The following post is an excerpt from our popular ebook Ultimate Guide: Mobile Security in the Legal Industry. Be sure to check out the full version of the ebook for everything you need to know to keep your firm secure.

Learn how one firm is benefitting from being 100% cloud-reliant and how you make the shift to SaaS.

There are many trends redefining legal technology at the moment. One of those lesser-known trends is quickly gaining traction: taking the firm’s operations 100% into the cloud using Software as a Service (SaaS). According to Rightscale’s “The State of Cloud Report,” 93% of organizations surveyed are running applications or experimenting with infrastructure-as-a-service and 82 percent of enterprises have a hybrid cloud strategy, up from 74% in 2014.

This post is the fourth in a four-part series where we explore challenges in mobile security faced by law firms today.  Check out our last post on Containing a Data Leak here.  

As the global community watches the Olympic Games unfold in Rio, the Bellefield team embarked on a teambuilding activity inspired by our favorite Olympic Athletes.

This post is the third in a four-part series where we explore challenges in mobile security faced by law firms today. Check out our last post on How to Prevent a Data Leak here.

So, the worst has happened: your firm is experiencing a data leak. Now what?

Well, you might have guessed that the short answer is this: stop it from getting worse.

This post is the second in a four-part series where we explore challenges in mobile security faced by law firms today.  Check out our last post on The Anatomy of a Data leak here.

How many times have you heard the Desiderius Erasmus quote “Prevention is better than cure?” This quote is often used in the context of health and wellness, but it is quite fitting if you consider the challenges faced by law firms today in protecting client data.

This post is the first in a four-part series where we explore challenges in mobile security faced by law firms today.  

Cybersecurity in its most simple explanation is the need to protect against the bad guys. But what is it that these “bad guys” want?

They want data.

Data is a form of internet currency, which can be used for either good or bad. Cybercriminals are after data that empowers them to achieve their objectives, which range from obtaining credit card numbers or a foothold in an organization that will allow them to access critical information.

Much has been written about how big data is disrupting the legal professional, but is that reality? How are law firms using data to make decisions? There are several points of data critical to the modern law firm’s processes, such as: billing, receivable cycles, effective rates, budgets  and forecasting. What do they all have in common? All of this information, which feeds big data and business intelligence exists after the invoice is created - but what happens before the invoice is generated?

When was the last time one of your attorneys lost an iPhone? And when was the last time you called your clients and told them you have lost their data?

If the answer to these two questions is different, then you are probably in violation of common sense, ABA's rules, and (in some cases) the law.

Wow. I can’t begin to explain the emotion that I feel right now. I was not expecting this!

Last Friday evening, I attended the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards as a finalist in the Emerging Business Category. Among such amazing finalists in my category, I didn’t expect to win. When my name was called to the stage as the winner, I thought of the little girl with an entrepreneurial mindset that I once was, who would have found this moment of recognition as “Entrepreneur of the Year” unbelievable.

How does your firm’s time entry performance compare to other firms in the industry? In this post, we’ll discuss why time entry performance should be a top priority for firms and what you can do to improve your firm’s performance.

When reviewing your firm's financial health each month, how closely do you look at your time entry performance? If your answer is "never," you're not alone. Although most firms are looking to drive additional revenue, the time card rarely comes into focus as a means to achieve it. 

As attorneys demand the ability to do more work on their mobile devices, IT departments of all sizes are scrambling to address the challenges of keeping information assets protected. While the firm’s confidential data is typically stored securely inside its private network, attorneys and their mobile devices are roaming around in a very hostile environment. In order to operate properly, an App installed on the attorney’s device will need one of two things:

On this blog we often discuss the importance of adhering to good time entry practices. We emphasize the importance of contemporaneous time entry and stress the need for creating positive habits. We do this because we strongly believe that contemporaneous time entry simply produces better-quality timecards than any other method. This is important because good timecards don’t delay your invoicing, are less often questioned by your clients, get paid quicker, suffer less write-offs, and, ultimately, get you more money for the work you are already doing.

The Legal Executive Institute recently published this infographic titled “How Big is the U.S. Legal Services Market?”  The infographic presented several important data points on the legal industry:

• According to the LEI, the size of the legal market is about $437 billion. Out of this figure, law firms’ total revenue combined account for $276 billion, about 63% of the total legal market. Corporate Legal Departments share the other 37% with $160 billion.
• The law firm market is split: 39.2%  are Small Law Firm (1 – 20 attorneys), 26.4% are Mid Size Firms (30 to 175 attorneys) and 34.4% are Large Firms (175+ attorneys).
• Law firm business from Corporate Legal Departments is almost an even split, with 53% of the business going to the Top 200 AM LAW firms, and 47% to firms outside the AM LAW 200. Corporate legal departments are doing more in-house work.
• US is the largest distributor of legal services.

