Legalboards

Author: legalboardsdev

  • Automation Action: Checklist Creation

    Automation Action: Checklist Creation

    In this guide, we’ll walk you through setting up our newest automation action: Checklist Creation. This automation will allow you to automate your task checklists. By setting this automation, you and your firm will be able to save time and become more efficient.

    If you’re more of a visual learner, check out our video guide below for the step-by-step process.

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z-Rury1LlG4%3Fcontrols%3D1%26rel%3D0%26playsinline%3D0%26cc_load_policy%3D0%26autoplay%3D0%26enablejsapi%3D1%26origin%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Flegalboards.com%26widgetid%3D1%26forigin%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Flegalboards.com%252Fresources%252Fautomations%252Fautomation-action-checklist-creation%252F%26aoriginsup%3D1%26vf%3D1

    The first step to automating a board is to choose which board is most appropriate and click on the “Automations for this board” icon. Overall, automations follow the same three steps of when, filter, and automate.

    Creating the checklist creation automation will have the common steps of when and filter but the last step is to set up the checklist items.

    Step 1: When

    When the sub-menu appears, click on the “Create Checklist” category and the button “New Automation”. As with any automation in Legalboards, you’ll need to define your when or trigger action, which you can find more about triggers here.

    Try to think of when the checklist creation is most appropriate for a task. You can specify the checklist creation automation to be triggered from a card movement, be time-based, or if you’ve integrated Clio into your account, based off a Clio task update.

    Trigger Actions

    The first type of trigger is card movement. If you choose this trigger, you’ll need to specify some categories which are covered in our card movement guide. Please note the categories of “drag from” and “dropping to” do not both need to completed, but at least one does need to be specified.

    In our example, let’s specify the dropping to movement to be any card moving to the client intake column.

    Step 2: Filter

    In this section, we will need to assign any necessary labels as well as card types that should be associated with this automation.

    In our example, we’re looking to create a checklist for client intake, so we will not specify any card types. This will mean any card entering the client intake column will trigger the same response.

    Step 3: Create Checklist Items

    From here, we just need to create the items for our checklist. We want to try and create a list of tasks that would cover the majority of actions needed.

    In our example, let’s cover some basic tasks associated with a client intake. We’ll make our checklist consist of “open the client file”, “create the NDA model”, “start the initial billing”, and “create the draft contract”.

    Once you’ve created your list items, be sure to hit the save button in order to complete the automation creation. Now when you click on the card, you can see the checklist items and will be able to check off the items as they are completed.

    If you need more help check out our support portal or YouTube channel for more video guides.

  • Best Practices for Legal Billing and Getting Paid

    Best Practices for Legal Billing and Getting Paid

    One of the most important components of running a legal practice is managing billing and getting payments. Many lawyers, however, find accounting, cash flow management and bill reconciliation difficult due to constraints in time and bandwidth.

    Join CPN Legal co-founder, Peggy Gruenke, in this webinar where she’ll discuss best practices to improve billing processes and cash flow for legal practices.

    This webinar will provide insights into:

    • Technology and facilitating a smooth billing cycle
    • Retainer management
    • Tech tips and tools to bill time efficiently
    • The economics of flat fee billing, invoicing and payments
    • Creating and adhering to a billing schedule
    • Billing metrics and what data to focus on

    Peggy Gruenke is the co-founder of CPN Legal. She is a nationally sought after speaker on legal technology and law firm operations. She has over 20 years experience in the legal industry and prior to working with lawyers, she developed integral technology proficiencies as an IT consultant for small businesses.

    Watch The Webinar

    You can watch this on-demand webinar below or directly on YouTube.

    Want To Learn More?

    Check out the CPN Blog for more dedicated posts about legal billing.

  • Automation Action: Send Email

    Automation Action: Send Email

    Create unique email notifications personalized to your team, clients, or external consultants by setting up email automation in Legalboards.

    By creating “Send Email” automations, you can go beyond a simple template email notification. However, templates can still appear as spam in some inboxes- which is a problem we want to help you with.

