While there are apps to help manage them, there has not been an integrated solution for the solo and small firm lawyer. Thanks to the Clio Platform, Clio’s Application Programming Interface (API), and launch partners Chrometa and ZenCash, solo and small firm attorneys can eliminate these pain points with an integrated solution.

“With the combined Chrometa, Clio and ZenCash solution, solo and small firm lawyers now have the ability to automate much of their time capture and collections process,” said Clio co-founder and CEO Jack Newton.

Chrometa is an easy-to-use application that silently captures attorney’s billable activity – from emails to phone calls to document drafting – and turns this information into time records. Before the Clio Platform, Chrometa data had to be exported, and then imported into Clio manually in order to generate a bill. With the Clio Platform, a click of a button in Chrometa automatically syncs the time entries with Clio.

“If you’re like most attorneys, you probably just want to make sure you capture all of your time, bill for it, and manage your practice without any headaches. You want your time and billing systems to ‘just work,’” said Chrometa CEO and co-founder Brett Owens.

Now that you’ve automated and imported your time from Chrometa, and generated a professional-looking bill with Clio, what happens if your client doesn’t pay on time?

This is where ZenCash steps in.

Once you sign up with ZenCash it, lets your establish your collections workflow. You create a timeline of automate bill reminders, such as letters and phone calls, based on invoice status. You can reward early payment with thank-you notes, adding another touch of customer service, and direct delinquent accounts to a collections agency.

And since ZenCash syncs with Clio through the Clio Platform, it knows what bills remain outstanding.

“Late and non-payments are not something you typically account for when setting up a practice, but it’s a huge pain point for law firms of all sizes,” said Brandon Cotter, founder and CEO of ZenCash. “Just like any business, it’s critical to have a plan in place to collect on payments. With ZenCash, in just a few clicks you can automate your entire receivables process—and thanks to our tight integration with Clio, you can do it in a way that fits within your existing workflow.

By leveraging the Clio Platform, Chrometa and ZenCash greatly simplify the process of maintaining your billable workflow.

If you are a third-party developer interested in building on the Clio Platform, visit http://api-docs.goclio.com for information on how to get started.

ZenCash fits: it automates your entire receivables management process. Sounds nice, right? Create a ZenCash account, set it up and poof! Automate your receivables. Except that all your billing data is in Clio.

Ah, but thanks to the Clio Platform, ZenCash syncs with Clio so there’s no need to manually enter data from one to the other. You get the benefits you enjoy with Clio, plus the added benefit of automating your receivables to help you get paid without wasting time manually move data around.

To take advantage of this new capability, do the following:

1. Sign up for a ZenCash account.
2. Pick Clio from the drop down menu as your Invoice Application.
3. Check the box to grant authorization.
4. Save.

Now Clio and ZenCash are connected. You’ll see it listed as an Authorized App:

All that’s left is for you to complete your ZenCash profile and setup your Trigger Dates.

For more detailed instructions, see our ZenCash Support article. And be sure to check the ZenCash Getting Started Guide to learn more about setting up ZenCash to automate your receivables so you get paid.

Got a tip to share? Let us know. We’d love to hear them!

CHICAGO, IL and VANCOUVER, BC — March 29, 2012 — This week at ABA TECHSHOW 2012, Clio announced the Illinois State Bar Association and the State Bar of Texas have selected Clio as the exclusive cloud-based practice management provider for their respective member benefits programs.

Clio is the leading provider of secure, affordable cloud-based practice management, time & billing and client collaboration tools for small- to mid-sized firms. Because Clio is cloud-based, law firms can securely access their data from any Internet-connected device, be it a PC, Mac, smartphone or tablet.

“We are tremendously proud that these leading-edge bar associations have selected Clio as the exclusive cloud-based practice management provider for their member benefits programs,” said Jack Newton, Clio’s CEO and Founder. “Bar associations around North America are recognizing the value cloud-based technology delivers to their membership and we’re thrilled with the uptake the Clio Bar Affinity Program is seeing as a result.”

