Why not Droid

DROID v iOS --- I have written about this very subject before. We continually monitor smartphone and tablet trends in the legal environment and there is still convincing data to put most of our R&D in the Apple products for two reasons.

1. We are rarely asked if iDocExplorer or iTimeKeep will operate on the Droid. We are geared up and ready to produce a Droid app but there is yet to be a business case to do so.....yet.

2. I am concerned with the way Droid apps are not vetted before release in the Droid app store. Apple has a very strict diligent process. The instance of malware getting into Droid apps has had a dramatic rise of late. Computerworld has a nice piece worth reading....

***CLICK HERE FOR ARTICLE***

There is a Common Thread Among Firms Using iPhones & iPad

Every year, the American Lawyer ranks the top 200 law firms based on revenue, a list called the Am Law 200. Firms on the list include megafirms with thousands of lawyers such as Skadden, Baker & McKenzie, Latham & Watkins and Jones Day, relatively smaller firms with very high profits per partner such as Wachtell and Cravath, and successful regional law firms such as Lewis and Roca and my firm, Adams and Reese.

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For ProLaw: iPhone & iPad (free webinar)

Mobility is clearly one of the hottest topics in legal. Attorneys are not tied to their desks like in days of old, they are active, they are mobile, they are On-The-Go. Being out of the office has made accessing documents and entering time consuming chores that need not be. There is a solution.

Bellefield is hosting three webinars presenting two ProLaw integrated mobile apps; iDocExplorer for mobile document access and iTimeKeep for mobile time entry. We will discuss how easily and quickly you can take advantage of these elegant mobile solutions.

Click HERE to learn more and register.

TabTimes Magazine Features Bellefield Mobile Apps

We at Bellefield are proud to be featured in the TabTimes Magazine, an electronic news publication devoted to the tablet industry and how businesses use tablets.

Ellie Behling wrote a fantastic article about Bellefield's legal enterprise mobile solutions and how firms are using or planning to use those apps.

You can read the entire article here:
 http://tabtimes.com/feature/legal/2011/10/31/bellefield-helps-lawyers-manage-time-and-clients

Thanks to George Jones, TabTimes Editor for his interest in tablet and mobile applications in the legal market. You can learn more of TabTimes at http://tabtimes.com/

Press Release: Orion Announces Integration with iTimeKeep iPad and iPhone Apps, Providing Automatically Synchronized Time Entry from iPads and iPhones

ATLANTA and PITTSBURGH – October 18, 2011 –– Orion Law Management Systems, Inc. (www.orionlaw.com), a leader in Financial and Practice Management software for law firms, announces a new integration with Bellefield Systems’ iTimeKeep iPad and iPhone Apps.

Using iTimeKeep, Orion customers can now enter time directly from their iPad or iPhone via wireless connection and their entries automatically synchronize and register in Orion’s accounting system in real time.   Also, when the user adds new clients, matters, tasks and activity codes in Orion, iTimeKeep renders them visible on the iPad or iPhone immediately.  Cloud-based iTimeKeep applies multiple levels of security to ensure that data is transferred safely from one system to the other.

Setup for the integration is straightforward.  Orion clients simply download the free iTimeKeep App from the Apple Store and Orion sets up the integration on the database back-end.
 
William J. Dunaway, Shareholder at Clark, Partington, Hart, Larry, Bond & Stackhouse, recently installed the Orion/iTimeKeep integration at his firm.  Dunaway remarks, “Entering time in Orion via iTimeKeep from my iPad is a huge time saver.  Time capture is faster, easier and more accurate and I don’t need a remote login to Orion.”

Orion president, Paul Yelton, comments, “Today’s lawyers and legal staff are increasingly using iPads and iPhones when out of the office, due to their lightweight portability, versatility, convenience and user-friendly interfaces.  We are proud to integrate Orion with iTimeKeep, which will give our customers who use iPads and iPhones a distinct advantage in capturing their time more quickly and accurately.”

According to John Kuntz, Principal and Co-Founder of Bellefield Systems, “Recent statistics show that lawyers ‘leak’ significant billable time by not capturing time entries immediately, and this can cost them and their firm thousands of dollars per attorney per year.  iTimeKeep changes the game by enabling professionals to enter time instantly from their iPads and iPhones, and now they can send those entries directly to the Orion accounting database so the time can be billed promptly.  Our mutual customers and the law firms they work for will benefit greatly from this connection.”

The Orion/iTimeKeep integration module can be purchased from Orion for $1495 plus a recurring $40 per user monthly fee for the required iTimeKeep subscription. Attorneys can fully recover this fee by simply capturing only 10 extra minutes of billable work that may have otherwise gone unrecorded and unbilled.

