Law Office Technology

All About Time and Fees in PCLaw

Quick Timer

The Quick Timer can also be accessed from the windows menu. You can open up the quick timer without opening PCLaw, but you still have to log in. To be honest the Quick Timer is quite pointless, and we usual deleting it from the menu. It is the same as the Time Sheet, except harder to use, you can only see one entry at a time and cannot easily jump back and forth between entries.

If you Delay Post in the Quick Timer:

It will show up in the Time Sheets as delayed post

It you have your Time Sheet opened when you delay post, you will have delay post your Time Sheet to see that entry.

Fee Sheet

Fee Sheets are just like the Time Sheet, except there is no place for Hours. There for, the Fee Sheet is perfect for contingency cases and anything with a fixed fee.

Time Sheet is one of the best features of PCLaw. You can use the Timer, to record the exact time of each entry or you can manually override them. When you click ok, the Time Entries are posted to the matter and ledger. You can edit and find your time entries by either going to the Matter Manager and clicking on the Time Tab or going to the Register and clicking on the Time Tab.

Delay Post

You might not be ready to post all your time entries yet. Delay Post, saves the Time Sheet so when you open it again, all the time entries are still there.

Time Sheet Settings

System Settings

· Options –>  System Settings –>  Data Entry will give you options to set the firm wide minimum time entry. You can override this by typing your entry in. It will also give you the option to save time in minutes instead of 10ths of the hour.

· Options –> System Settings –>  Data Entry will also allow you to Hold Charges. If you check this off, the next time you log into pclaw, your will have this at the end of your time sheets:

Work Station Settings

Default to will allow us to choose what Lawyer to automatically always default to. If we uncheck Allow only one timer. We can run multiple time entries in PCLaw. That may be a bad idea.

Uncheck Carry Matter Nickname Forward on Time Sheet is a good policy to set. When you create your next time Entry, the Matter Knick Name will be blank instead of being filled out.

Spell Check

If you check Automatic on OK then when you attempt to Post your time entries, PCLaw will spell check them. I would have this checked for all my users.

Lagniappe

Calendar

Even if you are not using PCLaw for Practice Management, you still want to enable the Calendar. On TimeSheets, at the bottom, you click on Calendar.

Look at all the information you get

· Running Talley of Billable Work with a $ Value for the month

· Running Talley of Non Billable Work

· Days with no Time Highlighted in Red

· Easy way to see all the Time Entries

Automatic Matter Numbering in PCLaw

PCLaw lets you automatically number Matters by Client or by Firm. 

Automatic Matter Numbering By Client

In the Example above we assigned the Client a Number of 0001 and the Matter a number of 0001-001.   The Next Matter shown below will have a Client ID of 0002 and a Matter ID of 0002-001.  PCLaw increased the Client ID by 1 increment and also increased the Matter ID by 1 increment. 

,

Now what happens if we leave automatic numbering by client on but introduce Alpha Characters instead of just Numeric. 

We will leave the Client ID as 0001 but we will put in BayerCraig as the Matter ID.  The next Client ID is 0002, which is an increase of 1 and the Matter ID is still 0002-001.  As show in the image below, PCLaw completely ignored the previous Matter ID.  Therefore, if you want to use Alpha characters as the Matter ID,  PCLaw will ignore them and replace the next matter id with numeric characters.  This can be problematic when linking to a practice management software like Amicus Attorney, because the Matter ID will be grayed out with a numeric number already in place and you will not have the option to replace it.  To fix this, change PCLaw Automatic Numbering to By Matter.  It will still increase the Client ID while leaving the Matter ID Blank. 

 

Automatic Numbering by Matter

In the Matter above, we used 09-0001 as the Matter ID and 001 as the Client ID.  The next Matter we create, as seen in the example below, will have the Matter ID of 09-0002, an increase as 1 and the Client ID of 002, an increase of 1.

Now, lets look at the same example, but lets introduce Alpha Characters.  In the example below we will use the Matter ID of 09-0001 but the Client ID of BayCra. 

When we go to create the next Matter,  PCLaw will increase the Matter ID by 1 and will leave the Client ID  blank. 

 

In our experience, it seems that firms have more success when they set PCLaw to Automatic Numbering by Matter.  For the Client they use Alpha Characters and for the Matter they just use a sequential number.  For 2008,  there first matter would be 08-0001 and at the start of 2009 they would start all over again to 09-0001.

Automatically Create Disbursements at Billing

PCLaw allows you to automatically create a disbursement at billing.  If you want to charge a client a one time File Setup Fee, this would be a great place to do it.

In the Matter Manager, Go to the Billing Tab

Your Options are to Create this one time, Every time you create a bill, or a percent of Fees.  Most Firms use a One Time Amount.

What G/L Account to Use?

G/L Account for Cash:  5010 Client Disb Expense

GL Account for Modified Cash / Accrual: 5210 Client Disb Clearing

Now you could also create your own expense account to track this separately

Advice for using Hosted Exchange

I have been getting a lot of questions about Hosted Exchange recently.  Law Office Technology has been using it for over a year and selling and setting it for client sites for the past 6 months.  If you are going to use hosted exchange, I recommend buying it from a company that does not force you to enter in your email password every time you open up Outlook.  I had a client that purchased hosted exchange that did that, and every time they opened Amicus, it would crash outlook.  Fortunately the hosted exchange that we resell does not ask you for the username or password when you log into outlook.  If you are linking ay product with outlook, whether it be PCLaw, Amicus, TimeMatters, Worldox, ect, you must make sure that you do not have to enter in your password every time. 

