Most law office setups have a file server to store files locally in the office that serves files out to desktop client workstations throughout the office. GoMatters network speeds are faster than even the most sophisticated office network setups. The bottom line is our stuff is just faster and more powerful… a lot faster and more powerful than the average law office.

When you match our network speed with the organizational skills of our practice management system, you get something we like to call “real office speed”. Real office speed is a combination of machine time and human time to complete a real office task.

Take for example finding a word document on your desktop. What’s the real office speed of finding a client document on your desktop? In most cases you’re looking at finding the file in one of two ways, directly looking through your system file finder like Mac OS X’s Finder or searching for the document through your word processor’s “Open” file link. Either way, you’re now at the mercy of your office file storage structure and the file naming conventions of those in your office. Don’t forget, if your word processor is not open, you’ve got to add time for that. Even the best setups make you look for a documents folder… click… look for a client folder… click… look for a case folder… click… look for a file folder! There it is, finally! The file folder. Have some office fun this Friday and time yourself and those in your office and see what the average lookup time is for a file in a folder.

Now our way of doing things… Matters app > type the first two or three letters of a client name… there it is… click the Matter, now Matter > Documents… and there it is… faster than a desktop.

So you’re going solo with a Mac, what now? Don’t worry too much, finding law practice management software for Mac is probably easier than putting in your notice at your current firm.

First things first, are you a Mac purist? We ask this question because you should start your Mac law office software quest off on the right foot and that does not mean jumping for the nearest copy of Boot Camp to install Windows on your Mac. If you’re a purist, you’ll hold out as long as you can and try to find as many alternatives as you can. Some law practice software specific to certain practice areas is only available for Windows so you many have no other option than to either install Windows on your Mac or maybe even pick up a cheap PC to run the practice specific software and use your Mac for everything else.

90% of your practice is likely to be word processing and you’d be hard pressed to find a better word processing program than Open Office. Good news is that it runs wonderfully on your Mac and the great news is that it’s free! Open Office is even a bit more flexible than Word when it comes to things like PDF’s and saving files in open formats.

After word processing, you’re going to need a Mac case management and billing system for your law office. GoMatters can help you with both the front office scheduling and back office billing and management to make your transition to solo practitioner as easy and as painless as possible. Emailing clients and viewing documents online with GoMatters can you save you the time, paper, postage and personnel overhead associated with traditional law practices.

Matter Number

First things first, you need to think optimistically. Let’s hope you have a ton of clients in your new law practice that will come back to you year after year. Let’s also hope your practice last for years and years, or as they said back in law school “ad infinitum”.

Thinking optimistically then leads you to thinking chronologically. Marking the start date of any matter is the most logical way to approach any law office management file structure. If you think about it, this is the way courts have been managing case loads far greater than yours for for much longer than you’ve been practicing law.

When you open a new matter in GoMatters, a chronological number is assigned to the matter that represents the point in time the matter was created. The automatic matter number created by GoMatters is in the format Year-Month-Day-HourMinuteSecond.

Why use chronological numbers instead of incremental numbers like 1001, 1002, 1003 for your law office file structure? Chronological numbers contain easy to use information that can never be gleaned from an incremental number. What does matter number 1204 tell you? Does it tell you that it was case number 1,204 that you ever opened? So what. What can you do with that information? Nothing. What does the number 2011-01-25-171355 tell you? A great deal of useable, sortable information. That chronological number tells you the case was opened January 25, 2011 at 3:13 PM. That number can be sorted and searched by you to find out how many cases you opened in 2011, how many were opened in January 2011 and so on.

Matter Title

Once you decide on a logical numbering system for your law office files, you need to assign a human readable title to the matter. The style of a legal pleading is a great example of a “human readable” matter title. Think of matter titles as things like “State v. John Jones”, or “John Jones v. Big Corp. Int’l et al”. The title of the matter should be a quick way for you to visually recognize what the case is about. Is that John Jones’ divorce case, or is it John Jones’ real estate closing on his house? The matter titles “John Jones v. Mary Jones” or “Closing on 555 Easy Street, Dallas, TX” would let you know in a second which case is which.

