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.

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.

ABA TECHSHOW 2011

The 25th anniversary of the ABA TECHSHOW is being held in Chicago April 11-13. I will be prowling the conference area, supporting our partner vendors, and demoing our iPad app, iDocExplorer for ProLaw. I will also be excitedly unveiling and presenting our newest iPad app, iTimeKeep, the first fully integrated legal time entry system app.

Also at the show will be the prolific pundit of the blog Tablet Legal, Josh Barrett. Josh will be a speaker at two sessions. The first called “Slate Shootout” can be found in the Emerging Technology Track. The speakers will compare and contrast the iPad with an Android tablet and a Windows slate. The second, in the Smartphone/Mobility track, 60 iOS apps will be presented in 60 minutes. I highly recommend attending these sessions, as Josh knows a thing or two about these subjects.

To see a demo or to discover more about how Bellefield’s iTimeKeep or iDocExplorer can work on your iPad, drop me an email - john (at) bellefield.com. I hope to see you at the show!

First ProLaw iPad App is Now Available through ProLaw and Bellefield Partnership

First ProLaw iPad App is Now Available through ProLaw and Bellefield Partnership

iDocExplorer Provides Secure Access to ProLaw Documents via iPad

LOS ANGELES and NEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2011 – Bellefield Systems, in partnership with ProLaw, is launching its first iPad App for ProLaw at LegalTech New York, today. iDocExplorer, available for download from the iTunes App store, will give attorneys mobile access to their matters and documents securely and efficiently on their iPad tablet. This is the first of several iPad applications being developed by Bellefield in 2011.

“We are pleased to see ProLaw’s core functionality extended to the iPad through the innovative efforts of our partners at Bellefield,” said Matthew DeVoll, vice president and general manager of ProLaw. “An increasing number of attorneys and other professionals are using these great devices in the workplace. Getting access to matter information in ProLaw from the iPad is a big advantage for many of our customers.”

iDocExplorer seamlessly and securely integrates with the ProLaw document management system (DMS) and delivers data via a wireless connection or the 3G network. Attorneys will be able to access case- or matter-related documents anytime and anywhere, and do so more quickly since they are not using a VPN or Citrix environment, yet still maintaining security and privacy.

“Attorneys will have instant access to their ProLaw matters and all associated documents, emails, and events – directly from their iPad,” said John Kuntz, principal, Bellefield Systems. “The iPad and other tablet devices are becoming popular tools that are more functional than a smartphone, and easier to use than a laptop. We are helping law firms transform these devices into powerful business tools.”

“With so many attorneys now owning iPads, the iDocExplorer now makes this toy a necessary legal tool,” said ProLaw user Rachel M. Dollar, partner at Smith Dollar PC, a premier real estate and financial services law firm in California.

ProLaw is an integrated software suite designed to automate the practice and manage the business of law. Comprehensive features simplify, streamline and coordinate the work of attorneys and staff in small and mid-size law firms, corporate legal departments and government law offices. Built from the ground-up on a single database, ProLaw combines case and matter management, as well as time entry, billing and accounting capabilities, within a complete integrated solution. Bellefield became a member of the ProLaw Alliance Program last year. ProLaw is part of the Business of Law unit of Thomson Reuters, Legal.

For more information and updates, visit the Bellefield blog at http://bellefieldnews.blogspot.com/

About Bellefield Systems
Bellefield Systems enables ProLaw law firms to improve practice efficiencies in the areas of collaboration and compliance. Our next generation software products integrate seamlessly with ProLaw, helping you to work smarter, faster and more productively. www.bellefield.com.

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