    Legalboards deals with your workflows, and as such, all of your tasks and contact information is integrated within the system. As a result, you can use the “Send Email” action in combination with triggers like card movement, pending time, or task update status and filters to create fully customized automation that’s appropriate for your tasks.

    If you’re unsure of how automation works or what benefits it could provide, check out this article.

    Getting Started

    Now we’ll walk you through creating a “Send Email” automation. First, within Legalboards, find at the top right of your board page an icon called “Automations for this Board”. Click on that icon and choose the action “send email”.

    You’ll need to configure your trigger (or when an automation will happen) and filter for your automation. From there, you can specify the sender and the receiver of the email as well as writing the content.

    Let’s take look at how the fields related to the sender and receiver work:

    • From: In this field, you will need to configure who is the sender of this email as well as what happens with any replies.
    • To: This is the most crucial field, and you have several options. Let’s examine them one by one.

    Specifying Your Fields

    We’ll start by looking at the “To” field. The options for this field are:

    • Matter’s responsible attorney: The email will be sent only to the matter cards, which have a responsible attorney and an email filled in.
    • Matter’s originating attorney: The email will be sent only to the matters cards, which have an originating attorney and an email filled in.
    • Client’s email: If the matters or contact card has an associated client email, this email will be sent to the client.
    • Card`s members: The email will be sent to anyone who is a member of this card.

    However, you are not limited to just one of these options for the “To” field. Multiple options can be chosen in order to customize this process for your specific needs.

    Next, we’ll specify the “From” field where you’ll have the option to specify who will be receiving this email. You only have to choose one of your team members in any role- admin, members, or viewers.

    You can see this in action in the video below;

    Finally, you can customize the message that will be sent. You can specify the subject and content you want so you can send specific messages.

    Email Automation in Action

    Now that you know how to create an automation for the Send Email action, let’s look at some examples of the action in use:

    1. General Workflow
      When a divorce matter arrives in the “Approval” column, an email will be sent to the client explaining the next steps on the divorce case workflow.
    2. Accounting
      When a card stays more than 15 days in the “Billing” column, an email will be sent to the members of this card to alert them of case status.
    3. Immigration
      When a card in the “Registration Form (Preparation)” column has a “Letter Preparation” task completed, an email will be sent to the responsible attorney.

    If you still need more help check out our support portal for more resources or find more video guides here.

  • Automation Trigger: Card Movement

    Automation Trigger: Card Movement

    In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to set up a card movement automation trigger for increased productivity. This means that when a card moves columns, a trigger will be set and have an automated response.

    Card movement automation triggers are easy to set up for daily use. By creating this trigger, you will see a significant change in how you manage your workflow.

    Getting Started

    In Legalboards, you can automate three types of actions (task creation, send email, and move card).

    When you create an action with the card movement trigger, you create almost a supervisor for the board and its columns. The Legalboards system will monitor what happens in these columns and either manually or automatically, will activate the action you set up in this automation.

    Automations are created in three steps: when, filter, and automate. Let’s take a look at the first and most important step in a little bit more detail. If you’re more of a visual learner also check out the video below.

    Step 1: When

    In Legalboards you can create automations for three different actions- move card, send email or task creation. When you create a new automation for those actions, you have a choice of what kind of trigger is best for you. If you need any help with your decision, check out this guide.

    If you chose the card movement trigger as the most appropriate time for an automation to occur, you’ll then need to think about columns. The amount of columns can depend on your matter but you’ll have to specify which columns are related. These columns should represent the movement that you want the card to do automatically.

    Types of Movement

    The two types of card movement that need to be specified are “drag from” and “dropping to”;

    • Drag from addresses what column the card belongs to before any movement. This selection is not mandatory, so if you decide to not select a column, “all columns” will be the default. That means no matter which column the card belonged to before movement, the action will only consider the new column for this card.

    Please note that if you don’t determine a column to “drag from”, you must now specify a column in the “dropping to” field.