Matter Category

All cases are of some category. And no, you really shouldn’t consider “easy money” as a category of case! Category is the top level of the law office case type. Think “Criminal”, “Divorce”, “Real Estate” and “Bankruptcy”. Those terms immediately give you a class of cases. You can look at the category title and know exactly with what kind of case you are dealing. GoMatters stores the category of case in… you guessed it, the “Matter Category” matter field.

Matter Description

The second level of case hierarchy is the description. Is your criminal (category) case a “Murder”, “DUI” or “Trespassing” case? The matter description is one level deeper in your case file structure than the category.

Best practice would be to establish a set of guidelines for matter title, matter category and matter description within your office. Mimic the court case style for title. Keep categories and descriptions very short, i.e. “Bankruptcy” (category) “Chapter 7″ (description).

Here are a few examples of the logic in graphical format:

• 2011-01-25-171355 (matter number = year date month hour minute second)
  • “State v. Johnson” (matter title = case style)
    • Criminal (matter category = general type of case)
      • Murder (matter description = specific type of case)

• 2011-01-26-084121 (matter number = year date month hour minute second)
  • “Foreclosure on 620 Mega Mansion Dr., San Francisco, CA” (matter title = case style)
    • Real Estate (matter category = general type of case)
      • Foreclosure (matter description = specific type of case)

• 11-73352 (matter number = court case number)
  • “Jack Johnson and Ann Johnson” (matter title = case style)
    • Bankruptcy (matter category = general type of case)
      • Chapter 7 (matter description = specific type of case)

Nothing screams “I have no mastery of email, I just like pretty things” better than background themes or wallpaper in email. Having a nice pretty background on your email does nothing to show your prowess as a skilled litigator and legal technology innovator. It just shows you like pretty things… and clogging up other people’s inbox limits with worthless attachments.

Yes, worthless attachments because don’t forget, that pretty email background comes through as an attachment which means not only is your email larger than it needs to be, but the email also has an extra paperclip attachment which will befuddled the recipient endlessly as they click the important email attachment from their big time lawyer only to find the file is a download of pretty flowers.

Don’t Forget To Include Matter Numbers And Titles In The Subject Line

Organizing your email is all about the search. To search emails quickly and efficiently, include the full Matter / Case Number and Title in the email subject line. GoMatters will take care of this for you by pre-formatting an email when you click a contact email address from the Matters app.

You would include the full Matter / Case Number in the Re: clause of a letter, wouldn’t you? It only makes sense to do it in an email, too. Which is easier to find by an email search in “2010-011A Jones v. Jones, Deposition Schedule”, “2010-011A” or “Deposition Schedule”. Searching by matter number will deliver all emails ever sent or received in the case. Searching by “Deposition Schedule” will do nothing for you that you can really use because you will have to sift through the search results further to find your matter. Just make it force of habit: email subject line = “Matter Number -> Matter Title -> Topic”.

Don’t Forget Formality With Your Email

Somewhere along the technological evolutionary curve, the business world began to associate email as being less formal than older alternative forms of business communication. Your email should maintain the same formality as an other communication sent from your office. You are representing your client in a professional capacity. It might be difficult to explain to your client an email to opposing counsel in a hotly contested matter that starts out with “Dude…”.

Where’s the fun in that resolution? New Year’s resolutions are supposed to be something that make you fight to continue something you really didn’t want to do in the first place… not doing something you’re dying to do like “Make more money”! Its time to make some new resolutions for your law office that will be important to streamlining your law office tasks and improving the overall performance of your law office. And If you stick to these 3 New Year’s resolutions, you’re more likely to succeed with your traditional, boring “Make more money” resolution, too.

#3 – Use Your Copier Less

For some offices, the copier is the cash cow. Billing for copies at more than .50 a page is a fair way to recoup your toner and paper costs, but do you really need to be wasting all that time making copies?

It’s 2011, if you don’t have a scanner, get one. Use your scanner instead of your copier whenever you can. Scanning and uploading documents to GoMatters can save you much more time and money than you ever imagined. Your current copy process goes something like this: walk over to the copier, copy the pages, fight with multiple paper jams during copy, count the pages when finished, type up a cover letter, insert copies with cover letter into an envelope, stamp the envelope, mail the envelope, bill for copies and postage, wait 3-5 days for a response.

