot of time to learn new products.  I got to see Amicus Accounting manager George Alves demo the product and I definaltely will start making a more considered effort to become an expert at the product.
• Timeslips does not have a booth at LegalTech.  That is pretty telling to me.  Dump TimeSlips and use PCLaw or Amicus Accounting. 
• Everyone loved my tablet.  Why is there no booth with Tablet PCs.  Tom O’Conner and I were talking about how it is very interesting on that Tablet’s have never taking off in the legal industry.  I will be speaking at the LSBA Solo and Small Firm Conference with James the Tablet Attorney.  Maybe he can shed some light on the subject.
• JetBlue is the best airlines ever.  They arrived a half hour going and coming, have a great selection of snacks, and I got to watch DirectTV.  However I am ticked off that they do not have ABC on DirectTV.  I was planning on watching Lost on my way home. 

Going On and Offline in Amicus Small Firm Edition

If you are a laptop user that has Amicus Attorney Small Firm Edition, V, or V+, you can take your Amicus with you when you leave the office.  While you are at your office, you can go to Office –> Go Offline.   You will have the option of   copying your document templates down for use.  If you do not use Office –> Go Offline and bring your laptop away from the office, you will still be offline.

When you get back to the office you simply choose Go Online and your Amicus Database will sync with the database on your firm’s  server.  If Amicus asks you to, merge all data.  Sometimes this process can take an hour long and Not Responding does not mean that Amicus is not doing anything. 

 

Troubleshooting

Sometimes you cannot go online because Amicus tell you a record is locked or in use by someone.  If that happens, everyone needs to exit Amicus.  Someone at your firm needs to open up Amicus Administrator and go to Users –> Recovery Functions –> Unlock All Data. 

 

After this process runs, you should be able to get back into Amicus and go online. 

AutoDialer in Amicus Attorney

The autodialer is a nice feature in Amicus Attorney Premium Edition.  You need to have a modem on your computer hooked to your phone.  Once you do this in Amicus

 

Preferences –> Communications –> Messages

 

You might have to edit the registry by adding in this key:

 

This key is to be created under HKey Local Machine ... Amicus70 folder and add the following key.

Key                                                 Type                        Default

UseWindowsDialer                        DWORD                1

 

Now when you click on dial in Amicus, it will automatically dial the number for you.

Searching for Files Closed Today in Amicus

This search will not bring up files closed today.

This search will bring up files closed today.

When you mark a file Closed, the date is actually Today and not today’s date. 

Now if I were to make a file closed and then type over today with the date, 11/24/2008, it would show up when I ran a closed date for 11/24/2008.

So if you want to run a search for files Closed today, you need to do this search:

Amicus Premium 2008 SP1 is Here!

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. 

Discount on Amicus for the month of July!

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