About Orion Law Management Systems, Inc.
Founded in 1985, Orion Law Management Systems, Inc. is dedicated to providing law firms with proven law practice management software.  Utilizing a complete practice management approach, Orion is a fully integrated law management system employing the very latest in reliable technology. Orion centralizes your Financial Management, Firm Management and Practice Management delivering the competitive advantage that law firms need to succeed.  Orion Law Management Systems, Inc. is headquartered in Atlanta.  For information visit www.orionlaw.com, call 1.800.305.5867, email info@orionlaw.com or follow us on Twitter @Orion_Law.

About Bellefield Systems, Inc.Bellefield is a leading innovator in Legal Mobile Technologies, bridging the gap between enterprise software, mobile devices, and desktop applications. Bellefield’s mobile strategy is based on Bellefield Connect, the most robust and secure mobile data platform designed specifically for legal.  Guiding the way in mobile computing for legal, Bellefield has released iDocExplorer which enables mobile access to documents, and iTimeKeep, the leading application enabling time entry from iPads and iPhones. For more information, visit www.bellefield.com.

iPad, enterprise ready

iPad for business

According to MacTech Magazine, Apple has unwittingly become an enterprise player. The company is leading the trend toward IT consumerization as users become attached to their iPads and iPhones and IT administrators try to incorporate the devices into existing corporate technology infrastructures.

iPad is not only the most popular tablet among regular consumers, but it seems Apple is gaining good ground in the enterprise as well. Now the iPad is popular among business executives for accessing email, calendars, the Web and corporate documents.

SAP has given employees, including salespeople, 8,900 iPads to use for accessing sales data and analysis reports. United Airlines is deploying 11,000 iPads to replace paper flight manuals and navigational charts.

Apple offers minimal support for integrating its devices with common enterprise applications, instead concentrating on the consumer market. For that reason software companies like Bellefield are focused on bridging the gap between the enterprise software at the firms and the mobiles devices.

LEGO meets iPhone

Having grown up playing with Lego (yes girls play Lego too) and having two sons that are passionate about Lego, I was very excited when I read about “Life of George” game. What I found fascinating and at the same time very innovative is combining into one game the traditional Lego blocks and the iPhone or iPod Touch (see video below).

Naysayers note that George does not offer much in the way of imaginative play and I’d agree. You may play it for a while and later forget about it. However, this is the first “augmented reality” game of Lego and may mark a new way of table games interacting with mobile apps. I rather see this “interactive” combination as opposed to the pure Lego WII video games.

At the end, it is innovation, creativity and adopting the new technologies that will make companies stay in the “game”. At Bellefield, we are to stay in the "game".

ILTA study reveals that the iPad is the most exciting technology trend for law firms

Jeff Richardson in his blog “iPhone J.D. Lawyers using iPhones and iPads” analyzes the results of the survey “sixth annual technology purchasing survey” conducted by ILTA and InsideLegal. You can download the results of the survey here.


Jeff points out “When asked to name the most exciting technology or trend, the #1 answer in this year's survey was tablets. And as we know, when people say "tablets" they are really just saying "iPads" considering that around 90% of tablet purchases by lawyers are iPads”. Regarding current and future Tablet's adoption, Jeff writes “About 25% of survey respondents said that iPads were one of the major technology purchases of their law firm over the last 12 months. Similarly, about 25% of respondents said that the iPad would be one of the major technology purchases for the next 12 months.”

You can read the full blog post http://www.iphonejd.com/iphone_jd/2011/08/ilta-study-2011.html

Bellefield Upcoming Events Sep - Nov 2011

Bellefield will be present at the following events. Please feel free to contact us at info@bellefield.com to arrange a meeting or demo. We'd love to meet you at one of these events.

ALA Regions 3 & 4 Conference & Expo
September 15–17, 2011
InterContinental Kansas City at the Plaza
Kansas City, Missouri

ALA Region 1 Conference & Expo
October 13–15, 2011
Omni William Penn Hotel
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Omega Users Group
October 19 - 21
Scottsdale AZ

ALA Regions 6 Conference & Expo
October 20–22, 2011
The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada

Orion User Group
October 24-26
Stone Mt., GA

ALA Region 5 Conference & Expo
October 27–29, 2011
Hyatt at Olive 8 and Washington State Convention Center
Seattle, Washington

ALA Region 2 Conference & Expo
November 3–5, 2011
The Westin Charlotte
Charlotte, North Carolina

Bellefield Launches iTimeKeep, the Ultimate Mobile Time Entry System for Attorneys

PITTSBURGH, PA. August , 2011– iTimeKeep is the only mobile application that seamlessly integrates with your time and billing system. It was designed with the simplicity yet robustness required to allow attorneys to keep track of their time anywhere they are. iTimeKeep is now available for the iPad and iPhone and it can be downloaded for free from the Apps Store.

