practicehacker

Ever feel that if only you had the right tools, backing, money, time, background, education, encouragement and inspiration, you could build a killer app?

I used to think so; especially when I learned about efficient use of widely distributed human resources via frictionless online sharing (a/k/a crowd-sourcing). But like so much of new, new Internet, crowd-sourcing never actually took hold on the ground level where people like me dwell (that is, not in Palo Alto or San Jose). And it never, never penetrated entrenched industries such as law practice.

Then there’s SellanApp, a site that proposes to put the creation, financing, and distribution of mobile apps within the reach of non-techies like me.  Its wonderfully subversive. You might even call it a good way to hack the process of creating apps. And sure it probably won’t work, just as crowd-sourcing failed to catch fire 10 years ago. Then again, it just might.

SellAnApp from NewLogics on Vimeo.

It’s not often that I’m impressed, but I recently came across a SaaS product that had all the usual bells and whistles, as well as something different. ActionStep has what I expect in a practice management app, but instead of focusing on features it organizes everything around goals, objectives, and tasks. This means I can focus on doing my part while everyone else involved in that project is automatically kept informed of my progress and prompted to stay on the same page. Here’s how it works:

1. Choose one of the templates or create your own
2. Designate tasks, decide who should perform them
3. Specify the conditions that will call up those tasks

ActionStep is now ready to spring into action. In addition to launching tasks when the specified condition comes to pass, the program can notify team members of each other’s progress automatically. My favorite feature is the way ActionStep coordinates the whole process by letting me make tasks mandatory or optional, then making them dependent on the completion of prior milestones.  So I define the steps to be followed,  stay informed of everyone’s progress, and prevent anyone from getting around the rules.

For example:

ActionStep’s document automation features let me customize standard intake forms to include the type of matter and prospect contact information.

Once I indicate that the document is finished, my paralegal is prompted automatically to call or e-mail the prospect. ActionStep even auto-generates the e-mail message.

The calendar feature pings me to attend the meeting. Once I indicate the meeting is over, ActionStep automatically bills the time and sends any notes or uploaded documents to my paralegal so she can take the next step.

So far so good. But here’s the real difference between ActionStep and existing systems:

If I indicate the meeting resulted in a hire, then ActionStep adds tasks like creation of physical and electronic files, customization and enclosure of a Retention Letter, and creation and enclosure of an e-mail to the new client.

If I indicate that the meeting did not result in a hiring decision, ActionStep can prompt me to follow up in time or send out a “No Hire” letter.

The system is competitively priced on a subscription basis and you can click here for a free 30 day trial.

P.S. If you try it out, post your impressions in the comments , share them by e-mail, ping me on Twitter, or post on my Facebook wall. I’d like to know what you think. Cheers.

The buggy-whip, stable, leather, tanning, and a hundred other industries became virtually obsolete the day Henry Ford’s first horseless carriages rumbled off the assembly-line. Of course, it was some time before the last industry participants passed away, but the die had been cast. It just took a few years for the news to sink in.

That’s why this piece in the ABA Journal is the most important read of 2011: not because it reveals anything new – God knows we’ve all been told for years that the ship is headed over the falls – but because the authors dispassionately and convincingly document how screwed lawyers are, how we compare to other industries, and why the reckoning that we now face was inevitable.

Turns out the legal industry did not die recently – that happened in the 50′s or 60′s. But its corpse has been carrying on since then like nothing was wrong. That is, until it began to collapse under its own weight. The good news? There’s a fix. The bad news? Law grads for the next 10 years will have to suck it up just like participants in the real estate, mortgage, and financial industries. And most of those new lawyers will never see another boom. Even more ironic is that fact that, for once, they’re not responsible for the fallout. It’s just bad timing.

By the way, anybody know where I can buy a new buggy-whip?

Posted via email from practice (redux)

This recent piece in ComputerWorld highlights the growing interest in hosted Microsoft Exchange. No surprise; but why now? And if you use Hotmail or Gmail, you may even ask why hosted Exchange is worthwhile at all. If so, consider this:

First, hosted Exchange offers full-featured contacts, calendaring, and e-mail in tight integration, just like the Outlook on your desk. Meanwhile, it spares users the typical pain in the ass features of a self-hosted Microsoft product: compatibility issues, upgrades, backup problems, disaster-recovery, smartphone support, spam filtering, patching, etc. In effect, with hosted Exchange you get your own “virtual e-mail server” in a secure, faraway datacenter, but only pay for what you use, usually on a monthly basis. Microsoft has been using this deployment model for some time in the educational market and it has worked.

Second, whereas Microsoft takes a top down approach to security, Google generally works from the bottom up. For instance, Google generally starts with consumer-facing products and scale them upwards until they can work in an enterprise environment. Thus Gmail, Google Calendar, GTalk, and a host of Google consumer toys has been integrated and reborn as Google Apps. Microsoft on the other hand usually starts with enterprise products, makes an obscene amount of money via licensing, and scales down to smaller business and consumers. This was the genesis of Outlook.

Third, consider that the gap between Google Apps and Microsoft Office is getting narrower all the time. And with its Office 365 product Microsoft is blurring the line between it and Google even further. Office 365 retains the look and feel of MS Office, while saving the organization tons of money and virtually eliminating the need for beefed-up IT departments (sorry IT guys).

As with all technology, lawyers are the last to know. Once the cat is out of the bag though, news spreads fast. Your opponents are going to take every advantage they can, so you should too. Ultimately hosted applications such as Exchange and web-based applications like Office 365 and Google Apps are the future. And why not: law firms are about serving clients, not endlessly fiddling with their IT infrastructure.

As most readers know, I write a column for NYC-based TechnoLawyer called SmallLaw (formerly known as, no joke, “Crazy Mazy”). Anyhow, as TechnoLawyer’s intrepid Chicago reporter I’ve written about the ABA TechShow since 2008; and before that for this blog.

Here are the 12 videos we shot at this year’s TechShow. Feel free to subscribe to my YouTube Channel for more legal tech news and check out my TechnoLawyer pieces as well.

• ABA TechShow 2011 on YouTube
• TechnoLawyer Covers TechShow 2011
• TechnoLawyer Covers IgniteLaw 2011