The Importance of Being Able to Read Your Clouds

February 18, 2021

Right now there is a flood of private equity flowing into ‘cloud’ providers, especially law practice management clouds. As a result there is an overabundance of online advertisements.

Whether you are a pilot, sailor or business owner it is important to know how to read your clouds, because not all clouds are the same.

In the photo one of the two cloud types is telling you that there is an approaching weather front, 300 miles away and in which direction.  I know that because my Navy pilot brother shared that knowledge years ago. Some simple rules of the road can be very beneficial.

When I see the word ‘cloud’ used in legal tech promotions it drives me little crazy.  My point is, decision makers need to understand the differences of varying types of cloud options.

The category of Online Forms is one good example.  Online forms are not ‘exclusive’ legal technology. In fact the most capable online forms are not made available from legal tech vendors.

Of course, most any online forms options from a law tech vendor can capture the contact information of a new lead. The fact they integrate to their exclusive, made for purpose legal billing is an advantage..

However, If you need best in category form features for a comprehensive intake, then one cloud option choice will work and another may well not. 

Case in Point
Our estate planning law firm clients want a better soluttion for client intake. Better for their law firm and their clients.  Furthermore, a firm with a vision of offering a yearly client care program will certainly need the best in class features found only in dedicated online forms systems.

In fact we have found more options such asintegration with both Zapier and MS Power Automate which opens a whloe new ‘dataverse’ of options for automated workflow.      

The surprise is the dedicated online vendor has greater scale and their pricing is lower for the more advanced online forms.  

Just as the utility company says ‘call before you dig’, I say ‘know before you go’ to the cloud.  

To learn more start here

 

Premier News – NAELA Summit – Newport Beach CA (near Balboa Island)

February 3, 2015

Thanks to all who visited with us in Newport Beach during the NAELA Summit.
Joan and I certainly enjoyed speaking with you.

The LCPLFA members were hosts for a great party Friday evening on the bay across from Balboa Island. You and the So. Cal community certainly know how to live large.NAELA Summit - Balboa Island - Newport Beach CA

Michael J Millonig, CELA, Dayton, Ohio was the winner of Premier’s full sponsorship to the next NAELA conference.

To Recap:  

Premier featured Wealthdata, our Estates and Elder Law Practice System for Time Matters. This is now used nationally by several hundred leading law firms.

New at the Summit was our SafelyFiled/SafelyMD offering. Safely Filed is a secure, online file storage and sharing system.  Safely/MD  is an extremely cost effective, law firm branded, client emergency ID card with online access to emergency data and healthcare documents.

Premier has offered SOS for the five over years, a managed Small Office Server.  Premier is Now also offering SOS virtually.  We call this SOS-Cloud.  It may include all of your essential applications – Time Matters, MS Office, PCLaw, Adobe Acrobat/Reader, Hot Docs, and more.

MTM is Managing with Time Matters, our training forum with four live training classes every month for a flat charge per user or per firm.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us with any question you may have.

Tom Caffrey
Premier Software
www.premiersoftware.com

Webinars:

Monday, Feb 9th  Noon ET  Getting the Most from Time Matters;  Plus 30 Tips in 30 Minutes

Thursday Feb 12th 4pm ET   SafelyFiled/SafelyMD                                                                                                               

To Register:
Tel  (856) 429-3010
Email tcaffrey@premiersoftware.com
Web form. http://premiersoftware.com/dashboard/contact-usask-a-question/

It’s About…Quality of Design, Not ‘The Cloud’ vs ‘Non-Cloud’

June 17, 2014

It doesn’t matter if your software is on-site or on-line if you don’t have the tools you need when you need them.  I suspect that the term ‘The Cloud’ is taken by many to mean that all of your technology problems will be precluded or magically solved and eliminated. Any system might have the tools but just as likely may not.

Don’t be fooled. It is not a given that a  ‘Cloud’ type system automatically equates to comprehensive, well designed software.

Case in Point: Users will make mistakes in any system.

Therefore, it is important to have tools and support to quickly find and resolve problems. Otherwise confidence in the accuracy your systems data is lost.

Do you know if your software has an accessible audit log of all record changes?
And an audit tab in each record of changes?
And a system deleted items/recycle bin?
And system archived records area?
And a global search feature?

Consider the following example that just occurred with our client and their practice management software1.

Our client reports ‘The matter record disappeared’ They were knowledgeable enough to check the systems recycle bin for deleted items. But the matter was not to be found.
Oh No.

What to do…
There were other tools available. The global search feature and the archived records feature. I logged in on-line to their system, ran a search for the matter # across all records – not there. Oh No.

I then ran a search for the client name – found it 10 times in ten matters, (firm opened a matter once for each year that work was done… but  apparently not for this year.)
I looked at the ‘audit’ tab for matter record the 04xxxx matter record an found that user xyz changed the matter number from 14xxx to 04xxx.  Mystery Solved!

These tools are typical of the quality of design items an experienced user or consultant will intuitively look for.  Sooner or later an issue will arise.  Check now so you’ll know you have the tools you’ll need … make sure you have a quality system.

1 Score one for Time Matters.