Free Webinar - Cloud Computing for Law Firms

While the underlying concept of cloud computing goes back to the 1960s, the technology has reached new heights in the last few years and has moved into the mainstream for law offices. Today, most lawyers have heard about working in the cloud but few are able to take full advantage of new opportunities. 

Do you understand how cloud computing works, the IT savings you can reap and the productivity advantages it can give your legal practice? Learn how the Cloud can help you be more productive and how you can gain an edge by leveraging cloud technology and maintaining privacy and security.

Cloud Computing for Law Firms

April 03, 2012 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m

Register today.  

In a nutshell, cloud computing delivers collaboration and productivity tools that are stored on remote servers rather than on each of your office computers. 

Is Cloud Computing Right For You?

There are important issues law firms must ask before transferring vital business applications and data to the cloud.

• Since you use more than one software application, will it be necessary to work with many different cloud vendors?
•  In how many places will your data be scattered?
• Will every cloud vendor understand the unique client privacy and security issues applicable to law firms?
• How will you and your staff work together in the cloud?

While cloud computing can help increase office productivity and flexibility, to do so, you need seamless integration of your business applications and data.

 
Find Out How Your Firm Can Leverage Cloud Computing

Here are some webinar highlights. Cloud computing:

• Helps your firm avoid big-ticket items like network upgrades, expensive PCs.
• Gives you the freedom to work from any location where you have an internet connection.
• Allows you and your staff not only to work from multiple devices, i.e. laptop, Mac and iPad, but also enables you to start work on one device, stop, and then switch to a different device and pick up where you left off.
• Eliminates security, virus, spyware and hacker concerns.
• Ensures that your work is always backed up.

Join us for the Tuesday webinar and shed light on cloud computing.

Register today. 

Easy Populating of Real Estate Documents – Real Estate Closing Software

Isn’t it amazing how much repetition is involved in a real estate closing?  Have you ever counted how many times you type the buyer’s name, the seller’s name, their addresses, and the address of the property being transferred?

With Easy Soft “Real Estate Documents” and HUD 1 software, you can dramatically reduce the amount of time required to complete HUD forms and other closing documents, saving time and increasing profitability.  Our legal software has a seriously fast ROI.

With Easy Soft’s suite of legal software for real estate attorneys, as soon as you are hired for a real estate closing, you can begin entering basic data into a single screen.  This essential information will automatically populate identical fields in every document you select.

Easy Soft’s “Real Estate Documents” legal software contains more than 200 documents, from “Letters of Intent to Purchase” to “Escrow Agreements” to “General Durable Power of Attorney.”  Each one of these forms can be edited to your preferences and specifications.  With Easy Soft law office software, you get the benefit of computer automation as a first step and the ability to add your own details and flourishes as the next step.

In addition to easy real estate document preparation, you can preview documents before printing them.  If you notice a data input error, it’s likely that any correction can easily be made in one, central screen.  Our legal software will then repopulate all selected forms with the corrected information.

When you pair Easy Soft’s “Real Estate Documents” with “HUD Settlement Statement Software” you have your hands on a system that is capable of automating every aspect of a real estate closing, whether it’s a house, a condominium, or an inter-spousal transfer.  “Easy HUD” contains all of the HUD forms required to be furnished at a real estate closing, including the HUD 1 form.

Easy Soft’s “HUD Software” also uses database technology to allow you to build a basic information directory.  This feature is particularly useful if you have real estate clients buying and selling multiple properties or being handled by multiple people within the same office.

When you think of the real estate market, think “population.”  But, when you think “populate” forms for the real estate closing, think Easy Soft legal software.

NJ CIS and More - Family Law Software

”NJ CIS.”  Say it fast enough, and it sounds like ”NCIS” of ABC television fame.  It strikes us that, either way, there’s a hefty amount of paperwork involved.

NJ “CIS” refers to the NJ “Case Information Statement,” a mandatory form for all family law actions involving support, alimony, or equitable distribution, even if the divorce is uncontested.  The CIS must also be updated and resubmitted, as appropriate.  It is a document sworn to under penalties of perjury.