    • Dropping to addresses what column a card is moving to. You’ll need to choose either a specific column or you can select “all columns”. If you decide to select “all columns, it means that regardless of which column this card will drop to, only the column it belonged to before matters.

    Also note that when you don’t determine a column for the “dropping to” field, you must now specify a column in the “drag from” field.

    What’s Next?

    Hopefully, this has been easier than you may have thought. The process is fairly simple- you only need to specify one of two fields (“drag from” or “dropping to”) to start creating a new automation with the card movement trigger.

    With that card movement trigger set up for the automation, you only need to set up the filter and automate to complete the action.

    The use of the card movement trigger isn’t limited to only manual movements of cards. You can also combine this trigger with the “move card” action. Now, you won’t need to move cards one by one across the columns, you can create a chain of automation.

    “Card Movement” in Action

    To illustrate some of the capabilities of the card movement trigger, here are some example uses:

    Divorce Board:
    When cards from the column “Property Settlement Agreement” move to the next column called “File for master”, a new task named “Review Draft” is created.

    Immigration Board:
    When cards from “All Columns” move to the column called “Engagement Letter & PP”, a new task named “Create Draft Letter” is created.

    General Workflow Board:
    When a card moves to the “Billing” column, the same card will be created in a new board called “Accounting”. This cloned card will then be placed on the column named “Waiting for approval”.

    Still Need Some Help?

    If you still have any questions, check out our support portal or request a demo to contact our team.

  • Working in Legalboards- Automation Action: Task Creation

    Working in Legalboards- Automation Action: Task Creation

    An important part of a team leader’s role is to distribute and organize team members. A team leader has to address who’s doing what, when tasks need to be completed, and how to best complete the task. However, this doesn’t need to require a big time commitment when you use Legalboards for task automation. In this guide you’ll find help with creating tasks and how to start using task automations.

    How to Create Task Automation in Legalboards

    You’ll see at the top right of your board page an icon called “Automations for this board”. Click on the icon and choose the action: “Task Create” (or, if you use Clio integration- Task Clio Create) to create a new automation. To see this in action, check out the video below for an example using a divorce board. Task automations can be created in three simple steps:
    1. Select and set up the automation trigger;
    2. Filter which type of cards you want to automate; and
    3. Configure the “who, what, and when” details of your tasks.
    The final step is usually the most difficult one because of the number of fields that need to be completed. So, let’s look at the types of fields in more detail.

    Types of Task Fields

    Let’s take a look at each field we have in the automation process. We’ll start with the “Assignee” field which has several options to choose from:
    • Matter’s Responsible Attorney: the task will be assigned only to the Matter Cards, which have a Responsible Attorney filled.
    • Matter’s Originating Attorney: the task will be assigned only to the Matters Cards, which have an Originating Attorney filled in.
    • Matter’s Client: If this card has a client in Clio Portal, this task will be assigned to this person. Please note that this option is also only available for accounts integrated with Clio.
    • Card’s Members: the task will be assigned to anyone who is a member of this card.
    You also have the option to specify who will be the fixed assignee for this task. You only have to choose one of your team members in any role- Admin, Members, or Viewers. In this “Assignee” field, you can also choose how many options you need, giving you the flexibility to build tasks tailored to your needs. Legalboards will verify which team members are the most able to complete the task for the due date. The task will then be assigned to that person within the platform. Next, we have the “Due In” field. This field focuses on the number of days after the trigger is actioned and if the task still needs to be completed. Finally, you can personalize the title and the description so the task can have detail about how the work needs to be done. Once this is complete, you’ve fully set up automated task creation! Now, team leaders can let Legalboards deal with allocating tasks through automation.

    Specific Examples of Applications

    If a more specific example of task creation helps, here are some examples of task automation in different boards:
    • Account: when a new card arrives on the column “Waiting for Approval,” a task will be created for an invoice to be inputted into the billing system. Another task will be created for “Matter’s Responsible” in order to contact the client regarding payment dates. This helps to stay on top of billing and client matters.
    • General Workflow– when a card stays more than 15 days in the column “Waiting,” a task will be created to “Matter’s Originating Attorney”. This helps to analyze time allocation through inspecting the overspent time for this matter.
    • Divorce– when a “Draft Agreement” task is completed within a card on the column “Property Settlement Agreement,” another task will be created for one “Card Member” to review this agreement. This provides team members with updates on the matter and tasks associated.