What’s the one sure thing that defines life as an IT professional at a law firm? There’s always a challenge. Lucky for us, these unsung heroes thrive in the face of complexity. 

Perhaps the most significant challenge for the IT professional, in legal, is security. The sharp increase in mobile device use over the past few years has added several new complexities to the security conversation.

In our latest contribution to the ILTA Peer to Peer Magazine, we address the important topic going beyond the App in achieving True Mobility.

Apps are arguably the reason that smartphone use has soared over the past decade, and they are part and parcel of the way most of us understand mobility.

The "there's an app for that" mentality works great for individuals, but it is not so good for law firms. Firms that fail to go "beyond the app" and address mobility at an enterprise level are less likely to experience:

Introducing a new technology to attorneys can be challenging.After all, attorneys have been burned many times by solutions that are inefficient, overly complicated and ineffective. This has led to a perception that attorneys are unwilling to adopt new technology. At Bellefield, we've found this to be a major misconception. In our experience, attorneys enthusiastically embrace new technology - so long as it is actually adding value to their processes.

“Ding!” An email has just entered your inbox as “just a friendly reminder” that time entries are once again due (or perhaps past due). Upon reading this email, you might wince, groan, huff or roll your eyes. After all, this isn’t exactly what you imagined when you attended law school, is it?

Why is time entry such a dreaded task for attorneys anyway? We all know that the billable hour is the ultimate currency for law firms. Simply put, without time entry, no one gets paid. The truth is, however, the importance of timekeeping doesn’t make it any less painful.

When we think of the mobile revolution that’s under way right now, our minds typically go to smartphones, apps, and then perhaps tablets and wearables. That’s to say that we typically focus on mobile devices when considering innovation in mobility. We think about the size and design of the device - will it be large or small? We consider the quality of the camera and perhaps the flashy features that will be contained in the latest update. In our discussions about mobility, we often encourage you to go beyond the app. However, it is likely that the most disruptive aspect of mobility is not top of mind when you think about technology advancement. Therefore, in this post, we’re going to encourage you to go beyond the device. After all, the greatest innovation happening in mobility right now does not lie in mobile device development, but rather, with voice technology.

Old-school time entry solutions are working against the goals of the modern law firm.

Unlike some of today's professions that have evolved out of the technology era, the practice of law has been around for centuries. From the moment that attorneys began recording time, the process has been pretty much the same. The attorney does the work and at some later date, he or she sits down to review logs, calendars, emails, etc. to estimate how much time was spent, matter by matter. When you consider it this way, it’s no wonder why time entry is a dreaded activity among attorneys! Reconstructing time takes hours of time away from doing what attorneys do best: practicing law. Even with the help of legal assistants, traditional time entry places a significant burden on the attorney.

The practice of law has always been a "mobile professsion." However, more recently mobility has taken on a whole new meaning for today's attorneys. In this infographic, we explore how attorneys leverage mobility to be more effective and efficient than ever before in history, working the way that they want to work. Please allow us to introduce the modern mobile attorney.

Please join us in welcoming guest blogger, Maria Greco Danaher, shareholder at Ogletree Deakins. Maria regularly represents and counsels companies in employment-related matters. She specializes in representing management in labor relations and employment litigation, and in training, counseling, and advising human resource departments and corporate management on these topics.

From an attorney's perspective, client trust is critical. It is the glue that holds the team together. We do more than simply represent our clients - we have a working relationship with them. That means that everyone has to be on the same page, trusting each other to work towards the same goals, all the time. While the need for client trust may seem obvious, it is sometimes overlooked, and often taken for granted in modern law practice. In this blog post, we’ll discuss the dangers that exist when client trust is lacking, how to increase trust, and the critical role that an attorney’s work habits play in the attorney-client relationship.

In our latest contribution to the ILTA Peer to Peer Magazine, we address the important topic of privacy, as it relates to voice-to-text technology. 

Dictation is nothing new for attorneys, but voice-to-text technologies such as Siri have opened new avenues for attorneys and their mobile devices. Attorneys routinely enter time, record and transcribe case notes, delegate tasks, and maintain client and other correspondence via the voice-to-text technologies on their mobile devices. In this age of digital vulnerability, could Siri and its voice-powered pals be sharing sensitive case information with the Internet at large?