“iTimeKeep is like no other app, a real game changer. Implementation is as simple as it gets, the integration is flawless, and the user interface is extremely easy and intuitive. You don’t need run any other third party system to be able to enter time on your mobile device.” said John Kuntz, Principal Bellefield Systems.

Here some of iTimeKeep features:

• Enter Time Anytime & Anywhere: Enter your time wherever there is a Wi-Fi or 3G connection worldwide

• Direct Access To Your Matters: View and search assigned matters, recent matters, or any client matter just like you were at the office desk

• Billing Codes: Billing codes and activity are accessible by drop down menus

• No Minimum Number of Users: Inexpensive subscription available for any number of users

• Effortless Implementation: Setup and implementation in just in couple of hours

• Fast and Secure: iTimeKeep is as fast or faster than desktop performance and is all tied together with bank-grade security protocols

• iTimeKeep leverages the Bellefield Connect Platform, an enterprise cloud data system permitting unfettered seamless 2-way communication between Enterprise Management Systems and mobile devices.


About Bellefield: Bellefield is a leading innovator in Legal Mobile Technologies, bridging the gap between your enterprise software, mobile devices, and desktop applications. Bellefield’s mobile strategy is based on Bellefield Connect, the most robust and secure mobile data platform designed specifically for legal. Bellefield was created by the same founders of eBillingHub (now a Thomson Reuters business), an experienced team in cloud computing and legal enterprise software. Guiding the way in mobile computing for legal, Bellefield has developed iDocExplorer and iTimeKeep. For more information Bellefield at http://www.bellefield.com/

AND THE SURVEY SAID....!

The results of the 2011 ABA Technology Survey have been posted. It would have been nice if the the sample set was >1000 but I still found this to be very telling. Of the 15% of all attorneys who use a tablet device, 89% report that they use an iPad, 8% report using Android. Read the full report by Jeff Richardson: SURVEY

ELECTRONIC PRE-BILLS DELIVERED TO YOUR iPAD? YES!

Reviewing Pre-Bills is a necessary and a very important evil in every attorney’s practice and is not a task billing attorneys look forward to every month. However, pre-bill review is vital to any law firm in order to achieve accuracy in billing, especially today as corporate clients adopt ebilling and auditing review systems. But timing is also important when reviewing pre-bills. The faster attorneys can turn them back to accounting the faster invoices will go out to the client and helping to shorten the receivables cycle.

Wouldn’t it be great for attorneys to be able to review pre-bills from his/her iPad, anywhere they are, make revisions and annotations (using a stylus or finger) and send them back to accounting? The firm will save thousands of sheets of paper, go truly paper-less, at the same time attorneys are not constrained to be at the office to work on their pre-bills.

iDocExplorer allows ProLaw firms to do that and much more. As follows I describe a workflow any firm can implement in a matter of minutes and is a start to a truly automated paperless pre-bills review.

- Accounting will run pre-bills for each attorney and instead of sending it to a regular printer, they will send it to a PDF printer. There are many good PDF printers for free (I’m serious). My favorite is PDF995 (http://www.pdf995.com/)

- Save the pre-bills to an admin matter in ProLaw for each attorney to access. You can choose one general admin matter or each attorney’s admin matter.

- From iDocExplorer, attorneys will be able to immediately access those pre-bills from their iPads by navigating to the appropriate matter.

- Use the “Open In” feature of iDocExplorer to access apps such as neu.Annotate (free!), iAnnotate or GoodReader, and start reviewing and annotating pre-bills with a Stylus or just a finger.

- Email pre-bills with changes to Accounting or to any other attorney for further review.

- Done, that’s it! This can be done while in the airport, waiting in court or on a Saturday from home (not from the office).

There is big difference in efficiencies by doing this from your iPad, versus trying other electronic mechanisms or software. The greatest advantage using your iPad for this function is that it can be done anywhere and it resembles the simplicity of doing it in paper, but with portability and without having to carry tons of paper.

Now, how about Conflicts Reports? You can apply the same workflow and get the most out of your iPad and your time.

If you are interested in learning more, please contact us at info@bellefield.com and our support team will be happy to step you through the entire process so attorneys at your firm can successfully star reviewing pre-bills totally paperless.

Bellefield Advances Mobile Strategy With New Version of iDocExplorer iPad App

ProLaw users can now easily view, edit, and annotate documents on their iPads
PITTSBURGH, PA. JULY 6, 2011–Bellefield Systems, a leading innovator in Mobile Legal Applications, today announced that iDocExplorer upgraded version 1.4 is now available on the iTunes app store. The free to download app seamlessly integrates with the ProLaw DMS providing immediate access to profiled documents and emails. Users may also email, annotate, and save documents to their iPads.

“Each of the iDocExplorer enhancements resulted from user requests and help unleash the true potential of what the iPad can do. We remain fully committed to our clients and bringing the very best mobile applications to market,” said Gabriela Isturiz, Principal Bellefield Systems.

