Clio

We just returned from an extremely exciting week in Chicago for the ABA TECHSHOW. The ABA TECHSHOW consistently ranks as one of our favorite events of the year – the speakers are always excellent, the attendees are excited and knowledgeable about technology, and our booth is constantly busy with existing or prospective customers telling us where they’d like to see us take Clio.

If you didn’t have a chance to attend this year, mark April 11-13, 2011 on your calendars for next year.

Here are a few of our notes from the event:

The Inaugural IgniteLaw

Matt Homann of LexThink decided to run an interesting experiment at this year’s TECHSHOW. On the eve of TECHSHOW’s official kickoff, Matt organized a group of 16 speakers to speak – for 6 minutes each – on their vision for the future of law practice. Speakers at the event included Carolyn Elefant, Ed Adams, Tom Mighell, Ernie Svenson, Niki Black, Doug Sorocco and Ari Kaplan. Clio’s own Jack Newton spoke on “What a Law Firm Can Learn from Zappos.com” at the event.

The buzz both before and after IgniteLaw was incredible. The event was sold-out, and the just-posted videos of the speakers have already racked up hundreds of views. The ABA Journal even covered the event. We hear IgniteLaw will make another appearance at next year’s TECHSHOW, and we’re already looking forward to it.

Cloud Computing Continues to Grow and Gain Mainstream Traction

At TECHSHOW 2008 we were one of the only cloud computing providers exhibiting at TECHSHOW. In the intervening two years we’ve seen the number of SaaS providers at TECHSHOW explode. Three exciting cloud-based products that joined this year’s lineup are Fastcase, Dialawg and Contract Express.

The 2010 TECHSHOW program is perhaps one of the most telling indicators of SaaS going mainstream – rather than one or two presentations, this year we were be treated to broad array of topics on “Practicing in the Cloud”

• Introduction to “Cloud” Computing with David Bilinsky and Matt Kesner
• Hey, You, Get Off of Onto My Cloud: Tools to Run Your Practice in the Cloud with Erik Mazzone and Catherine Sanders Reach
• Taking Your Office Virtual with Nicole Garton-Jones and Alan Wernick
• Going Virtual with Web Applications: New Forms of Practice with Will Hornsby and Marc Lauritsen

As Ross Kodner comments in his latest SmallLaw column, the fact that cloud computing dominated the discussion at TECHSHOW underlies a fundamental shift in perceptions and attitudes toward SaaS:

What struck my co-authors [Jim Calloway and Sharon Nelson] and me perhaps the most was the acceptance of cloud computing as an accepted, standardized, institutionalized option that merited equal consideration along with Ground Computing.

Congratulations to the organizers of ABA TECHSHOW 2010 – the program and show was a resounding success, and we look forward to returning next year.

The ABA TECHSHOW 2010 kicks off in just under a week, and we’re looking forward to attending and exhibiting at what will be our third TECHSHOW. We’ve been chatting here at Clio about how the evolution of the exhibitors and sessions at the ABA TECHSHOW has been a telling window into the movement of Software-as-a-Service from a niche, emerging technology into the mainstream:

Back at the 2008 TECHSHOW we were the first web-based practice management system, and one of only a handful of web-based companies overall, exhibiting at the conference. It was an exciting meeting for us, as we were launching our official public beta and introducing attendees to the relatively new concepts of cloud computing and Software-as-a-Service. Very little of the official TECHSHOW conference program touched on SaaS or cloud computing, but attendee interest was obvious. We listened to concerns over data privacy, security, and backup, and developed industry-leading practices to address those concerns. Our TECHSHOW wrap-up blog post from two years ago still resonates today:

It seems clear that the desire for web-based practice management software is present and fast-growing, as attendee after attendee told us that existing desktop-based products are too complex, too hard to use, and too hard to deploy. The idea of a completely web-based solution where deployment, upgrades, and data security backups are 100% managed definitely resonated with attendees we spoke with.

Just one year later, the 2009 TECHSHOW reflected a dramatic shift in attitudes toward SaaS. The TECHSHOW board introduced several sessions on Software-as-a-Service. An influx of additional SaaS vendors exhibited at the show. We had officially launched Clio six months prior at the ABA GP|Solo meeting, and rather than demoing a beta product, we were showing a rapidly maturing, feature-rich product. The overall tone, as we noted in a post-show blog post, was that SaaS was not just a technological fad, but  rather a movement that is reshaping the legal software landscape.

The 2010 TECHSHOW program is perhaps one of the most telling indicators of SaaS going mainstream – rather than one or two presentations, this year we will be treated to an entire afternoon of topics on “Practicing in the Cloud”:

• Introduction to “Cloud” Computing with David Bilinsky and Matt Kesner
• Hey, You, Get Off of Onto My Cloud: Tools to Run Your Practice in the Cloud with Erik Mazzone and Catherine Sanders Reach
• Taking Your Office Virtual with Nicole Garton-Jones and Alan Wernick
• Going Virtual with Web Applications: New Forms of Practice with Will Hornsby and Marc Lauritsen

Clio’s founders and developers will be attending and exhibiting at TECHSHOW 2010, where we’ll be demonstrating several exciting new Clio features – and giving away an iPad!. Drop by and see us at Booth #301 – we look forward to hearing from present and future customers on what they’d like to see the future of law office management to look like.

