Clio

Last week we were invited to speak at the Nevada Bar’s Ethics and Practice Management Institute. Our presentation described how a practice management system can help lawyers operate an ethical and competent practice. Many of the tools incorporated in most practice management systems, such as calendaring, to-dos, trust account management, and conflict screening, can help you maintain an ethically compliant practice and deliver competent, professional services to your clients. Feel free to view the presentation, and drop us a line with any feedback or questions!

Law.com has just published a review of Clio written by a happy Clio user: Catherine Merino Reisman of Reisman Carolla LLP. Catherine was one of our early beta users, and helped us shape our early iterations into what Clio is today. From the review:

I truly feel that Clio is the perfect solution for me. It allows me to keep all my information in one place, and to access it from any Internet-ready computer, wherever I go. Themis provides fast technical support — I feel like I’m getting an outsourced IT department plus the functionality and accessibility that I need for one monthly subscription cost.

Overall, Clio allows me to wear all of my hats more easily, so I can spend more time on substantive work and operate my busy practice from home or the road as needed. I would recommend Clio to any solo practitioner or small firm attorney looking to be better organized, more efficient and more effective at running a legal practice. Solos, small firms and Mac users, having long been underserved by the legal technology market, now have Clio as a viable alternative to consider.

Thanks for the terrific review Catherine! We encourage you to read the entire review here.

Gerry Blackwell’s recent piece entitiled “Small Firms Need to Shape Up”, published in the November/December issue of Canadian Lawyer, sends a strong message advocating the use of electronic practice management tools: “listen up small firms and sole practitioners: if you don’t already use a computer-based practice management system, start now”.

In his article, Gerry reviews Clio as one of the potential computer-based practice management tools that can help streamline a solo or small firm’s practice:

Clio aims for simplicity and ease of use - and succeeds admirably. Plus it offers the advantages of software as a service: security, reduced capital and IT management costs, operating system agnosticism (it works on Macs and Linux machines too), and universal accessibility.

Unfortunately Canadian Lawyer does not offer a free electronic edition of their publication, but we encourage you to pick up a print copy and read Gerry’s thought-provoking article in its entirety.

Many thanks to Tom Mighell over at Inter-Alia for making Clio his blog of the day.

One of the features we’re going to start up on the Clio blog is a new Case Studies series. These Case Studies are going to highlight the successes of our users in using Clio to help improve their practice.

Today, we’re proud to introduce our first case study: the Law Offices of Place & Hanley, PLLC, a North Carolina law firm based in Southern Pines.

Clio appealed to Place & Hanley as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering that provides time tracking, billing and reporting, client contact and document management, task scheduling, and business intelligence/performance metrics.
“We operate a highly mobile practice where we have to service the legal needs of our clients, as well as run the office and manage our employees,” explained Sara Hanley, partner at Place & Hanley. “Therefore, we are always looking for ways to build efficiency and increase productivity by implementing legal software applications.”

Hanley was thoroughly impressed with Clio’s user-friendly interface and intuitive design. “Within minutes of activating the software, our entire firm was up and using the software with relative ease, storing contacts, case information, appointments, and documents. Time entry was a breeze. And, where it used to take us 3 to 4 days to generate our bills, with Clio, the whole process took less than 2 hours.”

Clio delivered on the issue of affordability as well. As Hanley pointed out, “For an affordable monthly cost we’ve bought ourselves access to Clio, unlimited technical support and upgrades, and we’ve alleviated the need to maintain our own systems or to worry about backing up the information stored in Clio.”
Place & Hanley also selected Clio because of its secure online access to data from anywhere, with bank-grade encryption, frequent backup policy and escrow provision. Additionally, Hanley notes that Clio’s customer service resolved issues quickly and demonstrated commitment to customer’s needs by incorporating her suggestions and requests into the product.

