Web-Based Matter Management Program Offers a Secure, Inexpensive Way for Small Law Firms and Solo Practitioners to Run Their Practices

February 1, 2011 — LexisNexis, a leading global provider of content-enabled workflow solutions, today announced the public beta release of LexisNexis® Firm ManagerTM, an innovative new online legal practice management application for solo practitioners and small law practices. Developed in collaboration with more than 150 attorneys, the Firm Manager application is designed to meet the needs and budgets of independent lawyers, helping them to keep their practices organized and on task – from any location at any time.

“Few small law firms invest in the expensive software and technology resources commonly used by attorneys in large firms, but they still need effective tools to help them run their practices efficiently and manage their time,” said Mike Lipps, vice president and managing director, Legal Business Software Solutions for LexisNexis. “Firm Manager addresses this need with a cost effective and easy-to-use web-based practice management application.”

Firm Manager enables independent lawyers to run their legal practice, and organize tasks, contacts, and client matters without investing in expensive installed software requiring significant IT infrastructure. This SaaS (Software as a Service) application is secure and enables lawyers to minimize time spent organizing their practice so they can devote more time to providing superior service to their clients.

Selected features include:

  • Dashboard View of Your Practice: The Firm Manager dashboard provides a quick, centralized view of cases, upcoming appointments, meetings, tasks, recent messages, and more.
  • Smartphone and Mobile-Device Integration: The Firm Manager application syncs with Microsoft® Outlook®, iPhone®, BlackBerry®, AndroidTM and iPad® devices, so users have access to the same records and data whether on their desktop or mobile device.
  • No Contract. No Installation. Low Monthly Fee: As a SaaS application, there is no need to install and manage software on a user’s computer. Additionally, no contract is required: users simply pay a low monthly fee to avoid potential cash flow problems. Importantly, users can get their data back out of the system any time for up to six months following cancellation of service.
  • Contact Management: Saves valuable time by enabling users to locate, update or enter potential, active and inactive clients, witnesses, opposing counsel, beneficiaries, business partners and anyone else who may be relevant to a matter.
  • Conflict of Interest Search:Alerts and Notifications: Built-in notifications and reminders help organize and track workflow by providing on-screen display alerts about events and changes in the status of a user’s own tasks and those assigned to other staff.
  • Time and Expense Tracking and Management: The Firm Manager application enables users to track their own time and expenses, and those of other firm employees. Firm Manager also compiles and displays time and expenses by client or by matter.
  • Privacy and Security: LexisNexis provides Firm Manager users the same world class security talent and infrastructure that its AmLaw 100 customers trust and rely on. Firm Manager is the only online legal practice management solution with 99.9% application availability delivered through SAS 70 Type II attested data centers.

Firm Manager was developed with the help and collaborative input of more than 150 attorneys who put the application through its paces in multiple stages of development. The Firm Manager team also worked closely in recent months with an advisory board made up of solo and small law practitioners to gain additional insight, tailoring the solution for this segment of the market. LexisNexis is now beta launching the Firm Manager application to the public to make sure our approach best fits the way solo attorneys and smaller firms operate.

Unlike installed software, which can be time consuming to deploy and requires regular upgrades and backups, Cloud computing applications like Firm Manager help ensure that user data is backed up on a daily basis and the software is always up to date. With Firm Manager, attorneys simply log on via a web browser either at their office or on the road, and have all their documents at their fingertips.

To learn more about the appl