New iDocExplorer v. 1.4 features include:

• Browse the ProLaw Document Management System. Documents that are stored in the ProLaw Document Management System can be accessed from Recent Matters, My Matters, Assigned Matters, or full document searches.
• Email. Documents may be emailed from the iPad to any recipient in seconds.
• Open In – Documents can now be opened using third party apps.• Annotate / Save. Documents are easily annotated directly on the iPad and may be saved and or emailed with the annotations intact.• Matter level and Document level security. iDocExplorer honors ProLaw security hierarchy and document database restrictions.

"iDocExplorer has become an indispensable tool for my practice. It allows me to access and manipulate any document I created or received for any matter I am working on at any time and any place. That is a powerful tool for lawyers," said Eric Hughes, Attorney Hughes & Hughes

iDocExplorer leverages the Bellefield Connect Platform, Bellefield’s proprietary enterprise cloud data system, permitting seamless 2-way communication between Legal Management Systems and mobile devices. This ultra-secure platform provides bank level security and encryption of firm and client data.


About Bellefield: Bellefield is a leading innovator in Legal Mobile Technologies, bridging the gap between your enterprise software, mobile devices, and desktop applications. Bellefield’s mobile strategy is based on Bellefield Connect, the most robust and secure mobile data platform designed specifically for legal. Guiding the way in mobile computing for legal, Bellefield has released iDocExplorer and iTimeKeep. For more information Bellefield at www.bellefield.com

Download the PR  here

Why The iPad?

I am frequently asked if iDocExplorer, or our newest app iTimeKeep, will work on devices other than the iPad, XOOM, Rim Playbook, etc. The short answer is yes and no.

For the slightly longer answer you will need to understand what runs Bellefield's services. We have built a system called the Bellefield Connect Platform. This enterprise level platform allows us to do several things with relative ease:

1. Have seamless 2-way communication and integration with virtually all legal management systems, Aderant, ProLaw, Elite, etc.
2. Deliver data very quickly and efficiently with state of the art 2-way encryption schemes similar to the highest level of banking security.
3. Manage users and plans through the Bellefield Subscription Engine.
4. Deliver this data to any mobile device.

There is one other thing that needs a little clarification. Mobile devices are, for the most part, a pretty face to display the data it requests, pulls, and pushes over the web. There is very little computing done on these devices. The Bellefield Connect Platform dangles this data ready to be delivered to any device.

We have chosen to lead with the iPad for a very solid reason. Simply, they are everywhere! Sales are through the roof. To date Apple has sold over 19 millions iPads and there are about 65,000 apps, and some analysts predict 120 millions iPads will be sold by the end of 2012.The reason for this is that it is a superior device and looks to be so for a long time to come, it is extremely easy and intuitive, and requires very little training or maintenance, just to name a few of the reasons.

Apple’s iPad has the largest market share compared to any other tablet available. In a recent survey, the iPad has been termed as having a commanding lead in the U.S. tablet market with 82% of the pie. While we have witnessed a number of releases recently, specially by Android tablets with companies including, Motorola, Samsung and others, they still lag far behind in market share. While the Apple iPad has a clear lead over others, Samsung is seen following the champ with just 4% of the market, even after the release of much anticipated Galaxy Tablet. Others will follow, Dell and Motorola having a limited spread with just 3% and 2% of the market.

If it comes to pass that a another device starts to get some traction then we will, on very short order, provide an interface for it. Will it be the Droid, Blackberry, Google - or will the iPad maintain its dominance? With the Bellefield Platform we have the data ready to deliver to whatever device it is.

iRedLine's Success with Bellefield's API

Esquire Innovation iRedline tool has been integrated with Thomson Reuter's ProLaw. iRedline, which has been on the market since 2003, provides document comparison in Microsoft Word through technologies that enhance the native comparison process and tracked changes.

Esquire utilized Bellefield's API and integration expertise to achieve the seamless integration between the products.

New iRedline/ProLaw features include:

- Browse ProLaw Document Management System. Documents that are stored in the ProLaw
Document Management System can be accessed from a Recent Matters and Recent Document
Explorer and brought in to iRedline for document comparison.
-Redlined documents are profiled. Profiling the new document couldn’t be any easier as it
automatically pre-fills the ProLaw profiling fields with the information from the result document.
- Save as new version. This feature allows users to keep versions of their documents using the Parent-Child structure in ProLaw.
- Matter level and Document level security. If security set up is established in Prolaw either at the matter or document level, it will be honored by iRedline’s Document Explorer while searching for documents.
- Remember last settings. Using the Document Explorer or the Quick Profiler, the product will remember the last settings such as author, recent matters, and documents, and up to 10 document searches.