Please. It’s 2011 for crying out loud! Scan and upload the documents to GoMatters, make one click to choose an email address from your GoMatters contacts list and email the digitized documents. Save yourself the hassle of your copy machine habits in the new year.

#2 – Use Your Fax Machine Less

There was a time when you couldn’t practice law without a fax machine and after you got your fax machine you wondered “How did I ever practice law without one of these?”.

The fax machine is a dying beast. Let’s kill it in 2011.

Fax machines are like money orders for people without checking accounts. You’ve probably got a checking account by now and you would be lost trying to figure out how to even purchase a money order. Email is your checking account. Write checks, don’t use money orders in 2011.

#1 – Use Less Paper

The holy grail of law office management is the “Paperless Law Office”. And like the holy grail, nobody really knows if the paperless law office exists, or if it exists, where it can found. However, there is no doubt that with a bit of planning you can reduce your paper use in your law office by incredible amounts and become the “Nearly Paperless Law Office” without much effort.

If you keep up with resolution #3 above, “Use Your Copier Less”, thereby scanning and uploading documents to GoMatters, you are already on your way to reducing your law office paper consumption significantly.

If there is one truism about paper, it is that paper begets paper. The more paper you use, the more paper you will use. That may sound like a Yogi Berra quote, but it’s true. If you make the first step and change just one element of your law office management paper trail, the following steps on the trail will be easier to digitize and / or eliminate.

Good luck on your resolutions and Happy New Year from GoMatters!

Conflict checking for lawyers can be a cumbersome task in the day to day law office routine. Ethical conflicts are a pitfall for lawyers governed by Rule 1.7 of the ABA Model Rules Professional Conduct which states the general rule: “a lawyer shall not represent a client if the representation involves a conflict of interest.” Rule 1.9 further prohibits a lawyer who has formerly represented a client in a matter from thereafter representing another person in the same or substantially related matter in which that person’s interests are materially adverse to the interests of the former client unless the former client gives informed consent, confirmed in writing.

Conflict checking for lawyers

GoMatters simplifies conflict checking for lawyers by keeping track of contact-matter relationships for every matter you create. Every matter to which a contact has been assigned is viewed easily under the “Contacts->Matters” tab. To view the matters to which a contact has been assigned, view the contact and then click the contact’s “Matters” tab to show the list of matters in which the contact is a party. The list of contact matters gives you a quick view of import information about a contact’s role in a particular matter.

It is always best to maintain a consistent set of role descriptions for your law firm contact management so other members of your law office and legal staff will be able to understand notations made in your contact management database. Abbreviations for contact roles are fine if everyone in the law firm is familiar with the role abbreviations and understands their meaning. GoMatters allows full flexibility for you to name your law firm contact roles in a way in which you are most comfortable. Full text contact role descriptions like “defendant” and “plaintiff” are supported or you can decide to use your own system of abbreviations or notations like “opp” (opposing party), “opcl” (opposing counsel), “pcl” (plaintiff’s counsel) or “dcl” (defendant’s counsel).

Be sure to check out the following contact management video tutorials:

• How to add matter contacts
• How to search contacts

The best tip for managing your contact roles is a simple one, just do it. Add every party to every case as a part of your initial case intake. Add contacts as parties to the case as they become available during the pendency of the proceedings. As a general rule for practicing law, the more information you have, the better off you will be. Contact matter management for your law firm is no different.

By having access to the information about the role of a contact in a matter, lawyers can perform an initial conflict check. No legal software system can determine whether or not a true ethical conflict exists in the lawyer’s representation of a client, but managing contact information successfully is the first step to avoiding a serious conflict issue in your representation.

Tracking files by year fits perfectly with the idea that after a certain year, files of a certain vintage can be destroyed to make room for new files that will inevitably clog the file cabinets for another 10 years or so.