Are “predictions” posts, which are immensely popular this time of year,  “pointless,” as The Lawyerist recently pointed out? They certainly can be! As The Lawyerist pointed out, this time of year is filled with posts attempting to predict what is to come in the legal industry over the coming year, and many times it sets the expectation that there will be a monumental or explosive shift, rather than a gradual change over time. We can’t disagree with that. Our industry, after all, is typically slow to change and adopt the new, particularly when it comes to technology. However, the gradual changes that have occurred over the past several years have led us to an interesting moment in legal technology history. Therefore, since we can’t resist a good “predictions” post of our own, we’ll focus on the key technologies, ideas or behaviors that will either be introduced or come into their own in the coming year. 

“The world's most innovative companies are not corporations driven by profit, but movements driven by a cause.” - Alexander Den Heijer

If you’ve been following this blog over the past few years, you know that we typically end the year on a note of reflection. As such, it has become apparent to me that each year at Bellefield has carried with it a certain theme.

In 2013, the theme was innovation, as we began to empower attorneys to work the way that they want to work, regardless of location or device. We introduced the importance of contemporaneous timekeeping and why the time entry “velocity” matters.

Software as a Service (SaaS) is taken over as the go-to model for purchasing software in most industries, including legal. However, legacy vendors offering a subscription model are often mistaken for SaaS vendors, leaving the customer without the critical benefits that define SaaS.

The modern law firm requires many different software platforms  and systems to achieve success, from time entry to client relationship management and more. As Software As a Service (SaaS) has started to become the standard, many legacy vendors have simply pivoted to a subscription model. What’s the difference? In this post, we’ll explore the difference between the two and the benefits of a true SaaS model.

Since attorneys started billing by the hour in the 1960s, time has been central to any conversation about billing. The need to keep time for hours worked has not changed, but the way that attorneys and law firms approach timekeeping has evolved dramatically over the years. In this post, we welcome Joe Bookman, founder of PinHawk, who has taken an active role in the evolution of timekeeping, to give us a firsthand account of how things have changed.

Attorney time entry is one thing, but are those time entries accurate and in compliance with client billing guidelines.

Prior to founding Bellefield, my Co-Founder Dani and I founded and built one of the most successful eBilling companies to date. As you can imagine, our background in e-billing causes us to feel very strongly about billing processes within the legal industry. Our experience tells us this: the system is broke.

This is an excerpt from our recently published guide titled “True Mobility for the Legal Enterprise.” Download the full guide here.

To say “It’s an honor simply to be nominated” has become something of a cliché, but that’s how we feel to be considered as a finalist for the PIttsburgh Technology Council’s annual Tech 50 awards. To be counted among such amazing tech companies and talented CEOs is a reminder of how far we’ve come and what we’ve been able to achieve. Even without winning, we feel like winners.

If you are familiar with this blog, you are aware that at Bellefield we are passionate about innovation in legal technology. As the first company to design and bring to market timekeeping for the Apple Watch, we understand the impact of wearables and mobile technologies have on an attorney’s productivity.

From interviewing witnesses, to taking depositions and appearing in court, the nature of an attorney’s  work has always been mobile. With the advent of smartphones, tablets, wearables and other mobile devices, technology enables attorneys to work the way that they want to work.

What do Bob Iger, Anna Wintour, Rupert Murdoch, J.J. Abrams, Karl Lagerfeld, Beyonce and Tim Cook have in common? Well, they have each achieved remarkable levels of success in their respective industries for one. Another is a common accessory: the Apple Watch.

How well do you think you know the attorneys at your firm? Known for a direct, pull-no-punches nature, you might think that attorney behavior and mindsets are predictable. To a certain extent, this may be true. However, there is one key area where attorneys continue to surprise their colleagues at the firm: mobility.

Compared to legacy companies in our industry, Bellefield can be considered the “new kid on the block.” In just a few short years we’ve experienced record growth, and have become the #1 mobile timekeeping App for attorneys. In this short time period, we’ve built so much more than an App that attorneys love. We’ve built an engaged community and an exceptional team.

It's that time of year again, the moment when legal techies from around the world gather to network with peers and learn about what's coming next in the industry. ILTACON is both inspiring and exciting, but it can at times be overwhelming too. Four action packed days of keynotes and educational sessions led by 40+ industry peers will leave you with no shortage of learning opportunities - but, will you have enough time?

At Bellefield, the topic of time is always top of mind. When attending ILTACON, it is crucial to be strategic about how to spend your time. The true value of attending ILTACON varies, depending on your individual goals. In order for your attendance at the conference to be a success, you'll need to align your activities with your goals.

 It’s moments like this that remind us why we do what we do everyday.

Just a few short years ago, my co-founders and I set out to change the way that the legal industry approaches mobility. In this brief amount of time, contemporaneous time entry has become the standard (instead of the impossible) and law firms have begun operating at True Mobility.