CIS NJ is similar to court forms adopted in other states to try to streamline information submitted by both parties and to make it easier for the court to quickly glean key information.

Because CIS NJ is a mandatory form, it is perfect for software automation by the programmers at Easy Soft.  With our legal software, you fill in the core information only once, and then let our legal software automatically populate all duplicate fields, calculate details like ages and duration of marriage, and prompt you to complete missing information. 

The “Case Information Statement” also requires budget information that reflects the standard of living established during the marriage and any differences that may be reflected in the current lifestyle.  When you use Easy Soft’s CIS NJ, you can be assured that all fields are present from the form published by the court.  When you complete the Easy Soft NJ CIS budget, it is complete.

Likewise, Easy Soft’s law office software for the “Case Information System” is designed to ask you to list all of the assets and liabilities of the marriage, whether subject to distribution or not.  By using our legal software, you quickly see which fields are blank and how much work remains to be done.

In many ways, CIS NJ is like the New York Statement of Net Worth, a form with income information that is also used to calculate child support for NY.  And, in every state, submission of mandatory information like personal profile, income, assets, and liabilities is crucial for the divorce settlement.  When you use automated legal software to compile important financial information, from New Jersey to Arizona, you improve the quantity and the quality of data that you submit to the court, and that can translate into real dollars and cents for your client.

Downloads of sample NJ CIS and all other Easy Soft legal software are free.

NCIS bobblehead Abby doll, not included.

Law Practice Management Webinar

April 12, 2012 - The Key to Small Law Firm Profitability - Enroll now and reserve your seat

Attorneys who operate small firms know they have to wear many hats. In addition to casework, there is marketing, networking, professional meetings, client consultations, time tracking, invoice preparation and trust accounting. Do you ever wonder how you can manage the non-income producing tasks and still maintain profitability?

Cash in on Technology

Computers and software have changed how we do business. Today, small companies that embrace technology can compete with their larger counterparts on many levels. Nowhere are the benefits inherent in technology more evident than at small law firms. When you put technology to work in your office, you will enhance your firm’s in-house capabilities and increase profitability.

Selecting Technological Tools for Law Firms

Prior to choosing and implementing technological tools, however, it is important to evaluate available products, understand best practices and the unique characteristics of law firm operations. Tools and technology that can’t handle the intricacies of legal practices can be more of a headache then a help.

Gain Administrative Advantage without Adding Overhead -

Attend our April 12, 2012 webinar , and reserve your seat and find out how the latest technology in time tracking and billing software can give you serious administrative advantage without adding to your overhead. 

We will demonstrate new legal software tools that integrate calendaring, case files, time tracking, billing, reminders, collections and even trust accounting. In addition, we will show you how smart software can help you prevent revenue from falling through the cracks, tighten state regulation compliance and streamline your back office.

Enroll Today 

April 12, 2012, 02:00 PM till 03:00 PM EST

Register for this free interactive webinar and learn how the right software can improve your firm’s financial picture.

 

Enroll now and reserve your seat.

For Your Eyes Only – Attorney Billing Software

James Bond.  Now there’s someone with universal appeal and an Aston Martin to boot.

Not all data is meant to be seen by all eyes within the same law office.  Billing entries.  Bank account information.  And client escrow transactions.  Each of these sensitive areas are ones that need to be controlled through management “permissions” granted to those who have access to legal billing software.

You don’t need 007 when you have Easy Soft to help you keep billing information all in one program database, but viewable only to approved eyes.

With our legal billing software, “Easy TimeBill,” you can set the permissions for each person in the office you authorize to use this attorney billing software.  You can limit a paralegal to view only her own entries.  You can authorize an associate to view his own entries and that of her paralegal, in order to perform appropriate mid-level management functions.  You can assign a section partner to view her own group in Litigation while staying out of Family Law.

Easy TimeBill legal software allows you to set up a unique user name and password for each person in your office who has permission to use this legal software.  For each new time or expense entry, the user identifies the timekeeper by selecting from a drop-down list of authorized billers. 

Perhaps more importantly, you can set permissions on who within the firm has permission to write checks and view bank account information in Easy Soft’s legal billing software.  Set up a user with “time entry only” permissions, and that user cannot see any sensitive financial information relative to clients and bank accounts.

