A Tale of Two Attorneys

Published in The North Carolina Bar Association
Law Practice Management Section Newsletter - January 1997
By Dale Tincher

Any resemblance to attorneys, past or present, is purely coincidental. I have always enjoyed that line on television and I am pleased to finally be able to use it. You are embarking on what I hope will be a fun, but informational visit with two attorneys. You may react by smiling at "how it used to be where I work" or you may respond with "this sounds too familiar."

Our tale begins in 1996 with two attorneys who practice in small firms. Both attorneys had two additional attorneys practicing with them. They were supported by two administrative staff members. Their firms were growing. As a result, they knew they soon face decisions on adding staff and space. Both firms had non-networked 386 and 486 computers. They used WordPerfect 5.1 as their word processor. Paul Pennywyse was to conduct the automation search for firm one. John Foresyte assumed the responsibility for his firm's system.

Both felt they should network (connect) their computers. They knew they could benefit from being able to share data and resources such as printers.

Paul and John considered two alternatives. The first alternative was local legal integrators. Having been deluged with computer ads, they looked at local stores who had "sales consultants" on staff. They determined that the local stores could supply the PC "boxes" at an attractive price, but that they would need to shop for their legal software. The store's server, PCs, and network would cost around $22,000. Adding a calendar program and miscellaneous software that they saw advertised would add another $1,500 boosting the investment to $24,500. The mail order software manufacturers assured them that they could "train themselves." Legal integrators, on the other hand, made additional suggestions. The legal integrators quoted similar prices for PCs ($25,000), however when they added legal oriented software and hardware, then combined it with training and installation, their quotations came in at $31,500.

Paul's decision was easy in his eyes. He would buy the less expensive PCs, just as he had done with his home computer. He would enjoy shopping around for legal software. He would learn the systems and train the staff himself. He formed a relationship with the salesman at a local computer superstore and made the purchase. Paul reviewed legal magazines, found some miscellaneous legal software and moved forward. This was fun!

John listened carefully to the presentations by all the prospective vendors. After narrowing his choices, he asked for references and called many law firms that were similar to his in size and areas of practice. John inquired as to the firms' successes, what they would do differently and methodically checked out the prospective vendors. He felt very comfortable with one vendor who was stable, experienced, and had excellent references. The vendor not only proposed what he requested, but as a result of their analysis, recommended that he add E-mail, Internet connectivity, fax capability from the desktop, dail-in from home and dial-out from the office. This integrator suggested that he add a case management system which could share client information with the billing and accounting systems. All of this would work off of one data base. John saw the efficiencies and was pleased that there was such a small price difference in the different proposals.

John saw from the local legal integrator's proposal that he could place the entire system on a five-year lease and that the difference between the first proposal of $24,500 and the $31,500 proposal was $154 per month. The first proposal totaled $541 per month and the second was $696 per month. The integrator's proposal included hardware and software that would eventually have to be added to the first proposal. John reasoned that he would quickly make up the $154 per month in billing time available, efficiencies, future personnel savings and space savings.

Let's check in with the two firms one year from the date of their computer acquisitions. It is early Tuesday morning of a very busy week. Coincidentally, both attorneys have become unavoidably tied up at home and are going to be a few minutes late. A new client, is due in at 9:00 a.m.. Over the weekend, both attorneys have prepared some notes and modified some standard documents for their client. Paul frantically tries to reach his secretary, but she is not at home and has not arrived at the office yet.

John, on the other hand, dials the office with his computer, sends an explanatory electronic mail (E-mail) to his administrative assistant and attaches the notes and draft documents he has prepared for the client's review.

John instructs his secretary to take care of the client and have him review the documents after she has cleaned them up.

Paul Pennywyse's secretary, Stressia greets the client, Mr. Rush and asks him to fill out an intake sheet. She explains that Paul is running late. She gets his first cup of coffee and provides a firm brochure which describes their state of the art technology and the service the firm provides. Mr. Rush looks again to make sure the brochure belongs to this firm. Stressia begins the process of inputting the client into the firm's systems. She types a client profile and opens a file folder. Stressia checks on Mr. Rush and gets him another cup of coffee and replies to his inquiry that Paul should be here any time. She then types a rolodex card for the firm master. Stressia adds a billing record and types a conflict of interest card. Thirty minutes later she is finished and she and Mr. Rush wait on Paul.

John's secretary, Efficientia (Effie for short) greets their client, Charles Cautius with a cup of coffee. Effie escorts Charles into a waiting conference room. She fills out an intake sheet and asks Charles to be reviewing the prepared documents while John is on the way. One of the intake sheet questions asks if the client has Internet E-mail and Charles answers that he has it and uses it daily. Meanwhile Effie calls up the case management system and types in the intake information. The case management system prepares the client profile, rolodex, the initial billing record screen, Ten minutes later she is finished.