We count Ross Kodner, a leading legal technology consultant and founder of MicroLaw, as a friend here at Clio, but Ross has always harbored some reservations about SaaS in the legal space. Over the last couple of years we’ve enjoyed participating in some healthy debates with Ross both in person and in listservs such as SOLOSEZ on a variety topics relating to SaaS. However, despite our best efforts, we seemed unable to win him over on the merits of SaaS over traditional desktop software.

So, you can only imagine our surprise last night when the latest issue of TechnoLawyer’s excellent SmallLaw column, titled “Ending the SaaS Stalemate In the Small Firm Market”, arrived in our inbox.

Having heard enough of the rhetoric, and sufficiently debated the issues of accessibility, ethics, and security, Ross, like many others, has grown weary of the moot debate over the validity of SaaS in the legal space, and called for the industry to shift its discussion towards more relevant topics:

This debate is perpetually mired in concerns about accessibility, ethics, and security. It’s time to move past these nonissues and focus on more relevant issues that will enable SaaS products to mature into mainstream small firm products.

We’ve written extensively on the topics of accessibility, ethics and security on this blog, and while they remain  important issues that should be properly investigated before selecting a SaaS provider, it is refreshing to see a call from an industry stalwart such as Ross to advance the discussion from hypothetical risks to how SaaS can truly help users:

The small firm legal SaaS world can most certainly succeed. SaaS vendors should focus on promoting functionality first, while methodically shoring up their services’ perceived and/or real weaknesses in the two fundamental areas of platform criticism. Address and end the current stalemate and grow up SaaS — the small firm market is ready for and needs you.

The small firm legal SaaS world can most certainly succeed.

SaaS vendors should focus on promoting functionality first,

while methodically shoring up their services’ perceived

and/or real weaknesses in the two fundamental areas of

platform criticism. Address and end the current stalemate

and grow up SaaS — the small firm market is ready for and

needs you

Let us be among the first to welcome this breath of fresh air to stale discussion. Thank-you Ross.

Although Ross rightly points out that the ethical and confidentiality considerations inherent to “the Cloud” should always be properly weighed, we heartily agree with Ross’ acknowledgement that “SaaS makes sense” for small firms, and that it is time both SaaS cynics and vendors shed the trappings of a debate over “non issues” and concentrate on “shifting the debate to what really matters to users”. On this note, we’re eagerly awaiting the host of new innovations that will undoubtedly be revealed by SaaS vendors at this year’s ABA TechShow, and look forward to a 2010 that’s focused on customer-centric product development with an emphasis on functionality over familiarity.

2010 is shaping out to be an exciting year for legal SaaS.

With the release of Apple’s iPad just under a month away, speculation on the impact of the device is continuing to mount. Clio’s developers have added their voice to the chorus by way of a interview by Josh Barrett on his TabletLegal blog on cloud computing, the iPad, the legal technology industry, and what happens when you combine all three.

The interview touches on a wide range of topics including why Clio was founded, why Clio decided to go the SaaS route, adoption of technology by lawyers, and how the iPad will impact the legal industry. Read the entire interview here.

While we’re on the topic of the iPad we’ll take the opportunity to point out a few of our favorite blog posts on the iPad:

• Josh Barett at TabletLegal has written extensively on several aspects of the iPad, including its ease of use being appealing to lawyers, the freedom it promises, and how the “less is more” design ethos of iPad applications is good for lawyers.
• Reid Trautz suggests the iPad will be the tipping point that sees the cloud go mainstream in 2010 on his Reid My Blog! site. Reid astutely points out that the explosion in mobile devices and their capabilities, coupled with the increasing need for lawyers to access practice information anywhere, on-demand, will help drive cloud computing applications like Clio into the mainstream.
• Jeff Richardson writes on the iPhone implications of the iPad at his fantastic iPhoneJD blog.
• Victor Medina points out several key design decisions Apple has made that may make the iPad the “ultimate machine for lawyers” on  the MacLovin’ JD blog.
• Ben Stevens sums up his impression succinctly on The Mac Lawyer: iPad = iWow.
• Joe Ficocello wires on how the iPad will be rolled out in law firms at The Rung.
• TechnoLawyer speculates the iPad will become the legal pad, reinvented.

One of the core features to any practice management system is the calendar, and we’ve learned a lot about just how important this is in the time since we’ve launched Clio. Today we’re happy to unveil a completely redesigned calendar that has been rebuilt from the ground up.

In redesigning the Clio calendar we incorporated the feedback we’ve received on what our users would like to see in an improved calendar. The new calendar incorporates a host of new features while also improving ease-of-use and performance:

• A new firm-wide “Firm Calendar”
• Easily view multiple calendars simultaneously
• Support for drag & drop of calendar appointments
• Support for adjustment of appointment length by click & drag
• Support for full screen mode
• New “Agenda” view
• New “Year” view

The following overview video provides a good summary of the new features in the Clio calendar:

Enhanced Calendar from Clio on Vimeo.