Download a free demo of our lawyer billing software or purchase the full program on our 30-day money back guarantee.  It will be like having your own Q in your computer.

 

Time is Money? Only if Time Management is Easy – Attorney Billing Software

It sounds great!  Billing at $250/hour.  Riches to follow, right?

What happens when you do your billing at the end of the month and, instead of hitting a target of 32 hours billable per week you only send out bills totaling $17,200?

Get profitable with Easy Soft legal software.  Even if you are a sole practitioner, you should analyze how your time is spent at the office.  You can create individual account numbers for clients.  Why not add Easy Soft legal billing software, you can set different billing rates for different matters.  This means that you can set your client rates and record billable time in your legal billing software, while you also record $0/hour time for business development, preparation for or attendance at CLEs, and even vacation and personal days.

Then, run a management report at the end of the month with our law office software, and you can better understand how you spend your time.  You can also ask whether it’s time to hire an administrative assistant, a paralegal, or associate.  And, if you already have partners, associates, and account numbers for routine, non-billable work, too?

With other billable employees, our attorney billing software can create reports to go over with them to ensure that they are meeting their billable targets.

Perhaps you’re thinking that legal software that can perform such detailed analyses must be expensive?  What if we offer you a free trial download so that you can push buttons and fill in boxes and click through screens to see if you like it?  And, what if we also offered a 30-day, unconditional money back guarantee when you purchase our legal billing software for only $249 for a single-user license and $99 for each additional license?

Consider the possibility that instead of raising your hourly rate, you hire our law office software and let us help you maximize your profitability.  Think it sounds too good to be true?  Well, then it must be Easy Soft.

Unlimited Growth Potential - Attorney Billing Software

At Easy Soft, we’re optimists.  We even program our legal software with features full of optimism.

Take our legal billing software, for example.  We’ve built it to fit your firm today and the firm you might want to grow, tomorrow.  You can purchase Easy TimeBill today with a single license and add additional billers as you hire them.  For offices with more than three simultaneous users, select our “enterprise” attorney billing software for the best price.

Or, consider the feature of unlimited numbers of clients.  With Easy TimeBill legal billing software, you can enter as many clients as hire your firm.  Each client is assigned an individual client number to organize time and expense entries.  At month’s end, no matter how many of those unlimited clients need invoices sent out, our legal software will instantly organize every new time and expense entry and create individual invoices.

Repeat business?  That’s also not a problem for our legal billing software.  If the same client hires you for more than one matter, Easy Time Bill will assign a unique sub-number for each matter.  You can even use different billing rates for different projects under the same client.

At Easy Soft, all of our legal software is ready to grow with your firm.  If you move your offices to a new location, make one set of changes to the law firm’s address and all future documents will automatically populate with your new address.  If you go from a sole proprietorship to an LLC or if you add another partner to the name of your firm, just make those changes once on a main data screen, and let our law office software do the rest.

Oh, and we nearly forgot to mention just one more great feature.  When you land that über-big client you were dreaming you’d land, yup, you guessed it:  Easy Soft’s law firm billing software has an endless number of digit places ready-and-waiting for that billing, too!

$10 to be Done with Form 1099-S? Too Easy!

If you’re like most, you’re a creature of habit.  And, according to CNET News, “habit” means that 95% of people occasionally procrastinate.

The Form 1099-S, “Proceeds from Real Estate Transactions,” is required to be filed with the IRS by the person who transacts the closing of the selling of real property. 

The easiest time to file Form 1099-S is when you’re finished with HUD forms at the closing of the sale of a property.  But, if you’re like most attorneys we talk to, you’ve been procrastinating to year’s end to file this mandatory form.

Why not use Easy Soft’s legal software to start filing IRS Form 1099-S as soon as you’re done with each closing?

In total, Form 1099-S contains 12 blank boxes that need to be completed.  With Easy HUD legal software, you’ve already entered the data for the IRS Form 1099-S boxes while you were working on the HUD forms for closing the sale of the property.  When you use Easy HUD, you can ask our law office software to fill in the Form 1099-S with just the click of a button.