When Paul arrives at 9:45, the client is visibly agitated. Paul talks with him while Stressia cleans up the documents Paul had prepared at home over the weekend. Mr. Rush is upset about the delays and insists that he not be billed for waiting on Paul. Paul treats the half hour as nonbillable time. Paul and Mr. Rush discuss the case and Mr. Rush leaves. They agree to go over a presentation of the firm's capabilities at a later date when they will have more time. Paul and Stressia meet and manually post the calendars and map out the dates. Paul dictates case notes which Stressia types and places in the file folders. Paul later remembers some additional information and asks Stressia to type it for the file. Paul is upset. Not only was he late, he lost $62.50 in billing time. He repeats his favorite phrase "the hurriedier I go, the behinder I get." Stressia types a retainer agreement (Mr. Rush was in a rush and they didn't make him wait on it), a hospital request form, a DMV request, and employer information request. Thirty minutes later, she is finished.

When John arrives, Charles has reviewed the documents and has made his notes. John shows Charles a brief, computer-based introduction to the firm. Charles comments that he is favorably impressed that a small firm would make such good use of technology. They go over the information, discuss the case and coordinate schedules. While they are meeting, John E-mails Effie, requesting that she prepare the retainer agreement, hospital request form, a DMV request, and employer information request. Effie turns to her computer and engages the document assembly portion of the case management system. The case management system provides the data and the document assembly system automatically prepares the documents, stopping only to request variable information. Five minutes later Effie takes the documents into the meeting for a visibly impressed Charles' signature and approval. Effie mails the thank you letter. John types a thank you and a summary note into his Internet E-mail system and sends it Charles. Effie types a summary of the meeting into the case notes of the case management system. John reviews the notes and types comments he forgot to mention earlier. Realizing that this case is similar to many they do, Effie applies a "case pattern" to the case and dates of action are posted to the case management calendar.

At this point, Paul and Stressia have spent sixty minutes of administrative time, one hour of attorney time and have lost $62.50 in billing. Additionally, they have a concerned client and more work to do. Paul again stresses his frustration that he seems to have to write off more and more work. Stressia complains that her workload is piling up and that there should be an easier way to manage case entry. She reminds him that he was going to "look at" her pay situation and workload and that she is stressed.

John and Effie have spent thirty minutes of administrative time and have full billing for all work done. They have established rapport with their client and other than court dates, their case is charted and work is scheduled.

Many cases and much work later, Bob Rush calls, asking for a status update on his case. A very busy Paul frantically searches his memory for the status. He also instructs Stressia to find the file folder. While Bob holds, they search the office and finally tell Bob they will call back in a few minutes.

After searching for thirty minutes, and interrogating everyone in the office, Stressia finds the file folder. Once again, Paul has accidentally closed another case folder over the Rush case file.

Paul places a call to Mr. Rush only to find out that Bob has left the office. Paul adds "call Bob" to his to do list. Paul remarks, "we've got to do a better job or we're going to lose this client."

Effie and John also receive the call. John is in a meeting. However, Effie calls up the case on the computer, lets Charles know the status and the offer the opposing party has made and wishes him a good day. She has not had to disturb John. As they were talking, she was posting case notes regarding the conversation. Effie E-mails John the details of the call. John later sends an Internet E-mail to Charles with additional comments. John attaches a WordPerfect letter to the Internet E-mail explaining that he he is planning to send the letter to the opposing party. Charles later replies by E-mail that he is fine with the letter and suggests that they have lunch.

A point of federal law comes up. Although both firms have state statutes on CD, neither have enough use of federal law to justify a subscription. Paul calls his wife to apologize for missing dinner. After appeasing his waiting daughter with approval for the new dress she has been wanting, he leaves for the local college law library. Paul copies the information he needs, takes it back to the office and leaves Stressia a note on how he wants her to assimilate the information. Paul thinks to himself, "I'm getting better, that only took one and one half hours counting the drive and I can bill some of it." The client, Bob Rush doesn't seem quite as upset these days and hopefully he won't fight about the charges this time. Paul's heart sank as he remembered how much money his daughter's dress cost last week and how much grief he had gotten from her for missing her hamster race.

John has the same point to consider. He clicks on his computer network Internet ICON and chooses the Government Printing Office (GPO). John learned at a recent North Carolina Bar seminar that through the Internet, he could get free, up-to-date U.S. Code, Federal Register, Proposed Regulations, etc. John quickly finds the code he needs, highlights it with his mouse and copies and pastes it into the document he is preparing. He also pastes it into a case management case note with his comments and into an Internet E-mail he is preparing for the client, Charles Cautius. John thinks to himself, "I'm getting better, that only took ten minutes." John posts the time to the networked billing screen and utilizes value billing for the work. This is great, he reflects. I'll be early for dinner and won't miss my daughter's hamster race.

