1. Time Reduction Task Code

To really use Time Reduction,  you need to go into Options –> System Settings  --> Data Entry and check Auto Track Time Reduction

Lets create an entry

Now lets go into the entry and reduce it by .50

As you see from above, when your change the entry to 0.50,  PCLaw automatically creates another entry right below it with the Task Code of TR.  If we were to run a time listing report

We now see how much time we have reduced.  If we create a bill

we only see the 0.50, no indication of the 0.50 we reduced.  Therefore,  your clients won’t see and that does not sit to well with me.  I want clients to be able to see the time I reduced for them. 

What happens if we try to change the the Hold Status to No Hold for the time entry

It then bills the client for the full amount moving us back to square one. 

2. Negative Fee Entry

3. Change \ Write Off Bill

Make sure you include Fees in the Time Entry

In this whitepaper we will be working with a firm that needs to change their file type on a matter while still retaining some of the custom information.

Firm XWZ wants to change a file type from Risk to Civil Litigation and still retain some custom fields.

In our Custom Pages, we have the following critical information:

This is the information we want to keep.

In Amicus, Go to Custom Pages and Create a New Custom Page, under Civil Litigation.

Lets label it Transfered from Risk:

Click on Available Fields:

Copy the fields that were in Risk over to this new page:

Once this is done, lets open up our file and change it from Risk, to Civil Litigation.

If we go to the Transfer from Risk Page, all the data is still there.

• move an email to a specific folder and mark it read
• take the email’s contents and create a To Do
• take the email’s contents and create a Calendar event

Outlook 2010 has a feature called Quick Steps. 

You can now do the exact same thing without needing to purchase 3rd party software.  

Lets click on Team E-mail

We can give this Team a Name, and then choose who we want to receive an email.  I added all of Lawot’s employees and now when I click on it,  it automatically creates an email to everyone.

Create more Quicksteps

Lets click on New in Manage Quicksteps

Quick Step 1.  Forward an email to my assistant and move it to our read mail folder

I will call this Fwd to Meagan and then I set it to move to the folder Lawot and forward to Meagan.

Quick Step 2.  Create A To Do from an Email

I call this one Create To Do and for actions I move to the folder lawot and Create a task with the text of message.

Quick Step 3.  Create A Calendar Event from an Email

Call this one Create Calendar and move the email to the folder lawot and Create an Appointment with text of message. 

Example of Create To Do

I am looking at my email inbox at the email Welcome to Microsoft Online Services!

I clicked on Create To Do. 

It Creates a To Do with the Subject taken from the subject of the email and the body taken from the body of the email.  It then moves the email out of the inbox and into the folder Lawot. 

PCLaw Patch 10.04 Released

• Save Emails in Amicus but also leave a copy stored in Outlook
• Save attachments as documents, don't leave them on the email. 

You cannot open an email attachment that is in on an email in Amicus without first associating that email with an Amicus File and Saving the attachment to a location on your network.  Therefore if you want to view email attachments without saving them we recommend we click on the View Button to read attachments.

This is the easiest way to view attachments.  Note,  in some instances you need to have outlook running for this to work. 

Attachments when using Save and Make Associations

In this instance we have an email the outlook view and we want to save it on an Amicus File.

We click on the file we want that email attached to and then Click Save and Make Associations. 

Once the email is saved as an amicus email we can see there are 4 attachments on that email.

When we click on the Drop Down list we can chose an attachment to open. 

When we click on the attachment it gives us the option to save the email.  If we click No,  we get the following message. 

Therefore Amicus is forcing you to Save the email before you look at it.  You can never click no and have it work. 

Click Yes,  if you click no,  you will get the error message we talked about above. 

You then need to chose a file if one is not selected.

Amicus will then want you to save the attachment in the location you specified in your Amicus preferences.  So if you have setup your Amicus Preferences,  you just have to click Save every time. 

Now you can tell that the attachment has been saved because there is an icon called Saved Documents. 

We are very excited that Clio has opened a consulting program and have jumped at the bit to be a part of it.  Clio is a Practice Management Program (Front Office) offered as a SaaS model which means that you pay for it monthly instead of one lump sum.   Clio will help us work with an increasing growing segment of attorneys that are either on Macs or don’t have any equipment to run a server application.  These are people we had to turn away before and now we can help them out.  

For more information check out: 

http://www.goclio.com/blog/2010/05/clio-launches-certified-consultant-partner-program/

and

http://www.goclio.com/consultants/ClioCertifiedConsultantAnnouncement.pdf

From Amicus themselves:

You can track your adjourned Appointments at a glance. When you flag your Appointments to track adjournments you will automatically be prompted to provide the reason for the adjournment at the time of rescheduling. An instance remains visible on your Calendar on the original Appointment date in a disabled state (grey font) with the adjournment date appended to its title. Subsequent adjournments of the same Appointment behave in the same manner. And each adjournment reason is tracked for later reference.

When you create an appointments,  you have the option to check Show Adjournments

When you go to move that appointments,  this box will appear and you have to give it a reason

The appointment is moved to the new date / time but it is also left in its place and renamed Adjourned

When you go the look at All File Events, you see the adjournment and the appointment. 

Change to Advanced

Change to All Firm Items and then Click Add Search Condition

Field Type Should be Date,  Condition is Greater Than and the Value is the beginning of the week.   Click on Add/Remove Fields  and add the Note Date.  Click OK and then Click Find Now.  This will show you all Stickys/Notes from this week. 

When you setup the Amicus PCLaw link you control which program will overwrite the other one if the information is in both places. (Office -->  Firm  -->  Accounting,  Step 2, Link Preferences) So if Use Amicus is checked as seen in the picture above,  if you change an address in Amicus,  it will change it in PCLaw.  If Use PCLaw is Checked, and you change the address in Amicus,  the address in PCLaw will overwrite it, preventing the change. 

There are some great options for software training online.  Lynda.com  is the best and offers a 1 month subscription for $25 a month.  Topics include Adobe Acrobat,  Excel, Facebook,  Google App, Google Docs,  InfoPath,  Internet Explorer, iTunes, Office 2003, Office 2007, Office 2010,  Office for Mac,  OneNote 2007, Outlook, PowerPoint, QuickBooks,  SharePoint,  Twitter,  WordPerfect,  Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and many others.  Acrolaw has a lot of free training videos on Adobe Acrobat on their site  http://acrolaw.host.adobe.com/.  Microsoft also has a some pretty useful online training programs on all their office products: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/default.aspx?ofcresset=1. This TechTips are provided courtesy of Craig Bayer, Law Office Technology http://www.lawot.com/