    Still Need Help?

    Didn’t find what you needed? Learn more about automation in Legalboards here, check out more videos, or visit our support portal for more help with creating automations.
  • Working in Legalboards- Automation Action: Move Card

    Working in Legalboards- Automation Action: Move Card

    This guide covers how to create a move card automation action in Legalboards with examples of the automation in use.

    With this action, your cards can automatically move within the same board and/or be created on a different board. This capability can significantly improve your productivity because of the clarity, collaboration, and synchronization it provides to your workflows.

    If you want to learn more about automation or how agile methodologies can improve your practice’s workflows, check out some of our other resources or our YouTube channel for video guides of the Legalboards platform.

    Getting Started

    For the move card automation action specifically, the steps are as follows;

    1. On any board, click on the automation button on the header where a tab with options will open. Select “move card”;
    2. Set up a trigger (“when”) for the automation, and a filter; and
    3. Select which board and column you want the action to happen in- which needs a bit more clarification.

    Types of Movement

    With the last step of the creation process, you can choose where you want the card to move.

    The first option is “moves on this board” which will automatically move the card to another column within that same board.

    The second option is “creates card in another board“, where the card will automatically be created in a different board in a specified column.

    Either option allows you to organize chain events across boards. As tasks are completed for a work, the card movement will notify the relevant team members and depending on the type of movement, those members can create their own board. This allows you and your firm to work collaboratively and synchronized.

    “Move Card” in Action

    So, now that we’ve gone through how to create the action, let’s look at some example uses.

    1. Divorce Board:
      When a task regarding “Review Draft” (can either be in the name or even just mentioned in the description), has its status updated to “Done”. Certain cards from the “Property Settlement Agreement” column will then be moved to the next column-“File for master”.
    2. Immigration Board:
      When a Clio task regarding “Document Check” (can either be in the name or in description), has its status updated to “Done”. Certain cards from the “Initiate Case (Internally)” column will then be moved to the next column- “Case Identification”.
    3. General Workflow Board:
      When a card lands in the “Billing” column, then it will create the same card in a new board called “Accounting”. The card will be placed in the “Waiting for Approval” column within that new “Accounting” board.
    4. Lead Management Board:
      When a card stays for more than 30 days in the “Waiting Response” column, the system will move this card to the “Lost” column.

    Still need a little bit more help? Check out our support portal or find more resources here for more information.

  • Divorce Board Template

    Divorce Board Template

    The Legalboards team has developed a Divorce board template to help legal teams easily get started in Legalboards. This template can be tailored to your workflow but we wanted to share some general tips on how to streamline your family law cases.

    With Legalboards, you can easily visualize how your matters progress and identify where in your process there are issues/delays. Family lawyers need to focus on their client’s experience by offering quick and high-quality service.

    Getting Started With The Divorce Board

    Step 1: Determine Column Headings

    The first step is deciding the phases that best reflect your workflow. For our template, we’ve chosen to include 11 stages. If those stages don’t reflect how your matters typically progress, you can easily change them.

    Boards don’t have to cover additional parts of a case either. You can create one (or more!) separate boards for trial, trial preparation, judgment, or even appeal. Depending on how detailed you need your workflow, it’s often better to divide the workflow into two or more boards.

    From a project management perspective, the key to deciding how your board needs to be structured is to:

    1. Have clear goals for the matter/case
    2. Understand the pivotal moments or steps in which several tasks would need to be monitored and accomplished
    3. Seek to standardize the processes of a case so that every team member has a clear understanding of when and how they need to be involved.