Year based file numbering systems for law offices also correlate loosely to numbering systems set by courts that traditionally number new cases with some form of date notation. For example, cases started in 2010 may have a case number like 2010-XX-XXXX.

As lawyers move toward digital files and the paperless law office, the idea of expunging files to make room for new files becomes unimportant. SaaS solutions for lawyers like GoMatters are helping to obviate the need for physical storage space and offer the possibility of limitless data storage accessible in a few clicks.

Most lawyers find themselves unnecessarily duplicating the work of numbering files or cases because law offices, for the most part, are reactionary, meaning the law office reacts to cases that have actually been generated in other places like the court. Ask yourself, if the court already has an elaborate case number assigned to a matter, why are you worried about how you are going to number the same case for your office? Why not just use the case number assigned by the court for your own internal office number?

Don’t you hate the “Our file number:”, “Your file number:” in all those RE: clauses of letters? Isn’t it time to stop that? Do it now, it is a new year after all.

GoMatters allows you to enter any matter number you like and will even automatically assign a matter number for you. But if you just use the case number assigned by the court for matter numbers, it will help you track your cases faster and more efficiently by reducing your need to duplicate lookups of other case numbers. It can also increase your law office efficiency by cutting out the “Our file number:”, “Your file number:” dance.

But what happens when you open a case in GoMatters and have no case number from a court yet? The best practice when opening a new matter that has yet to be assigned a case number by a court would be to use the client name as the matter number or choose the “Auto Assign” checkbox when adding the matter so that GoMatters will create a matter number for you. Once you file the case with the court, double click the Matter Number cell in the Matters Tab and change the old matter number to the new matter number assigned by the court. By synchronizing your internal law office file and case numbers with the court file and case numbers, you can streamline your file numbering system and make your law office more efficient in the new year.

All you need to call landlines and mobile numbers from GoMatters is a Skype account. When you click your GoMatters’ contact phone numbers, GoMatters will automatically launch a Skype call from your Skype account. Skype calls are also a great way for your law firm to track time on calls. Skype keeps a running log of time spent on calls and with one or two more clicks, you can convert your Skype calls to billable tasks in GoMatters.

Don’t have a Skype account? Skype is very easy to use and free to download. Skype can help the large firm or the solo practitioner in so many ways. Need voice mail? Skype has it. Need to make and take calls from anywhere? Skype can do it. And it can probably do it for a lot less than your current business phone system. Learn more about how Skype can help your law office.

To use GoMatters Skype integrated contact phone numbers, single click any contact phone number in GoMatters. As always, double clicking the contact phone number cell will open the GoMatters cell editor so you can quickly edit and update your contact information. If you don’t have Skype, don’t worry, the Skype integration feature doesn’t affect you.

With GoMatters Skype integration for your law office, you can also add Skype names for contacts. The difference between calling a Skype name and calling any phone number via Skype is that you pay no Skype connection charge when calling a Skype name.

Enjoy!

Firefox

To set Firefox to open email address links in Gmail or other webmail app like Yahoo! Mail, open Firefox and go to the Tools->Options->Applications (Mac: Preferences->Applications) and type “mailto” in the search box to find the Firefox dropdown mail app selector. Choose your webmail from the options and save your settings.

Change default email client for Firefox

Safari

To set Safari to open email address links in Gmail, you need to download Google Notifier for the Mac. Once Google Notifier is installed on your Mac, open your Mac Mail application and go to Preferences->General and select the Google Notifier from the Default Email Reader drop-down list.

Change default email client for Safari

Once your browser is set to open your new default mail application, any GoMatters contact email links will open in your preferred mail application.

• ATT: [mobile-number]@txt.att.net
• Verzion: [mobile-number]@vtxt.com
• Sprint: [mobile-number]@messaging.sprintpcs.com
• T-Mobile: [mobile-number]@tmomail.net
• AIM: 1+[mobile-number]

When adding a new task, check the “Send SMS” box to send a text message to the user’s mobile phone.

Sending tasks by text message works great when secretaries or paralegals need to get quick messages to you when you are out of the office or stuck in court. With GoMatters new task SMS service, “return call to client” messages can be entered once, sent via text, and acted upon that much quicker.