It is not a surprise to any of us that technology has deeply influenced every aspect of our lives: how we buy, what restaurants we go to, how we date, how we communicate, how we book and go on vacations, our social interactions and sharing, just to name a few. And for each of these, we are faced with multiple choices and we need to decide which one best suits our needs, mood, budget, taste, etc. Yes, decisions, decisions and more decisions. Researchers at Cornell University found that people make an average of 226.7 decisions about food alone.

Watch Out: The Apple Watch is About To Change Mobility As We Know it...Are You Ready?

Last week I was talking with a client about our upcoming release of the  iTimeKeep App for the Apple Watch, and his reaction was very interesting. His perspective, that the Apple Watch is a solution looking for a problem, is not unusual. Many also thought the same about Twitter (140 characters, are you kidding me?!), the iPad and even the iPhone itself.

According to the 2015 Canadian Lawyer Compensation Survey, most attorneys (at best) are stuck in the status quo. Bonuses for achieving billable targets are staying the same, if not decreasing.  The survey results suggests “law firms are looking elsewhere when it comes to measuring the work product of their lawyers.”

Siri and other text-to-speech technologies offer many conveniences, but is our privacy at risk?

The question boils down to this: is Siri a big blabbermouth disguised as a helpful sidekick?

According to this article published by Esquire titled “Siri is Definitely Sharing Your Data with Third Parties,” a Reddit user discussed having access to voice recordings from random Apple and Samsung customers that were generated through text-to-speech technologies, such as Siri, while working for a data mining company. The user, FallenMyst, shared this experience to serve as a warning to mobile users that their data may not be as private or personal as they might assume.

A few weeks ago, we (Bellefield) were invited to share our experiences as legal technology entrepreneurs with the newly-formed startup accelerator at the University of Pittsburgh, The Blast Furnace.

To know us is to know that we are proud Pitt alumni and even more proud legal technology entrepreneurs. At this stage in our careers, we’re often asked to speak about our experiences in entrepreneurship. In telling these stories we’ve found that there are two sides of the story. There’s the often told story about success - the one that appears on LinkedIn or in a Bio. And then there’s the ‘real ‘ story---the story that entrepreneurs rarely tell of how difficult it is to achieve success. Sometimes the real story is a horror story, a road that is anything but direct.

We discuss the topic of technology engagement quite often on this blog.

Almost all firms struggle or have struggled with technology engagement at some point in time. Although top firms have proven high levels of technology engagement are possible with the right approach, the idea of technology engagement remains mysterious and far-fetched to most firms.

For many attorneys, time entry is a sore subject. However, it isn’t time entry that is the problem, but rather the way in which time entry is carried out. Time consuming and tedious, reconstructive time entry is likely to be procrastinated by attorneys who would much rather practice law than spend hours combing through call logs and schedules to determine how their time was spent. This estimation (and let’s face it, in many instances “guess work”) leads to several inaccuracies which have an adverse effect on the firm’s projections and bottom line. Even those attorneys who consider themselves in control of time entry processes face several inaccuracies bred from inherent inefficiencies. Suffice to say that even the best reconstructive timekeepers can’t match the accuracy and efficiency of contemporaneous timekeepers.

Hawkins Parnell Thackston & Young (HPTY) leveraged mobile time entry to increase accuracy and reduce time leakage.

As they say, the struggle is real. Frequent rejections due to a complex billing process are common among the nation’s top law firms. Hawkins Parnell Thackston & Young (HPTY) was no exception.

In business and in life, there are certain debates that seem to persist despite the fact that there is a strong or apparent case which provides resolution. Such is true with the ongoing debate surrounding enterprise apps: HTML5 vs. Native - which is better?

You might remember this time last year, when we broke from our normally legal-tech focused blog content to discuss the explosion of entrepreneurship at our alma mater, the University of Pittsburgh. Here’s what: we’re about to do it again.

How Engagement is Shaping Legal Technology to Drive Adoption and Results within the Firm

In industry conversations, we often talk about “how much legal has changed” over the past decade. However, I’ve come to realize that it’s not so much a change, as it is a shift that has transformed our industry in recent years.

A few weeks ago, I was honored to accept the BusinessWomen First Award, given by the Pittsburgh Business Times to the top 25 business women in the region. Not only was it a proud moment for me but it was also a time for reflection on what it means to find success as a woman in the technology industry.

Indianapolis-based law firm, Krieg DeVault, leverages attorney competitiveness to drive timekeeping accuracy and compliance.

Mostly every law firm is faced by the challenges that come along with new technology adoption. When new technology lands in the hands of busy attorneys, it is often met with resistance. Why? The reason is surprisingly simple: new technology initiates a change in habit.