    Tip: You can use the “note” card to describe for you and your team what to do in that particular column/phase, which documents should be used (maybe a link for a form), which type of billing, and indicate who is responsible to accomplish tasks

    Step 2: Review Your Checklist

    Next, you should review your workflow’s checklist. As a family lawyer, you likely have a checklist already with all of the tasks associated with certain types of cases. It doesn’t matter if that checklist is written, digital, or mental but it important to refer to.

    With this checklist, you can decide which automations are best for you. In Legalboards, you can choose 3 different automation actions:

    1. Task Creation

    In the divorce board template, there are 9 automated tasks. The first task is named “Divorce Petition”. When a matter card drops into the column “File complaint” and stays in that column for more than 1 day, an automated task called “Divorce Petition” will be created.

    This “Divorce Petition” task will be assigned to the paralegal with a deadline of 2 days. Within the description of the task, the paralegal can find all the information they need before drafting the petition. To learn more about how this process works, watch the video below or on YouTube.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORT5qj8okQo

    2. Send Emails

    Emails are essential tool for communicating with both clients and team members. By using email templates, you can create standardized emails that are sent periodically.

    With automated templates, you can save time and ensure your team isn’t forgetting an important follow-up or request. Learn more about email automations in the video below or on YouTube.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rlaryzv5SNo

    In the divorce board template, every time a card is dragged from the column “Serve complaint” and dropped to the column “Client’s directions for inventory,” the client will receive an email from the responsible attorney with a request of information.

    3. Move Cards

    This last automation allows the user to automate the movement of cards within the same board or to another board.

    Tip: you can create a specific board for “Billing” and by using the move card automation, every time a card moves to the column “Concluded”, a new card will be created in the Board “Billing”. 

    General Tips For The Divorce Template

    Legalboards allows you to customize your boards with labels, checklists, and custom statuses. Labels can help you see and quickly understand your matters through using labels to reflect if it’s an urgent matter, has pending tasks, etc. The description of the board can be used to inform which team is responsible for that board, explain the process, or include important information.

    After you’ve created your board, it’s important to test it with your team. Ask everyone to review the board and add tasks, automations, or information that may be missing. Improving collaboration is one of the central goals of Legalboards.

    Next Steps

    If you want to start using more automations in your workflows, check out our video guides on our YouTube channel.

    Didn’t find what you needed? Check out our support portal, contact our team, or check out our other resources for help using Legalboards.

  • What Lawyers and Law Firms Can Learn From Silicon Valley

    What Lawyers and Law Firms Can Learn From Silicon Valley

    There’s no industry that has grown faster or become more prominent in modern society than the technology industry. Companies like Facebook and Apple have grown out of a dorm room or, in the latter case, a garage. They have become some of the biggest multi-national corporations despite their very humble beginnings.

    However, their growth stories are different. Each company faces any number of factors that would’ve influenced their growth. These factors can change from industry to industry, but what’s similar is that growth isn’t as simple as getting from point A to point B.

    Resources and stories from other companies can help your organization navigate your growth. Still, it can be challenging to find resources on how to achieve growth that actually suits your organization’s specific needs. What may work for other industries- or even for other professionals within the same industry, might not be appropriate.

    However, an agile approach could be how you improve your day-to-day activities in order to achieve growth. Agile and agile methodologies have been around for decades and have continued to be utilized and expanded on for today’s organizational needs.

    The goal of agile is to prevent you (and your team) from ending the day with the feeling like you haven’t accomplished anything despite putting in a full day of work. We’ll introduce the tech industry shift to agile and how the legal industry can start seeing similar benefits.

    Identifying a Need for Change

    Growth looks different in the technology industry compared to other sectors, but the main goal of innovation is the same.

    For the technology industry (and likely the legal industry as well), projects often involve multiple tasks. These tasks also can quickly become complicated. 

    The way these tasks are ordered, the tools used to follow-up, the processes and length of involved work cycles, or even the use of parallelized multi-project teams can all result in complications. These additional sub-tasks then can result in project delays.

    With so much potential for delay, organizations face the challenge of keeping projects on-time and on-budget. Projects can have so many different working parts, so task management is very important. 