“We’re firmly committed to delivering the best web-based practice management solution for solo and small law firms,” said Jack Newton, President of Themis Solutions. “We will continue to evolve and improve Clio by actively incorporating features requested by our users.”

About Themis Solutions and Clio
Themis Solutions Inc. is based in Vancouver, British Columbia. With cooperation from the Law Society of British Columbia, the company has developed its flagship productCliowhich is aweb-based SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) practice management systemfor solo and small firm attorneys. For more information, visit www.goclio.com.

About the Law Offices of Place & Hanley, PLLC
The Law Offices of Place & Hanley, PLLC, is a boutique law firm based in Southern Pines, North Carolina. The firm handles cases in securities and commodities litigation, family law and wills/trusts. Place & Hanley serves clients in North Carolina and Florida. For more information, visit http://www.placeandhanley.com/.

This is the last in a three-part series on data accessibility, security and privacy. In case you missed it, here’s Part I: Data Accessibility and Part II: Security.

Privacy is final component of our discussion of Clio’s data accessibility, security and privacy strategy.

Privacy is a critical component of online data security, as without a proper privacy policy your Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider could potentially resell or distribute your confidential client data without your permission. Your SaaS provider’s data accessibility policy ensures proper data redundancy measures have been put in place, while your provider’s security statement details how data is properly encryped and protected. However, without a clear privacy policy, the privacy of your own and your client’s data is not guaranteed.

At Clio we have structured our Privacy Policy to align with those of TRUSTe, the internet privacy giant boasting the strongest and most trusted privacy policy model in the business. This ensures that subscribers to Clio enjoy privacy protections in accordance with TRUSTe’s strict privacy principles, and that we respectfully treat all customer information as though were sensitive. Our aim is to assert that information entrusted to the care of Clio is being stored and managed responsibly, and that ownership of said data remains firmly assigned to you - indefinitely.

The October 25th edition of the Economist contains an insightful special report devoted to the topic of Software-as-a-Service, and the increasing significance of the “cloud” in modern business. It’s well worth reading in its entirety, but this excert sums up the report nicely:

In the years to come companies are likely to venture much farther. For one, operators of computing clouds such as Amazon and Google have shown that this is a far more efficient way of running IT systems. Secondly, many firms will find they have no choice. The way in which their IT infrastructure has grown is proving unsustainable. Most corporate data centres today are complex warrens of underused hardware that require more and more people, space and power to keep them going. The current economic malaise will increase the pressure on companies to become more efficient. More has to be done with less, which is cloud computing’s main promise.

Although the definition of the “cloud” is as nebulous (pun intended) as its terminology, it’s clear that the economies of scale offered by certain outcomes of cloud computing, such as Software-as-a-Service, are profound for small businesses.

If you think it’s time to take advantage of cloud computing, maybe it’s time to put your practice in the cloud with Clio.

We’re pleased to announce that Clio has become a sponsor of the ABA’s GP|Solo division. The ABA GP|Solo division is exclusively dedicated to the needs of general practitioners, solo and small law firm lawyers. Given Clio has been built from the ground up to address the needs of general practitioners, solos and small firms, we saw a great fit and have committed to financially supporting the division through a sponsorship.

If you’re not already a member, we encourage you to join GP|Solo today - one of the benefits of joining is an exclusive GP|Solo discount on Clio!

Sean Doherty of Law.com just wrote a fantastic review of Clio. To kick off the review, Sean points out the overhead associated with traditional desktop software:

Practice management software is the lifeblood of most large law firms. But with their high cost and management overhead, many solo practitioners and small law firms do without it. Instead, they use a variety of tools like Outlook Contacts for client management and Excel work sheets for time and billing.

With Clio’s web-based practice management, Sean points out “there is no local software to install or maintain”, and that your data is accessible from anywhere you have an Internet connection.