Hectic. Fast-paced. Chaotic, even.

Life in the modern law firm does not afford wasted time or inefficient processes. Today’s attorneys, from associates to partners, are moving through the day at breakneck speeds. Time is more than money. Time is efficiency, clarity and balance. Time is something that most attorneys today don’t have much of.

For attorneys, effective time management can mean the difference between success or failure. Winning or losing. Accuracy or mistakes. With this in mind, we put together a list of productivity tips to help attorneys make the most of their most scarce resource: time.

There are two things related to timekeeping that almost all law firms have in common:

How engaged are the attorneys, support staff and other employees at your firm?

There is an abundance of research that demonstrates that happy and engaged workers are more efficient, productive, perform better and earn a higher paycheck.

Would you be surprised if I told you that smoking leads to cancer and we should exercise every day, eat healthy and do good for others? All of these things are considered “common knowledge” in our society, but yet are often viewed as difficult to implement. In the book The Happiness Advantage, author Shawn Achor, poses the question “But does this common knowledge make doing things any easier?” His answer: “Of course not. Because in life knowledge is just part of the battle.”

If this was true,  attorney technology adoption would be a piece of cake. Attorneys would consistently make good use of all of the technology and policies that have been put in place to make them more productive right?  If we know, for example, that  contemporaneous timekeeping will make time records more accurate and the firm more profitable, surely attorneys will follow through, right?  Well, that’s not necessarily true. With the beginning of the New Year,  this discussion has plenty of context: 75% of people who make a new year’s resolution will break it within two weeks.

Talent, Culture and Team Building are key to your Company’s Success in 2015

For many of us, this time of year is a time that we use to reflect on the state of our company or law firm. This is the time that we review the year’s performance, set new goals, identify emerging challenges and complete any other planning that will allow for success in the coming year.

We are busy thinking about budgets, resources and strategies, there is one important factor that should not be ignored: talent.  After all, there is no success without the right talent.

Technologically speaking, the legal industry has made major strides over the last decade. In general, this is a good thing; however, the rapid adoption of mobile and cloud technologies have left firms struggling with a new problem: unprecedented complexity. 

The world is moving toward the “as a Service Model (aaS)” from Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), all the way to Marketing as a Service and Music as a Service. The aaS model goes beyond how we pay for software and the subscription model. It’s about the cost of ownership and converting that to a predictable outcome.

We can’t contain our excitement about the 2014 ILTA Technology Survey. Not only was iTimeKeep (once again!) listed as the #1 mobile time entry solution for attorneys, there were several important pieces of data that provide additional insight on the true state of mobility in legal as well as indicators of what’s to come.

This year’s ILTA study represents over 450 firms, ranging in size to determine how top law firms are using technology throughout their firm to enhance profitability and productivity.

Time entry can be hard, but it doesn’t have to be.

Recently, we were invited to participate in a mini-series, Talking Tech by Charles Christian regarding time recording, capture and tracking within law firms. Dani was on point, representing our team to address several important issues happening now in the legal technology. A few important themes emerged from the discussion, which we think are valuable here.

For law firms (and the enterprise world at large), mobility continues to be a priority. As evidenced in this recent survey conducted by Accenture, companies are moving aggressively to develop mobile strategies and adopt mobile technologies, with 77% of respondents ranking Mobility as the top-priority out of the most popular digital technologies.

This should not come as a surprise. Mobile devices, apps, the cloud and social media are redefining an age where technology has become the foundation of any successful business. However, an app isn’t just an app anymore, specially for organizations implementing a mobile strategy. If law firms expect to experience the benefits of true Mobility, they will need to focus on integration.

In the past, we’ve discussed how mobility is changing every interaction in our lives, including the way that we work, shop and communicate. You might remember our recent infographic that showed that the number of mobile-connected devices is expected to exceed the number of people on earth by the end of 2014. By 2018, there are expected to be 1.4 mobile devices per capita. As if these numbers aren’t astounding enough, the most recent stats below are even more overwhelming:

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle

Attorneys.

High achievers. Performers. Competitive. Like to win.

It’s safe to say that most attorneys want to be excellent. However striving for excellence and actually achieving it are two different things. Make no mistake, there are plenty of talented, intelligent and capable people out there that seek excellence, yet fall short.

If you haven’t read 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by best-selling author, Stephen Covey, you’ve at least heard of it. Covey sold over 20 million copies (in 38 languages!) of the famous book, which remains one of the best selling business books of all time.  This inspired many other titles of the same theme – kids, marketers, programmers and even law firm rainmakers. At this point, just about everyone is highly effective. Everyone, well, except timekeepers.