Terrorism could have wiped out all the TimeMatters and PCLaw Consultants in the country

I was in Dallas this week for the LexisNexis Practice Management Conference.  On Thursday, a suspected Terrorist drove a 2001 Ford Explorer into the basement of the Fountain Place building with a bomb inside similar to the one used in Oklahoma city.  He then left the building and dialed a cell phone which he hoped would blow up the bomb. 

Meanwhile most of the PCLaw and TimeMatters consultants were getting certified for the products new versions in the South Tower of the Fairmont Hotel, including yours truly.  Luckily for us,  the FBI had the suspected terrorist in their sites,  and they sold him a fake bomb, kind of like Doc Brown from Back to the Future. 

If not for that hard work of the FBI, who would be able to do verify data integrity anymore? 

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/092409dnmetbombarrest.1b177db8b.html

Lexis is Combining Client Development and U.S. Practice Management businesses

LexisNexis Combines Units to Service The Business of Law

LexisNexis is bringing its Client Development and U.S. Practice Management businesses together under a single leader, Phil Livingston. As you may know, Phil joined LexisNexis in May as Senior Vice President and head of our Practice Management business. Combining the teams under Phil’s leadership will enable us to better understand and address the business needs of our customers – the “Business of Law”. It will also allow us to create a center of excellence for the development of software within the LexisNexis organization.

“This combination of businesses demonstrates LexisNexis’s commitment to help solve the business challenges of law firms,” said Phil Livingston. “Customers want their problems to be solved in a holistic way and this move better positions us to do this by leveraging our market leading assets in each area. On the Client Development side, our Lawyers.com business is a leader in marketing services, website construction and lead generation for small law. In the Practice Management portfolio, PCLaw™ is the market leader in legal, accounting and billing applications.”

The Practice Management business will continue to serve its customer base and work with the CIC channel, with no changes to its management team. Our vision remains unchanged – to transform the business of law. By taking the headache out of the business of law, LexisNexis helps legal professionals focus practicing law. Customers are at the core of our strategy.  We are focused on gaining a deep understanding of customer needs and workflows and building world class products to address those needs in addition to continually developing products like PCLaw™, the award-winning, number one legal billing and accounting solution in North America, and Time Matters^®, our Client & Matter Management software which has won Legal Technology Awards year after year.
We look forward to continuing to work with you, our valued partners, in serving the needs of our mutual customers.

I do not have a lot of clients using PCLaw to track what aspects of their marketing is most effective, so maybe there will be some improvements in this area.  I will probably learn more as I head to Dallas on Monday for the LexisNexis Practice Management Conference.

PCLaw 10: New Features

New Features

• Schedule automatic backup during non-work or off-peak times
• Track physical closed files and documents in safe custody at your firm
• Gain advanced management tools, including an SQL database*, extended productivity reports and more!

Discover easier ways to manage firm finances with these flexible enhancements:

• Courtesy discount and fee change tools
• Three trust-retainer threshold choices for replenishment reminders
• More flexible time tracking and time entry ranking
• Expanded rate exception capabilities
• Additional billing and usability enhancements

Amicus and PCLaw 10 Link issues

PCLaw 10 is out and the good folks at Gavel and Gown have updated 2 possible issues with the link.  This should be a  moot point for Lawot clients, because we always wait 3 months to after a new version comes out, right?

Issue #21166: Upon initialization of the link, some Billing Rate Values for Amicus Timekeepers mapped to PCLaw Lawyers will not synchronize from Amicus to PCLaw. Note: This issue does not occur for Rate Categories that ship by default with PCLaw.

Issue #21167: Upon initialization of the link, Rate Values for any Amicus Activity Codes and Task-Based Billing Task Codes mapped to PCLaw Task Codes will not synchronize from Amicus to PCLaw. This issue also occurs when adding a new Amicus Billing Rate to PCLaw (as a Rate Category) via the link wizard.

PCLaw 10: Safe Custody Manager

PCLaw 10 New Feature

PCLaw’s physical closed file management system, Safe Custody, allows you to track your physical client items and records such as wills, deeds, bonds, and closed files easily.   

 

Store and maintain details regarding any property you hold on behalf of your client. Create a new Safe Custody record, identify the record type (i.e., will, lease, etc.), create your own custom packets (i.e. physical reference such as a specific box, file cabinet, etc.), and add locations for where property could be stored.

The Custody Listing is a new report corresponding to the Safe Custody feature for physical file management.  It displays all movements, packets, and records you have created using the Safe Custody Manager.

Enabling Safe Custody

From the Options menu, select System Settings.

Click the Front Office tab.

 

Restart PCLaw

RULE 1.15. SAFEKEEPING PROPERTY b

A lawyer may deposit the lawyer’s own funds in a client trust account for the sole purpose of paying bank service charges on that account or obtaining a waiver of those charges, but only in an amount necessary for that purpose.

There is no way to record bank fees in PCLaw and there should not be.  I have dealt with enough Law Firm’s in Louisiana to know that their are plenty of banks that do not charge bank fees on trust accounts.  If yours does, find a new bank.