Making Practice Management Work for Your Firm
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Jeffrey S. Krause, Esq.
Introduction
Practice management software has the capability to transform the way you work. The right system can add significant efficiencies to your firm but the wrong one can bog you down in useless data entry and busy work. A successful practice management implementation is one that takes the unique needs of your firm into account and strikes a balance between data collection, use of advanced features, and ease of use. Unfortunately, most commercial practice management systems are not capable of striking this balance. Either they provide excessive, unnecessary detail, or inadequate customization specific to your firm.
Time Matters® is a notable exception to the limitations of many other practice management systems. It allows firms to customize the program to their specific needs and gives them the option to use as much or as little of the program as is necessary to meet their specific practice management goals. This paper will focus on some of the basic principles of customizing Time Matters within your firm.
Hide What You Don’t Need
Once you have installed your new practice management system, it may sound strange but one of the first things I recommend is that you turn some features off. Any new software system, especially one with the so many bells and whistles as a practice management system, can be intimidating to new users. In addition, there are many parts of the program that you may use in the future but are not part of the initial deployment and training. Why confuse and distract your users by having all of these fields visible and available at the beginning?
In Time Matters, for example, there are at least three areas that you can customize to streamline the interface and make it easier for new users to begin using the program.
Classification Codes
Time Matters uses a classification code system to specifically categorize each record. For example, Matter types are categorized by practice areas such as personal injury, bankruptcy, divorce, etc. The default settings for the program include over twenty-five matter types. One of the first things you can do is delete the codes that you will not be using. This makes it much easier for your staff to locate and select the codes you do need.
Classification Codes can be added, changed or deleted in the interface found at File, Setup, Codes, Classification Codes. While you are cleaning up the Matter codes, do the same for all of the other record types like Events, ToDos, Contacts, etc.
Turn Off Unneeded Features
Programs that think of everything are wonderful but sometimes you need to focus your use of a program to those features that are critical and turn off features that are not. This is not to say that you will never use these features. It simply means that you are not going to use them during the initial practice management implementation. For example, if your initial rollout consists of customizing the program and teaching your staff to use the calendar, contacts, matter and document management parts of your practice management system, you might want to temporarily disable some of the other features.
Time Matters gives you more flexibility than most programs in this regard. In Time Matters, you can turn off many features if you choose not to use them. The interface to do this is found at File, Setup, General, Program Level – Lists. Simply uncheck the different record types that you will not be using.
Hide Unused Fields
Almost every practice management system allows you to customize data fields to your specific needs. Some, like PracticeMaster, require you to turn on the fields to even see them. Others, like Time Matters, show the customizable fields by default as “Custom.” If your practice management system shows fields that you will not be using, turn them off to hide them from view. This will make using the program much less confusing to new users and prevent them from putting incorrect data into these fields.
Go one step further and name fields that you are not going to use with something that designates them as unused. Some possible names are “NotUsed” or “nu.” A number like “1” would also work. This makes it easy to identify these fields and unused for purposes of reports and document assembly later.
In Time Matters, field level customization is done by right clicking on any field and selecting Customize Field. To hide fields, select Hidden as the data type. Rename the fields by completing the fields at the top of the field customization form.
Note: You might want to hide unwanted fields while you are Customizing for Your Firm by Practice Area (see below) or after you have completed your initial practice area customization.
Customize for Your Firm by Practice Area
Now that you have removed the things you don’t need, it is time to start making your new practice management system work for you. This is done by customizing specific screens and forms to hold the data necessary for your particular firm. Almost every practice management system allows you to do this on your own. However, you may want to consider the suggestions in the final section of this paper entitled “Three Ways to Customize.”
Before you dive in and start customizing, take some time to think about what you need. Many firms make the mistake of customizing without any thought or planning. Unfortunately, the result is often a mishmash of fields that are, at best, unorganized and, at worst, unusable. In planning fields there are four categories of information to consider. There is some overlap, but in general these categories are:
Intake Data – Intake data is data that you gather at the beginning of every engagement from every client. It includes information such as name, address, email, etc. Most practice management systems already include most of this contact data. However, you will most likely have to customize a few fields to hold information that is unique to your firm. For example, how did the client hear about your firm?
Practice Area Data – Practice Area data is unique to each practice area. For example, a personal injury case has a statute of limitations date while an estate planning matter does not. You need to consider the different pieces of data that you must keep track of for each practice area. Think about the people involved in each type of case (Opposing Counsel, Insurance Adjuster, etc.), the critical dates (SOL Date, Trial Date, etc.) and the file information (Court Case Number, Real Estate Tax ID, etc.).
Document Automation Data – Document automation data is data that will be used to fill in documents. You may have no other reason to track this data but it is critical for saving time while generating documents. For example, if you need to generate a caption for your personal injury case, do you have a place in your practice management software to pull that information from? Even if document automation is something you will be doing later, you want to think about it in the beginning so that you can save room and reserve some fields for this purpose.