John G. Locallo, 2011-2012 ISBA president, commented on the importance of practice management software: “Lawyers who aren’t using practice management software to track time and billing, manage documents, avoid conflicts, and meet make-or-break deadlines are making a huge mistake, one that could lead to a malpractice payout or even ARDC-imposed discipline.”

The Illinois State Bar Association and the State Bar of Texas join over 15 bar associations offering Clio as a member benefit, including the Alabama State Bar, Colorado Bar Association, Connecticut Bar Association, Hawaii State Bar Association, Indiana State Bar Association, Maryland State Bar Association, New Jersey State Bar Association, New York State Bar Association, North Carolina Bar Association, South Carolina Bar and State Bar of Michigan.

For more information on the Clio Bar Association Affinity Program, please visit http://www.goclio.com/resources/affinity/.

About Clio
Clio is a comprehensive web-based practice management product specifically designed for solo practitioners and small-to-medium-sized law firms. Clio can be accessed using PCs and Macs as well as mobile devices including iPhone, iPad and other mobile devices.

Secure and easy-to-use, Clio provides case/matter management, time tracking, billing/reporting, client contact and document management, task scheduling, trust accounting, and detailed reporting. In addition, Clio includes Clio Connect, a secure portal for exchanging information and collaborating with clients, and Clio Express, an offline time capture application.

Clio is based in Vancouver, B.C., and was founded by Jack Newton and Rian Gauvreau in 2007. Visit www.goclio.com, email info@goclio.com, call 1-888-858-2546 or follow on Twitter @goclio.

The first, Plays Well With Others: Overview of Clio’s Integrations, covers the various applications with which Clio syncs, feeds to and otherwise interacts. These applications include:

• Google
• Outlook
• iCal
• Dropbox
• Box
• Clio Express
• Clio Mobile
• Clio Connect
• Exporting to Quickbooks

Register for Plays Well With Others.

The second new webinar, on Thursday, February 23, is Demystifying the Cloud: Learn all about “The Cloud”, security, and how it all works. We’ll review many of the frequently asked questions we get about Software as a Service, ethics considerations and how they are addressed, and how Clio keeps your information safe and secure.

Register for Demystifying the Cloud.

And be sure to visit our Support site for more upcoming training webinars, or to see previous webinars.

You can already send your clients electronic invoices with Clio Connect. And now, by linking Clio Connect to your LawPay merchant account, you can easily accept credit card payments from your clients.

You can dramatically reduce your outstanding AR balances by sending your clients electronic invoices and allowing them to pay by credit card.

Learn how to make this a reality with Clio Connect and LawPay.

Here’s a brief recap of some of our big feature releases this year:

Multiple (Batch) Document Uploading

Yes. That’s right! We’ve removed that tedious task of uploading documents one at a time. Now you can upload multiple documents or batches, in one of two ways:

1. Add multiple files.
2. Drag and drop.

Whether you keep your files neat and orderly in folders or strewn about your desktop, you can move them all into Clio at once. It is important to note, though, that “drag and drop” functionality is not supported by any version of Internet Explorer. Yet.

Firm Feed

Firm Feed offers an easy way to see the activity going on in your law firm. Firm Feed tells you who has done what in areas such as:

• Matters
• Contacts
• Notes (Matter & Contact)
• Tasks
• Appointments (Calendar Items)
• Documents
• Clio Connect Activity

As your firm grows, either by employees, clients or both, Firm Feed might seem overwhelming. No need to worry, we’ve given you some controls to adjust where you see your Firm Feed:

• Everywhere
• Everywhere but the Matters page
• Nowhere

Two-Factor Authentication

A big safety and security feature we released at the beginning of the year. There is a solid body of evidence that the password is often the weakest link. Two-factor authentication helps to strengthens that link by requiring a PIN number, in addition to the correct password, in order log into Clio. The PIN is sent to a mobile device, or other secondary authentication device you specify.

2011 is not ever yet, so there are other big feature releases to come. Stay tuned!

If you use Google’s nifty “define” feature for “app,” you get a number of definitions, from the familiar computer definition (short for application) to a baseball reference to medical-related definitions having to do with a protein in the brain. There are two other definitions, though, that usually get missed: Native and Web.