Better yet, if you want to use our Easy HUD legal software to electronically file the Form 1099-S with the IRS and send a copy to the seller, it only takes one more click of a computer button.  For the cost of only $10 per filing, Easy Soft will electronically file the Form 1099-S with the IRS and send a copy to the seller.  The $10 can then be expensed to the seller on your next law office invoice with Easy Soft’s law office software.

Need one more reason to download at least a trial of Easy HUD?  With our legal software, you can print out a running log of all Form 1099-S you file electronically through Easy HUD at any time during the year.

Now: what are you waiting for?  New Year’s Eve and stacks of house closing files on your desk?  Quit procrastinating – start making your life an Easy one.

Eliminate the Oops! When You Write Checks using Easy Soft

How many programs, papers, and calculators do you have on your desk when you are paying bills?  If you’re like most attorneys, you’re not taking advantage of the advances in legal software technology that resulted in our “Easy Trust” and “Easy TimeBill” a pair of legal software programs that take the mess out of day-to-day law office operations.

With Easy Soft, you complete all of your daily operations in a pair of legal billing and accounting software that connect with each other inside your computer.  You log in, make your time and cost entries into the Legal Time and Billing Software.  Print your monthly statements with ease using the attorney billing software because the software automatically compiles all the related entries into individual client statements.  Then, use your integrated trust accounting software to pay the firm from trust account funds with up-to-the-minute knowledge of how much is on deposit before and after the remittance.  End of the month, you simply reconcile the trust account balances to the bank statements.

Our legal software allows you to print checks through the trust accounting software.  This one-stop trust account and check writing feature enhances your safeguards.  Easy Soft’s trust accounting software will alert you, if you attempt to overdraw a client escrow fund.

Don’t wait for the bank to mail you a notification that you’ve overdrawn your attorney trust account.  At that point, the bank may already have sent a mandatory notification to your state bar association, and you may have a discipline investigation file opening letter in the mail to you just a few days later.  Censure, suspension, and disbarment are not cases you want to be working on when Easy Soft’s legal software is available to help you prevent the mistake in the first place.

Using Easy Soft’s escrow accounting and legal billing software software, get your alert before you write a check that overdraws a trust account.  You can then take action on that alert right away, including speaking to your client about replenishing the retainer deposit on a case file that is actively incurring expenses and billing.

Let Easy Soft eliminate the “Oops!” in your banking – even we know “Oops!” is not an affirmative defense.

Business Records for Trust Accounting

At the end of the month, do you balance your trust account bank statement in one program, jot notes onto the statement in pencil, and have to use a calculator to boot?  Worse, if you are audited, can you easily recreate the math or would you have to spend hours, anxiously pouring over various bits and bobs, hoping no detailed questions are asked of you?

Easy Soft trust accounting software uses a three-way reconciliation process that prints into reports with a single click.  Three-way reconciliation is a balancing of individual client deposits and expenses, along with bank account deposits and expenses.  The same data set is checked three, different ways by our legal software to ensure that the individual client has the right amount of funds on deposit and that the bank account has the right aggregate amount of funds on deposit.

Even better, when you reconcile your monthly bank statement in the Easy Soft trust accounting software, you can print out the reports and place them into your monthly bookkeeping files.  You can also use this trust accounting software to save the monthly reports in .pdf, Excel, or Word format to create an electronic back-up of these critical business records.

If you’re thinking that it would take a long time to convert from your existing system into Easy Soft’s law firm escrow accounting software, think again.  The download takes only a few minutes, it opens to a law firm identification screen that you complete only once, you enter your bank account information only once, you enter existing bank account balances and client escrow balances only once, et voila!  You have made the conversion to the Easy Soft suite of legal software for trust accounting.  In a mere ten to fifteen minutes, you could be saving valuable time each month during reconciliation, as well as each time you bill on a client file and keep track of their funds in escrow.

You wouldn’t keep a client’s file spread about two offices and three filing cabinets, so why not put yourself and your practice first and foremost for that same organization and efficiency through Easy Soft’s law firm trust accounting software.