Paul reports to work to find Stressia very stressed. "Cash flow is very poor at this point and I don't have time to find out who owes what," she stated. "The last time I went through the manual system, it took me six hours to dig out the information, type and mail the statements" she continued. "Then we had people complaining about incorrect postings and late billings" she bemoans. "We really need to hire more help", she goes on. She reiterates her frustration with having to type virtually identical information into billing, the case file, rolodexes and general ledger.

Effie, on the other hand, depresses three keys to activate an aging report and in fifteen minutes has an aging report on John's desk. She also attaches a client profitability report for John's review. Since she is caught up, Effie requests and obtains an extra hour for a skills building lunch meeting that has come to her attention.

A situation arises which requires faxing the same set of ten page documents to several parties. Stressia asks her new assistant to send the fax to the ten parties, warning her that pages often get stuck together and to expect busy signals on others. Thirty minutes later the job is completed.

Effie sends the job to the computer fax server after clicking on the address book and recipient names. She designates the system to send the fax after hours when rates are less. She knows the system will give her a record of when the jobs are sent and will supply the billing information she needs. Any copies involved and the fax jobs will be automatically posted to the billing system for cost recovery purposes. Effie performs the task in two minutes.

John and Paul have been planning an afternoon off. As luck would have it, the computer systems lock up. Stressia calls Paul. Paul called his computer store and finds out that his friend has left for an opening at a the new video game superstore. After waiting an hour for the help desk to call, Paul is finally told that the problem is probably the software he had obtained through the mail. Paul is billed for the call. Paul finally gets through to the software company and is told that the problem is definitely hardware. He is billed for the call.

After agreeing that his wife and daughter both need another new dress, Paul stalks to his car and drives to the office to see what he can do.

Paul makes some phone calls, but is unable to find a new vendor who can immediately come to look at their problem. In desperation, he calls the video superstore in search of his former salesman friend only to find out that Ace has joined the professional video players tour. The individual who answered the phone named Zorro, tells him it sounds like hardware, but then again it could be software, but to check the wiring and make sure his people weren't the problem. Lastly, Zorro tells him he read something about UFO interference and ends by telling Bob, "hey, no charge and good luck, ole buddy."

Unable to resolve the problem, Stressia restores the prior day's data to the server and they only lose six hours work. They can hopefully catch the work up in four hours and will only be a couple days behind. Paul hires a temp to come in and cancels his afternoon off and re-reschedules it for next week. He determines that he can catch up with only a few nights' work.

Stressia is at her wit's end. Paul succumbs to her demands and advertises for more help. He tells Stressia to look for a new computer vendor. (Future research determined that their manual billing system data could not be imported into a computerized billing system and that the new computer fax system and the existing communications software were incompatible. The real estate software they have is not compatible with Windows 95).

When John's network goes down, Effie knows she doesn't need to bother him on his day off. After all, they had a support agreement with their local legal integrator. Effie calls the integrator and describes the problem. Since the integrator is familiar with all components of the network, their personnel are able to have Effie try a few things and they solve the problem over the telephone. In the past, the integrator has dialed into the network or come on-site, but that isn't necessary this time. John learns about the minor problem the next day.

Paul frequently grumbles that he never seemes to catch up. He can never seem to find information. Clients will call and he can not quickly respond. Stressia seems to grow unhappier each day. If he loses her, he will be in big trouble. She has volumes of information in her head. Everywhere he looked, he sees sticky notes and pieces of paper. He has piles of paper and files on his floor. He worries about nosebleed from climbing the mountains of files on his floor and is close to the point of having to be lowered by an office cranes onto his chair. It is frustrating.

John frequently marvels at how much he can get done with his system. Information is a keystroke away. When clients call, he can not only find their file on the computer, he can actually search for the particular case note topic they are discussing. His case management system's document assembly is so well organized that he can quickly pull together paragraphs and documents and assemble his own documents. Information such as expert witnesses, client phone numbers, adjuster results, referral information, deadlines, critical dates and more are at his fingertips. He can post an appointment and the system will post the calendar and all affected areas. He can look at everyone's calendar on his computer. Conflict of Interest is taken care of simply by posting the case management system. The system prompts him regarding all due dates, deadlines, trial checklists, etc. He can inquire on client billings at any time. Effie is wonderful, but if he ever loses her, all the data and systems are in place. Growth is an attractive possibility. Life is good.

As the tale goes on, Paul continues to work longer and harder, but seems to get further behind. Stressia leaves for a managerial opportunity at a fingernail art salon. John watches for additional technology that will save him more time and money and invests as appropriate.

Our tale ends happily. One day, Paul runs into his old college friend John Forsyte. Paul recalls that John had seemed to go through law school with much less effort than he had. After exchanging pleasantries, Paul suggests lunch. I'm ready to listen, Paul thought to himself. I'm sure John has some great ideas.

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