A Native app is what we most often associate with Apple’s i-devices, like the iPhone and iPad. It is an application purchased through an online store, like iTunes, that downloads to your device. Examples include TrialPad and Angry Birds. Native applications can also come pre-installed, like a text messaging application or calendar application. In many ways, Native applications are akin to software you install on your desktop or laptop, like Microsoft Word, FireFox or TweetDeck.

A Web app, on the other hand, is accessible through a browser. Smart phones, be it an iPhone, Motorola Droid or a BlackBerry, have browsers. To access a Web app, you open the mobile browser and type in the URL just as you do from the browser on your laptop. The Web app URL usually converts itself to: http://m.uRLhere.com, with the “m” signifying “mobile” so the site renders properly on your small smart phone screen. You can also type it directly, like http://m.goclio.com.

So what, then, is the big deal about a Native app v. a Web app? In a word: platforms.

Native apps only run on specific platforms, like Apple’s iOS. To run on another platform, say Android, requires building a new app. That’s why you often find an app on just one platform, which may eventually makes it way to others if the app, and platform, are popular. UberSocial (formerly UberTwitter), is one example. It was a BlackBerry-only Twitter application that is now also available on the iPhone. And it is important to point out that there are advantages to having a Native app, such as being able to take advantage of built-in features like the camera and GPS capabilities. An example of a useful Native app is Yelp as it takes advantage of features like GPS.

Most Web apps, however, can run on any mobile browser that uses Webkit, which is an open source browser engine. It is used by Apple in its Safari browser, and for many smart phone browsers, including Palm Pre and more recent BlackBerry devices. While Web apps do not have the ability to access built-in features like GPS, they do eliminate the need to use a device for which there is a Native app. In other words, you can choose the device that feels most comfortable to you rather than the device that has the Native app.

Clio’s mobile interface is a Web app, accessible from any Internet-connected device with a browser. It doesn’t matter, then, if you use an Apple device, an Android device or a BlackBerry. In other words, you can choose your device without having to worry if you’ll still be able to access all your case files via Clio’s mobile interface.

If you haven’t yet, give Clio’s mobile Web app a try: http://m.goclio.com.

If you are in the Chicago area or attending ABA TECHSHOW, please join us for a Clio Meetup at Sushi Samba!

Drop by and enjoy complimentary sushi, drinks and fantastic conversations with the Clio crew and other Clio users and fans. Clio’s co-founders, Jack Newton and Rian Gauvreau, will be hosting the event. If you plan on attending please RSVP now, space is limited!

When
Monday, April 11, 8:00-11:00PM

Where
Sushi Samba rio
504 North Wells Street
Chicago, IL 60654

Most people, ourselves included, figure people choose Apple products over Windows-based machines because Macs just look better, or more aesthetically appealing, than Windows-based devices. Prevailing wisdom is also that people choose Macs over PCs because Macs are easier to use right out of the box. The interface is clean and more intuitive than that of Windows. As our survey results demonstrate, however, usability and aesthetics take a back seat to reliability and security.

There are a couple ways to interpret that finding. Perhaps respondents found themselves spending more time cleaning and defending their Windows machines against viruses than they spent cultivating clients and handling current client matters. Switching to Mac may have decreased maintenance time and expense, allowing them to devote more time to generating revenue.

Another way to look at it is a combination of aesthetics and security. Lawyers appreciate ease of use just as much as non-lawyers, but always have security in the back of their minds. So another way to interpret the data is to say that the usability and aesthetics gets lawyers in the door, but it is Mac-using lawyers talking about the security and reliability benefits that causes other lawyers to purchase Macs over Windows-based machines.

What do you think?

So what to make of the trend of law students favoring Macs over PCs?

One interpretation is brand recognition and loyalty. Law students fresh from undergrad may still use their Macs, and thus take them with to law school. Doing so may introduce non-Mac law students to Mac computers, and the ease of use they might already associate with iPhones, iPads and iPods.

A key thing to watch will be law school response. Will they continue to partner with third party companies that offer Windows-only exam applications, or will there be a shift in demand, especially as more tasks move online?

What do you think?