At Bellefield, we’re relentlessly committed to innovation and the new technologies, ideas and practices that are shaping the future of legal. In this new topic series, we’ll showcase firms that have implemented innovative solutions at their firm.

Ward and Smith, P.A. is a full service law firm with 5 offices in North Carolina. The firm is known for its dedication to leveraging technology and their collaborative environment which fosters growth, innovation, and productivity. Their achievements have been awarded by Law Technology News and ILTA.  Ward and Smith's award-winning business intake process exemplifies its dedication to business process efficiency.

This Q&A with Charles Collins, Applications Development Supervisor at Ward and Smith, focuses on how to eliminate duplicate data through information sharing between the timekeeping and CRM systems.

Traditionally, when you think of the work that an attorney handles on a daily basis, you don’t think of billing. While an attorney is responsible for entering his or her time, the attorney might be entirely disconnected from billing rules and outside counsel guidelines in most firms. However, when an attorney does become engaged in this process, the effects are profound for both the attorney and the firm.

This traditional disconnect between the completion of work and billing is costly to the firm. Until now, there was not much that could be done to avoid this. However, time entry compliance (also referred to as real-time compliance) is a game changer for firms.

“Say, what?” How Real-Time Compliance Works

Of the many functions that attorneys carry out on a daily basis to win clients and cases, timekeeping doesn’t get any of the glitz and glamour. After all, when young law students daydream about their futures as attorneys, they don’t typically conjure up images of rockstar timekeeping. However, that doesn’t make timekeeping any less important to the firm.

Although timekeeping has earned a reputation for being a painful task that attorneys and staff dread, it doesn’t have to be - thanks to these two truths of modern timekeeping:

1. Mobile Timekeeping Apps now allow attorneys to enter their time in real-time, preventing the need for hours of reconstructive time estimating.
2. Mobile time entry, by design, is meant to work the way attorneys work.  This means that the time entry process fits into the attorney’s current workstyle of being mobile and on the go. 

This is the second post in our Women in STEM series, as we continue to follow our passion of bringing awareness about women in legal technology. What could be better than finding this inspiration within our own team at Bellefield! This is the story of Kim Mann, Bellefield's Lead Software Architect. Kim's story has inspired us and we hope that it inspires you and all of the men and women you know. 

ALA has shifted from holding regional events with varying programs to a “traveling conference” which offers the same programming in various cities.  This year's conferences are being held in Portland, Chicago, Fort Worth and Philadelphia.

In this post, we discuss ALA’s new conference format with an expert's point of view on the subject, Janine Book, Pepper Hamilton's Office Manager.

Any new technology will pose challenges at some point, even when it is well designed and properly implemented. Mobile technologies are no exception.

ILTA is arguably the coolest event in legal technology that takes place on an annual basis. For all of us "legal-tech fanatics," this is the place to be. 

When it comes to time entry in the legal industry, there are several misconceptions. Perhaps these misconceptions exist because people are afraid of change. Change is really hard, after all. Misconceptions can serve as a defense mechanism against the pain brought on by change. In the famous words of President John F. Kennedy, “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”

When it comes to timekeeping, mobile time entry is the future. However, despite the notable benefits of embracing contemporaneous time entry, many firms resist. This resistance relies on - you guessed it - many commonly-held misconceptions about time entry and compliance at law firms.

If you are reading this blog post, you may or may not be familiar with Bellefield. However, to know us, is to understand that innovation drives much of what we do on a daily basis. We’ve written about innovation before and consider it an integral part of our company culture. It’s part of the fabric that defines who we are.

How’s the weather at your firm? Do you experience any changes in temperature around your time entry deadline? If you do, you’re not alone.

We admit it: the topic of time entry isn’t necessarily sexy, especially to attorneys. It’s not just attorneys that shake their proverbial fist at time entry. Many law firms continue antiquated and inefficient time entry practices, which means that firm administrators, legal assistants and other staff are burdened with some aspect of time entry, from completion to accuracy.

“Time is money,” as the old adage goes, but it is many other things too. Your time is efficiency and compliance. Your time is morale. Your time is your credibility and competitive advantage. Your time is important to consider as you manage and grow your firm.

Good and bad habits alike, have a profound effect on our lives. The habits of attorneys, in particular, may seem small and insignificant within the scope of the day or week, but can amount to dramatic and transformative results over time. Habits, and small ones at that, are the backbone of productivity, job satisfaction, career success and growth.

Do you have plans to the attend the Elite VANTAGE show taking place in NYC next week? If so, you’re in for an exciting and thought-provoking experience.