Reporting Data – Reporting data is data that you specifically want to include on reports. Some, but not all, reporting data will overlap your other data types. For example, a report of upcoming statutes of limitation will be easy because that field is already one of your practice area data fields. On the other hand, some reporting fields may need to be added. Responsible attorney, referral data, file open date are examples of data that you might want to see on a report but does not fall under any other category.
Begin to customize fields only after you have a plan for doing so.
A final thought on practice area customization. Do not customize each practice area in a vacuum. If you work in multiple practice areas, perform similar customizations for each one. This may sound counter intuitive as they are clearly different. However, when you think about it, each practice area has contacts, dates and file information. At the very least, consistently group this kind of data on your different practice area forms. This way, your staff will always know that people can be found in a certain location, dates in another, etc.
For an example of this, please see the next page, which shows examples of practice area customization for personal injury and estate planning in Time Matters. You will notice that contacts, dates and file information are grouped in the same general area on each form.
Automate Your Practice
Automating commonly performed tasks is one area in which your practice management system can pay huge dividends. There are certain tasks that you perform every day and adding a practice management system may add a few more to your list. To you, these tasks are routine and you probably do not think about how often you perform them or how much time you spend on each one. However, recapturing time wasted on these tasks is a productivity goldmine.
Consider the process of opening a file. You need to gather information from the client, enter it into your practice management system, generate an engagement letter, calendar a number of items, create a paper file, etc. This entire process may take you a half hour. What if you could use your practice management system to generate the engagement letter and create the calendar items? While this is only two of the steps I have listed, automating these tasks might trim as much as ten minutes off the time you spend on file opening. Now multiply that by the number of files you open in a day, week, month or year and you begin to see the potential.
There are a great many tasks that can be automated and your practice management system can save you time on most of these tasks. Document generation and calendar updates are only two examples.
Every practice management system is different with regard to automation features. In Time Matters, the place to start automating is AutoEntry Forms, Triggers and Formattable Clipboards.
Three Ways to Customize
Hopefully, you are beginning to see the benefits of a customized practice management system. If you are ready to start, you should know that there are three ways to do it. These three methods balance the two costs you have to consider – Time and Money.
Do It Yourself – Almost every practice management system allows the end user to make modifications and customizations. Some are easier and more flexible to others. The only cost here is your time. Just keep in mind that you will have to learn the program, learn the customization features, perform the customizations and (probably) spend time fixing mistakes that you did not realize you were making the first time you customized. Many firms customize their practice management system on their own so this is not intended to discourage you. It is simply a reminder that, if you decide to do your own customization, you may spend much more time than you originally anticipated. Your time is what you sell and time spent customizing your practice management system is time you cannot spend billing.
Pay Someone to Do It – The other extreme is to pay someone to customize your practice management system from scratch. Obviously, the cost is mostly money plus a little bit of your time. There are experts all over the country who can help you do all of the customizations talked about in this paper. This tends to be the most expensive option but your system will be up and running in less time and be customized specifically to your firm by someone who is experienced and knowledgeable about the software. In the long run, this probably saves you money because the efficiencies of your new practice management system are in place faster and are done right the first time.
Buy a Pre-Packaged Solution and Make Minor Modifications – With some practice management systems, Time Matters and PracticeMaster in particular, it is possible to buy a practice area solution that contains 75% or more of the necessary customizations. Purchasing such a solution generally costs less than having a consultant create a solution from scratch. It also provides a great head start. Now, you can invest a little of your time to tweak the solution or pay a consultant a smaller amount to do the same. The money saved can be spent on training your staff to correctly use your new software.
About the Author
Jeffrey S. Krause is a Wisconsin attorney and is the owner and founder of Krause Practice Management, LLC, a consultation firm that provides technology advice and service to law firms of all sizes, with a focus on the efficient use of technology in the law office.
Mr. Krause is a Certified Independent Consultant (CIC) for the popular Time Matters Business and Practice Management software as well as Billing Matters, HotDocs and PCLaw. He has worked with Time Matters through its last nine versions and has assisted hundreds of law firms during his ten years as a CIC. He also assists law firms with many other popular products including TABS3, Worldox, digital dictation and scanning solutions.
Mr. Krause is a frequent author and speaker on legal technology subjects. His Practice Management Blog (http://blog.krausepm.com) cover subjects ranging from law firm marketing to product tips and tricks.
LexisNexis is a registered trademark of Reed Elsevier Properties, Inc., used under license. Time Matters, Billing Matters and HotDocs are registered trademarks and PCLaw is a trademark of LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All other software are registered trademarks held by their respective companies. All Rights Reserved.
Disclaimer. Please note that the author is the co-developer of a series of pre-packaged solutions for Time Matters. Information on these packages can be found at http://www.ipassoc.com. The author is also a Certified Independent Consultant for Time Matters and PCLaw as well as an Authorized Reseller for PracticeMaster.
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