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With the holiday season fast approaching, we at Clio wanted to take a moment to thank all of our subscribers and followers for helping to make 2009 a truly exceptional year. Thanks to your support Clio has grown beyond our expectations, both in acceptance and scope, and we couldn’t have done it without the benefit of your insightful feedback and generous advocacy. Without you, many of the great new features added over the course of 2009 such as Clio Connect, our client collaboration portal; Clio Express, our offline time tracking widget; and Clio Sync, our Outlook Synchronization tool, might never have been realized.

Looking back over the passing year, we’re proud to have been honored with several major accolades including being named a “Top 10 Ten Tech Star” by Bob Ambrogi at Legal Tech New York; one of the “Best in Show” by Mazyar Hedayat at the ABA Techshow; and, most recently, the first web-based provider to win a Law Technology News Award for Practice Management. We can only hope to earn similar success in 2010, and remain dedicated to continuing Clio’s evolution, and delivering on our vision to provide the best possible practice management experience.

We’ve got many exciting new things in store for the coming year, and look forward to another  year of “the Cloud” storming the legal profession.

Season’s greetings and best holiday wishes from all of us at Clio!

The ABA’s Law Practice Management section’s most recent Digital Edge podcast focuses on “

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“. Hosted by Jim Calloway of the Oklahoma Bar and Sharon Nelson of Sensei Enterprises, and welcomes Erik Mazzone and Ben Schorr of Roland, Schorr & Tower as guests.

The podcasts focuses on the pros and cons of cloud computing, and pits Erik as the “Cloud Champion” against Ben as the “Cloud Curmudgeon”.

The guests begin by defining what exactly cloud computing is. Although it’s one of the hottest topics around in computing these days, it’s a poorly understood topic, and both Ben and Erik do a great job of giving some insight on what cloud computing really is.

Ben points out that cloud computing is simply a virtualized or abstracted computing service that is hosted remotely, over the internet, and points to Gmail and Clio as two examples of cloud computing.

Erik echos Ben’s point, but also reinforces the fact that cloud computing applications are generally accessed exclusively through the browser, which removes a great deal of complexity from the end-user’s perspective.

Ben, who writes an excellent blog that touches on his concerns around around cloud computing, point out what he sees as some of the key concerns around cloud computing:

• Lack of control. Ben feels that having complete control of his data requires that it be hosted on-premise, and by using cloud computing he’s giving up too much control of his data.
• Geography. Ben is concerned that data will be hosted or transferred to jurisdictions such as China
• Reliability. If the internet goes down, can he get to his data?

Erik does an excellent job of countering some of Ben’s concerns, and notes some of the biggest advantages of cloud computing:

• It allows lawyers to focus on practicing law rather than managing technology. Erik feels one of the strongest selling points for cloud computing is that it lets a lawyer focus on running a law firm rather than installing, configuring, upgrading, backing up, and securing software and hardware.
• Lower costs. Cloud tools eliminate the need for large up-front licensing fees and IT consulting costs typically associated with traditional server- and desktop-based software.
• Eliminates the upgrade treadmill. Upgrades are rolled out transparently and continuously, eliminating the time and expense typically associated with upgrading desktop software.

Erik and Ben agree on certain key “best practices” to look for in a cloud computing provider:

• Data export capabilities. To help minimize risk of data loss, look to the ability to perform offsite backups from a cloud computing provider.
• Data escrow. The hosts commend Clio’s innovative data escrow provision as another feature that helps minimize risk of data loss.
• Geographic redundancy. Make sure the provider is performing backups frequently and are backed up to multiple, geographically redundant locations.
• Encryption. Ensure communications with the cloud computing provider are encrypted.
• Terms of Service. Ensure to review the cloud computing provider’s Terms of Service and that the terms contained therein are agreeable.

The podcast does a great job of outlining overall concepts and the pros and cons relating to cloud computing.

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. For more details on some of the aspects of security, data availability, terms of service and backup-related issues raised in the podcast, be sure to check out our own 10 Things Every Lawyer Should Know About Software-as-a-Service series.

We’re thrilled to announce that Clio (www.goclio.com), a web-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product for solo and small law firms, has won a Bronze LTN Award for excellence in practice management software.  Practice management is one of the most competitive product categories and Clio was the only brand-new product to have placed in the top three.  The LTN Awards, sponsored by Law Technology News (LTN) magazine, recognizes the best technology in the legal industry.  LTN’s subscribership voted to determine the winners of these prestigious honors.

Clio is the only SaaS product to win a spot in the practice management category and we could not be more proud to accept this award.  Clearly, the legal industry is realizing the benefits of running a law practice online, and our solos and small firm customers have made their voices heard by voting for Clio.  We are exceedingly grateful to LTN and its readership for this accolade.

Monica Bay, Editor-in-Chief of LTN, remarks, “Especially in these trying times, it’s encouraging and exhilarating to see such leadership and innovation in our legal technology community.  Congratulations to all the individuals and organizations that continue to inspire all of us!”

Clio wins this award in extremely good company, sharing the podium with two longstanding practice management veterans: Gold award winner STI (Tabs/Practice Master) and Silver award winner Lexis Nexis’ Total Practice Advantage.

Clio was first launched on October 1, 2008 and was the first comprehensive practice management SaaS product to enter the legal software market.  Since then, the product has been widely adopted by hundreds of small firms and solo practitioners in the U.S. and Canada, and has become the frontrunner in what is now an extremely competitive market.  Clio made Top Ten lists at both 2009’s New York LegalTech show and the ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago. 

About Clio
Clio, a comprehensive web-based practice management Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product, is specifically designed for solo practitioners and small law firms using PCs and Macs.  It can be accessed from any Internet-enabled computer or mobile device.

Secure and easy-to-use, Clio provides case/matter management, time tracking, billing/reporting, client contact and document management, task scheduling, trust accounting, and performance metrics for independent lawyers to benchmark their business goals.  In addition, Clio includes Clio Connect, a secure portal for document sharing and collaboration with clients, and Clio Express, an offline time capture application.

About Themis Solutions
Themis Solutions Inc. is based in Vancouver, British Columbia.  Its flagship product, Clio, is the leading web-based SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) practice management system for solo and small firm attorneys.  The company was founded by Jack Newton and Rian Gauvreau.  Visit www.goclio.com, e-mail to info@goclio.com or call 1-888-858-CLIO (2546).

About the Law Technology News Company/Product Awards
In 2009, the editors of Law Technology News asked the publication’s more than 40,000 subscribers to identify products and vendors that represented outstanding achievement in legal technology in 25 categories for its seventh annual awards program.  The awards, selected based on subscriber online voting, will be presented at LegalTech New York on February 1, 2010. . Information on the awards and winners will be featured in the March 2010 issue of Law Technology News and on the magazine’s Web site at www.lawtechnologynews.com.