Time will be your most limited resource at the conference, as several activities, colleagues and educational sessions will be in constant competition for your attention. Despite these time constraints, you will need to act strategically and intentionally in order to ensure that your time at Elite VANTAGE is worth the investment. In this blog post, we’ll explore five ways to maximize the return on investment in your trade show attendance.

The traditional scenario plays out something like this: the firm invests several hours discussing business challenges with a sales rep in order to choose the appropriate solution(s) and to create a game plan for launch and implementation. The sale is closed and the solution is deployed. “Holler if you need anything,” says the vendor. Then, communication goes dark until something goes wrong or someone needs help.

It’s not that there is anything wrong with this approach, but there isn’t necessarily anything right either.

Recently, we discussed what law firms should know and understand about their Gen Y attorneys.

Millennials are a controversial generation, but I suppose that each generation is. When a new generation comes of age, it typically translates to change. Change often breeds discomfort. Therefore, each generation has criticisms to cast on the next. But in the end, different doesn’t mean better or worse - it just means different. While each generation holds positive and negative attributes,

In February of this year, LinkedIn made its publishing platform available to all of its members. Until this point, publishing on LinkedIn was a privilege reserved for about 500 hand-selected industry thought leaders, known as “Influencers”. The list of LinkedIn Influencers reads as a "who's who" of business, media and politics, with names like: Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Meg Whitman, Mark Cuban, Suzie Orman and more. Over the past few years, the Influencers program has thrived, giving thought leaders the ability to share quality content directly with LinkedIn users.  For example, Bill Gates’ first post got over 1 million views in just a few short days and the average Influencer post receives about 30,000 views. 

While LinkedIn users have always been able to share short updates and links to other blogs or websites on LinkedIn, the publishing of content in long-form was reserved to Influencers. LinkedIn has recognized the tremendous value of the publishing platform as a vehicle to drive user engagement. More and more users are coming to LinkedIn to consume and share content, making it a powerful news aggregator.

Are you headed to Toronto for the ALA conference next week?

There is no doubt that the ALA conference will be fast paced and exciting this year. The conference agenda is jam-packed with keynote speeches, educational sessions and even a performance by REO Speedwagon!

Industry events like ALA provide an opportunity to explore emerging trends in legal, connect with leaders in the field and network with peers. However, beware that time will slip away from you quickly. So, in order to make the most of your short time at ALA, we’ve put together a few helpful tips:

Recently, we discussed why LinkedIn is critical to your law firm’s social media strategy. In this article, we'll explore a few ways that attorneys and their firms can maximize their use of LinkedIn.

However, before diving into the tactics, it is important to acknowledge this: your strategy must be focused on publishing high-quality content that is of benefit to your audience on a consistent basis. Your readers will need to know what to expect from you in terms of quality and frequency, which in turn creates a sense of value in their minds. Otherwise, your success will be fleeting, rather than sustainable.

LinkedIn has undoubtedly become the premier social network for professionals, averaging one new member every two seconds. With over 300 million users, LinkedIn is no longer a static online resume platform, utilized solely for the purposes of searching for employment as it once was.  LinkedIn is now a dynamic hub for lively professional conversation and debate that is shaping the future of business.

Right now is perhaps one of the most exciting times to be part of the legal industry. The great transformation taking place is affecting how we work, where we work, what we work with and the roles that we play as professionals in the firm. Much of the shift taking place can be attributed to technology, specifically, mobility.

Mobility is literally changing the world (arguably, it already has). We dive deep into global and legal industry-specific mobility trends and fun facts. 

Recently, someecards debuted a new line of e-cards that pokes fun at inflated job titles, including the “Head of IT,” which they revised to “Director of Turning Things Off and Back On.”

It’s all in good fun. Check out the rest of their line here.

However, seeing this card reminded us of something that we’ve been planning to address on the blog for quite a while: the fact that the IT function is the law firm’s unsung hero.

The nature of this blog post is a bit personal for the Bellefield founders. However, in the spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation, two things that have allowed us to bring you solutions for the legal industry at Bellefield and our previous company eBillingHub, we’d like to share some news! 

As many of you are aware, we are proud graduates of the University of Pittsburgh. In fact, Bellefield is named after one of the main streets that runs through campus. Over the past few months, we had the opportunity to mentor a group of students who were taking part in The 2014 Randall Family Big Idea Competition. During the “big idea” competition, several groups of students pitch their ideas and compete for cash prizes that can be used to fund their ventures. 

As reported in the news last week, a major bug (nick-named HeartBleed) was reported in OpenSSL, the

Many of the legal vendors out there seem to believe that mobility means that they've got an App. There, I said it.

They think that you just do an app, you put it on the app store, and there you go. Now you have mobility. Boom. Well, true mobility is a little bit more involved than simply creating an app.