    Getting more done can be a result of developing the ability to prioritize any number of tasks. It’s not about taking on more tasks, but establishing priority and cadence.

    So, how can companies address this? They can start by taking a deeper look at the tasks required to complete business processes- which can quickly become overwhelming. What can we do prevent this?

    Originally introduced by manufacturers in the automotive industry in 1948, “Lean and Agile” methodologies address task management. These have been adapted to suit modern needs and have even been used within today’s Fortune 500 companies.

    Agile allows day-to-day tasks to be more productive processes. By adopting an agile approach, the tech industry now has the ability to build entire digitally-based companies in a matter of months.

    While it may require a bit of adaptation for specific needs/processes, but an agile approach does help to address priority, cadence, and efficiency of tasks.

    Issues around productivity are not unique to only the technology industry. The legal industry sees lawyers and law firms facing cases with many tasks/activities attached. For lawyers and law firms, productivity can be a massive influence on growth. Because an agile approach can help navigate daily tasks, applying agile methodologies to your practice is a bold, innovative, and necessary shift.

    It can be hard to justify a change, so when should you consider adopting an agile approach for your organization? If:

    • You’re struggling to prioritize tasks/activities;
    • Deciding the correct cadence of tasks is becoming difficult;
    • The speed of handling cases is not ideal; or
    • You’re struggling with any other productivity-related issue, you should consider agile.

    Applying agile to your legal work is as easy as making small changes in the way you and your team manage cases. By breaking cases into several stages, incorporating constant collaboration with stakeholders, and maintaining continuous improvement at every stage, you’ll notice a difference.

    Benefits of Agile Methodologies

    Using agile methodologies provides four main values to organizations;

    1. Specific individuals and interactions can be prioritized;
    2. Services you provide are streamlined;
    3. Collaboration with clients can be valued over the service’s scope negotiations; and
    4. You have the flexibility to respond to ongoing changes instead of having to follow a rigid plan.

    With agile, planning is done in shorter and iterative cycles. Priorities can be shifted from iteration to iteration to fully address client and firm needs. This helps firms to increase client satisfaction, retention, and achieve overall organizational growth.

    Next Steps

    In the technology industry adopting agile methods helped with overall business growth. However, agile is not industry-specific, and is adaptable. Within the legal industry, it can help with case management and with technology, can reduce the time spent on tedious tasks.

    Want to learn more about using an agile approach? Check this 2016 article from Harvard Business Review or Legalboard’s resource. These explain more about how agile methodologies are spreading across a broad range of industries, what an agile approach can look like, and the benefits of using an agile approach.

  • Working in Legalboards: Immigration Board Template

    Working in Legalboards: Immigration Board Template

    When it comes to immigration matter management, Legalboards board templates allows immigration practices streamline their workflows and increase productivity.

    For example, activities related to visa issuance matters can easily be set up in Legalboards including various features to help move along the matter efficiently. (learn more about Legalboards’ features here),

    Board Features

    First, we’ll look at the general board features of lead management, workflow, and automating procedures in detail.

    1. Lead Management

    Let’s start with our lead management feature. We recognize that practicing immigration means facing a lot of competition. As such, we have created an efficient way for lawyers to manage and nurture leads so they could potentially become clients.

    This process is called “forms,” and is a personalized lead management tool included in our immigration board. Within this, you can customize forms and where they are presented. You can either upload the forms to your firm’s websites or send them through emails.

    Either way, this allows you to collect basic and preliminary information (e.g., type of case, contact information) from leads. Once those leads have completed the forms, their information will become a new “card” in the Legalboards platform. Now legal teams can keep their client’s information visually organized in a simple manner.

    2. Workflow

    The workflow feature in the immigration board starts with “columns” which represent different phases of a matter.

    In this visa issuance file example, the workflow comprises examples of both the internal steps related to the interaction of the firm and the client and the actual filing of the visa. As such, steps like “engagement letter and case identification” and “visa submission and visa issuance” are included as columns.