Increasing the Odds of Client Payment through an Easy Soft Merchant Account

To increase your profits, you need to minimize your non-billable tasks, and that includes chasing clients for payments for work you’ve already performed and billed.

Easy Soft offers a full suite of payment options to accompany its legal time and billing software, including merchant accounts for credit cards, debit cards, checks, remote check capture and deposit, check guarantee, ACH, electronic funds transfers, and escrow management.

The more payment options you offer to your clients in conjunction with your legal billing software, the more likely the invoice will be promptly paid in full.  By using one vendor for your attorney billing software and client payment options, you are only one click away from getting paid and one phone call away from any needed technical support.

And, as payments come in, Easy Soft’s attorney billing software will help you stay in compliance with ethical considerations.  As just one example, when a client makes an advance retainer deposit with a credit card, Easy Soft’s trust accounting software automatically processes the credit card payment into the trust account and debits your operating account for the related merchant fees.  This approach ensures that you place the full amount of the deposit into the escrow account because credit card fees cannot be passed along to a client.  Let Easy Soft’s legal billing software and trust accounting software give you piece of mind of money in the bank and compliance with standard ethical considerations.

For a limited time, when you sign up for the Easy Soft Payment Acceptance Program, you will receive a $249 rebate on any of our legal software products.

Why not give Easy Soft a call today to discuss your current merchant account and associated fees and how much Easy Soft’s electronic payments program will save in money and time?

The only thing we don’t offer to increase for your law office profitability is the winning ticket for the lottery pool.

UTBMS billing codes. What are they? And why do they matter? – Attorney Billing Software

Let's get this out of the way first: “UTBMS” is the acronym for “Uniform Task-Based Management System.”
Why should this matter to your selection of legal software ?

UTBMS was released by the American Bar Association Litigation Section in 2002, after the American Corporate Counsel Association had used a task force to develop the codes. It grew out of a need recognized by Attorney Sally Fiona King and her experience overseeing outside counsel invoices on behalf of her corporate legal department.

The goal in creating uniform billing codes used in legal billing software is to group individual activities by various people into the same or similar types of legal work product. There are different sets of codes for different types of cases, such as one set of UTBMS codes for litigation cases and another for Worker's Compensation cases.

The UTBMS uniform codes used in Easy Soft's legal software allow attorneys and clients alike to understand and strategize the use of resources for legal projects. Should there be more emphasis on client communication, negotiations, legal research, or drafting? In the Easy Soft attorney billing software , these UTBMS law office software billing codes are selected and print side-by-side to the description for services performed.

One easy way to evaluate the strength of features offered by Easy Soft's TimeBill and Trust Accounting software is to review the legal software comparison chart put together by the American Bar Association. The ABA chart highlights the important features of legal billing software and trust accounting software of Easy Soft and several of our competitors. In this head-to-head comparison, you can see from the ABA chart that Easy Soft's “Easy TimeBill” and “Easy Trust” attorney billing software are affordable, packed with features like the UTBMS billing codes, and fully tech supported for your law office operations.

If you and your client want monthly bills that are a useful tool for legal resource allocation, then you need the Easy Soft legal billing software and trust accounting software with UTBMS billing codes.

Where Did All This Child Support Come From, Anyway? - Family Law Software

In every one of the fifty states, lawyers are required to submit a child support computation, whether it is strictly followed or whether a variance is granted.

So, just where did this mandatory child support calculation come from, anyway?

In the mid to late 1980s, data started coming out of the US Census Bureau that illustrated the correlation between poverty, single-parent households, and child support orders. Leaving the award of child support up to judges was not resulting in adequate support for children, and more and more single parents were applying to the federal government for welfare assistance.

The legislative history goes back to 1974, when Congress passed the “Family Support Act” as an amendment to the Social Security Act, making it mandatory for states receiving Aid for Dependent Children to establish and enforce child support obligations. Ten years later, Congress enacted the Child Support Enforcement Amendments, which spread the child support formula and enforcement to all families, not just those receiving public assistance. The year after that, in 1988, Congress mandated that by 1994, all states create a formula that would be a rebuttable presumptive in its computation of child support.