The review chronicles Sean’s experiences in settings up his practice’s data in Clio and exploring Clio’s features over the course of our free 30 day trial. We encourage you to read the entire comprehensive review, but we especially appreciate Sean’s summary: 

To develop my own practice performance metrics and reports and engage in client management and billing is time-consuming. For a monthly subscription fee of $49.00 for attorneys ($25.00 per month for non-attorney support), plus copious storage capacity, it’s hard to resist giving Clio a test drive.

The TechnoRelease announcing Clio’s October 1, 2008 launch sparket the most interest among TechnoLawyer members for the period September 29 - October 12. The copy from this TechnoRelease is included below and available here. A big thanks to our TechnoLawyer readership!

THEMIS RELEASES WEB-BASED CLIO — SECURE SOFTWARE-AS-A-SERVICE (SAAS) FOR SOLOS/SMALL FIRMS USING PCS, MACS, AND IPHONES 
By Themis Solutions Inc.

September 29, 2008 — Vancouver, BC — On October 1st, Themis Solutions Inc. will announce the general availability of Clio, a comprehensive web-based practice management Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering for lawyers. Clio is specifically designed for solo practitioners and small law firms using PCs and Macs; it can be accessed from any Internet connection and from iPhones.

Clio will be demonstrated at the ABA General Practice, Solo & Small Firm Division’s Fall Meeting on October 2-4, 2008 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Secure and easy-to-use, Clio provides case/matter management, time tracking, billing/reporting, client contact and document management, task scheduling, trust accounting, and performance metrics for independent lawyers to benchmark their business goals.

CLIO FEATURES 

• Matter/Case Management: Effectively organize and manage all case, matter and client information through Clio’s intuitive, user-friendly online interface.

• Time Tracking: Clio tracks time by client, matter, and task, allowing lawyers to reduce lost time and eliminate paper or Excel timesheets.

• Billing and Reporting: Clio generates customized invoices and outstanding bill reminders. Lawyers can create useful reports to help with accounting.

• Document Management: Securely access documents online and save unlimited document versions.

• Trust Accounting: Many compliance issues result from poor tracking of trust accounts. Clio solves this problem. Maintain accurate trust and bank transaction records to ensure that funds are appropriately tracked.

• Client/Contact Management: Clio’s contact management system stores information on clients, matters and billings.

• Task Scheduling: With Clio’s complete calendaring and reminder system, appointments are easily clicked, dragged and viewed by day, week, or month. Data can be imported and exported from Google, Outlook or iCal calendars into Clio.

• Practice Performance Metrics: Track current, expected, and target billing figures daily, weekly, monthly, or annually.

SECURITY

When considering web-based solutions like Clio, lawyers are understandably concerned about ensuring the security of their client data. Therefore, Clio’s developers have focused their attention on security to address these concerns, making Clio a secure and reliable solution.

• External Security and Data Backup: Clio uses password protection with bank-grade 256-bit SSL encryption. Data is backed up daily to a secure, offsite data center, and daily third-party audits are performed to ensure data security.

• Internal Security: Clio can restrict access to confidential files or client records by individual or by group via rights-managed security.

• Client Data Ownership Guarantee: Clio firmly believes lawyers should be able to retrieve their data from Clio easily and conveniently. Users of Clio can easily export from Clio at any time.

SPECIFICATIONS AND PRICING

Clio is operating system independent and can run on PC, Macintosh and Linux computers. It supports Internet Explorer 6.0 and 7.0, Mozilla Firefox 2.0 and 3.0, Safari 3.0 and Google Chrome.

Clio is affordably priced by monthly subscription. Pricing is $49/month for lawyers and $25/month per support staff member. This cost includes all technical support, maintenance and upgrades.

ABOUT THEMIS SOLUTIONS

Themis Solutions Inc. is based in Vancouver, British Columbia. With cooperation from the Law Society of British Columbia, the company has developed its flagship product Clio which is a web-based SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) practice management system for solo and small firm attorneys. Visit www.goclio.com or call 1-888-858-CLIO.