Have you ever heard an attorney say that one of his or her favorite jobs is keeping their time? Yeah right.

Of course, timekeeping isn’t your favorite task. Clearly, it is not the reason that you became an attorney in the first place. However, timekeeping is an important part of gaining and maintaining your clients’ trust. In this article, we’ve outlined a few of our favorite timekeeping best practices to take the burden away from your timekeeping responsibilities.

Culture is often regarded as a “fluffy” aspect of the firm’s operations and is typically assigned to the Human Resource department as a feel-good, nice-to-have.

In our recent blog posts, we’ve been speaking to many CFO concerns, such as why the CFO should be involved in vendor selection. In this post, we’ll explore another topic that directly affects the firm’s profitability: culture.

In our last post, we discussed how real-time compliance is giving power back to attorneys to prevent billing errors and get invoices paid faster. As we mentioned, this is the short term problem solved by the real-time compliance. But, as is often the case, there is something much deeper going on that law firms should be aware of.

How real-time compliance can help law firms get less rejections and faster payments

The sooner you know that there is a problem, the better. Fix it. Move on.

However, in the typical law firm, identifying the “bad news” early enough to address the problem is a struggle. Specifically, I’m referring to the disconnect between what attorneys are doing when they record their time and what clients receive in an invoice. The problem starts when a client is billed using the incorrect codes for the work completed. The ultimate result of this disconnect is unhappy clients (and of course, unhappy attorneys due to late or missing payments from clients).

Yesterday, the news broke that Facebook purchased mobile messaging app, WhatsApp for $19 Billion. While Facebook has made several acquisitions in the past 10 years since the social network was founded, this marks its biggest acquisition yet.

Even for Facebook, this was a major purchase. So why did they do it?

In this post, we’ll dive into the significance of the WhatsApp acquisition (and save you from those cheesy “WhatsApp with that?” puns that we’re seeing from just about everyone else covering this story).

The weather outside is frightful. Even in locations where it is is typically delightful.

This season, just about every US location is getting pummeled with snow, ice and other severe weather conditions. Yesterday, law firms in DC, Georgia, North Carolina, New York, Boston, Maine, and New England were closed. While a “snow day” might sound like fun, it can be very stressful for individuals who are forced to “work from home” without have access to the proper infrastructure that allows them to tend to important matters.

On an intuitive level, “do it now,” as opposed “save it for later” makes sense. After all, why put off an important task when you could take care of it right now and breathe a little bit easier knowing that it is complete?

Easier said than done. For most of us, this isn’t reality. In fact, while only 20% of the population are considered clinical procrastinators, everyone procrastinates some of the time. In fact, people are more likely to put off a task that they don’t like to do until later. And, since most people don’t exactly consider themselves time entry enthusiasts...

In the legal world, everyone keeps time. But, how accurate are those time logs?

Has your firm ever measured the time elapsed between the time that the work was completed and when the time recorded? For most firms, the average is about 5 to 7 days.

Why does this matter? Well, because the longer it takes to record an activity the less you will remember. It will all even out eventually, right? Probably not.

The Bellefield team has exciting news to share with you - we moved! 

Since we started Bellefield a few years ago, we've been fortunate to experiece record growth and success in building iTimekeep into the most adopted mobile time entry solution for attorneys. 

But, we're not done yet.

It may not be your favorite thing to do and it is certainly not the reason that you became an attorney, but timekeeping is an important part of gaining and maintaining your clients’ trust. The good news is that timekeeping doesn’t have to be painful or a source of stress.

In the following list, we’ve identified the 6 most important timekeeping resolutions that you should commit to this year.

As the CFO of a law firm, your attention is required on several competing priorities throughout the firm. As such, it is tempting to leave certain important matters, such as vendor and product selection, to the end users or IT department.  However, before you pass these decisions off to other team members, remember that vendor selection can have a direct impact on the firm’s profitability. 

Technology is changing law firms as we know them, presenting new decisions that can have a direct impact on revenue. Anything that impacts the law firm’s revenue should be of interest to the CFO. That’s why it should be the CFO’s responsibility to be involved when making these types of important or critical purchases. Now, more than ever before, the CFO needs to be involved with the vendor selection process to ensure that technology improvements are positioning the firm for future growth and financial success. 

Gen Y, also known as Millennials, were born between the early 1980s to the early 2000s - a time of great technological change and innovation. Having grown up as “digital natives,” Gen Y has changed the workforce as we know it, embracing technology, mobility and location independence.

What does Gen Y mean for the legal community? While many law firms may still take a traditional approach to technology and productivity, Gen Y attorneys have different ideas and are helping to revolutionize the way that firms operate.