The bottom line for you as a family law attorney is that you need legal software with a powerful child support calculator for every case involving an unemancipated child. And, when you're deep into negotiations for divorce settlement , you'll want to be in a position to calculate child support and alimony, and determine whether to shift some of the child support into alimony payments to gain an income tax deduction.

Easy Soft offers the line of legal software products you need. For divorce settlements , select our “ Divorce Settlement Software ,” which can be used in all 50-states. Add specialized software if you are calculating child support for NY , need a PA support calculator or an AZ child support calculator , or you are in NJ, using the case information statement .

You've had since at least 1994 to automate your child support calculations through legal software . We've been waiting for you to come along since 1986. Don't you think it's time that we got together?

The Self-Support Reserve Computation? Easy!

Every state has a mandatory formula for the computation of child support.  You’re a legal professional; you know there are exceptions to every rule.  Do you know what the “self-support reserve” exception is to a strict computation of child support?

Unfortunately, in today’s economy, every family law attorney needs to be familiar with the “self-support reserve,” the floor below which a child support variance would become appropriate.  If you represent someone who has lost there job and is surviving on government benefits, you need to know this figure.  If you represent a child support claimant, you need to not be caught unaware of an impending argument for a variance on this basis.

The federal government annually releases the “poverty guidelines,” defining the poverty rate, based upon household size.  In 2011, the poverty guideline for a single person was $10,890/year.  States set their “self-support reserve” as a multiplier of the federal poverty guidelines. 

For example, let’s say you’re computing child support for NY.  NY set its “self-support reserve” at 135% of the federal poverty guidelines.  For a child support payor, alone in a household, the self-support reserve would be $10,890 x 135% or $14,702.

If you’re using the NY child support calculator in the “EzSupport-NY” legal software, you can save yourself the steps of keeping track of the federal government annual poverty announcements, checking for the affiliated state updates, and remembering to apply the self-support reserve each time you make a child support calculation.  Use Easy Soft law office software to increase your productivity and ensure your accuracy.

With Easy Soft’s family law software, if a payor’s income is at or below the self-support reserve, you will receive a computer-generated alert that says “Low income adjustment applicable,” along with detailed notices such as “more than the poverty level $10,890 but less than self-support reserve $14,702.”

Whether you are calculating child support as part of a divorce settlement or part of a modification or enforcement proceeding, let Easy Soft’s legal software automate your calculations and generate needed alerts. 

After all, don’t you already have enough to do in each case without having to remember every figure on your own?

Multiple Rates, Multiple Billers, Make It Easy! - Legal Billing and Accounting Software

There’s your rate and there’s your paralegal’s rate.  There are the partners’ rates and the associates’ rates.  And by the time the billing clerk is done punching a calculator, there’s the headache and the mistakes.

Why not make it easier to compile the monthly billing?

Easy Soft’s attorney billing software is so easy to use, we’re going to show you in the first two minutes of this video just how easy.  If we’ve made our case, just go to the legal billing software and click on “download free trial” or “buy program now.”

With Easy Soft’s attorney billing program, setting up each timekeeper at individual rates is as easy as filling in a few boxes.  All in one screen, you will fill in fields for the timekeeper name, initials, and rate.  Leave it to Easy Soft’s billing software for attorneys to ask you the key information and then remember who bills at what rate. 

If your law firm grows or changes timekeepers, Easy Soft’s law firm billing program allows you to readily add new timekeepers and remove program access permissions for old ones.

Does one of your timekeepers bill at different rates for different clients?  No problem.  With Easy Soft’s law office billing program you input different rates in boxes marked for different “levels,” all on the one timekeeper screen.  This design allows you to customize the billing rates while maintaining accuracy as to whose billing rate you are inputting.  With Easy Soft’s attorney billing software, you can send out invoices on complex matters with ease.

Each time a billing entry is made, Easy Soft’s billing software for attorneys calculates the total due and compiles it on a per client basis. It’s ready whenever you’d like to print an invoice.  These different billing rates can also be displayed on the printed invoice as confirmation to you and your client that the agreed-upon rate is what is actually being charged for the services performed.

If you’re tired of multiplying by sixths of an hour, get started today with Easy Soft’s law office time and billing software.