    Remember: Columns can be added, edited, and deleted in order to best suit your needs. Columns assist in managing the workflow of legal tasks from one to another and can help simplify you and your team’s understanding of the workflow.

    3. Automating Procedures

    We understand that a significant portion of a lawyer’s day is filled with activities that may not be translated into revenues. Using Legalboards, several repetitive activities can be automated. Automations can address cards, tasks, and emails in order to allow you to focus on more important responsibilities.

    Automations in Immigration Boards

    Next, let’s look at the automation capabilities within Legalboards. For our immigration board specifically, we use automations in three different ways- card and task creation, and sending emails.

    1. Card Creation

    Every time a new matter is created on a case management platform (like Clio, Docketwise, Practice Panther, etc), a new card will also be created in the “engagement letter” column. Because of this synchronization between integrated platforms, it eliminates the redundant and repetitive task of updating your management tools.

    2. Task Creation

    Tasks can be automatically created and assigned according to the movement of the case on the workflow. If you want to learn more about task creation within Legalboards, check out this resource.

    For example, when a client signs the retainer and the lawyer decides that an internal case can be initiated, the case will drop into the column “initiate case” and a new task will automatically be sent to the following team member. That team member can now proceed with the internal measures required to open the file and initiate the case.

    3. Send Emails

    With Legalboards, sending automatic emails to staff or clients is easy. Automated emails can be extremely helpful in promoting constant follow-up or serving as reminders of tasks that should be completed within a deadline.

    Immigration Matter Management

    As you can see from this generic visa issuance case, Legalboards is able to provide you with a flexible template to create an immigration board. By taking advantage of personalized forms, managing channel leads, and specialized columns and cards, you can simplify case management. Even better, you can set up automation of emails, cards, and tasks so clients can be your focus.

    You can learn more about automation within Legalboards in general here, see in action here, or check out our support portal for more help.

  • Technology Tips to Optimize Efficiency and Reduce Stress for Lawyers

    Technology Tips to Optimize Efficiency and Reduce Stress for Lawyers

    With laptops, smartphones, and persistent internet, lawyers are only a call, text, or email away from business and client demands. Simple and affordable tools, services, and apps can be used to help busy lawyers reduce stress while delivering superlative client service.

    Technology Tips for Lawyers

    Join Adriana Linares of LawTech Partners in this webinar that will detail how lawyers can use technology to get their practices organized and increase their bandwidth and productivity.

    Meet Your Host: Adriana From LawTech Partners

    Adriana Linares is a legal technology consultant and trainer. She is a frequent speaker at national technology conferences and a regular contributor to legal blogs, publications, and podcasts. Learn more about LawTech Partners and Adriana here.

    Watch The On-Demand Webinar

    Watch the webinar below or on YouTube.

    Learn More

    Visit our resource section to learn more technology tips for lawyers.

  • Working in Legalboards: How Does Automation Work?

    Working in Legalboards: How Does Automation Work?

    With Legalboards’ workflow automation system you can plan, organize, and work efficiently by automating actions. There are ten different types of actions you can automate in Legalboards, including creating tasks, sending emails, and moving cards. 

    You can also set standalone automation or combine them to create a powerful workflow system. This article will teach you how to organize your daily work by using automations in Legalboards.

    Getting Started

    You can follow these three easy steps to get started. The first two steps are common for all kinds of actions, while the last step is action-specific);

    Step 1: Set a Trigger

    First, choose when you want your action to happen. Your three trigger options are:

    • Card movement: when you drag/drop a card to a different column;
    • Pending time: when your card is more than X days at the same column or
    • Task update: when another task or set of tasks changes its status.

    Step 2: Set a Filter

    After choosing when your new action will happen, you have to filter which type of cards you want to see in this automation (all, matter, note, or contact). Each of these options will give you the choice to “Open more filters” or to customize “Advanced Filters” for each type of card.

    Step 3: Task Automation

    In this final step, you’ll choose which action you want to automate (Task Creation, Send Email, or Move Card). In this example, we’ll focus on Task Creation.

    With Legalboards’ automating system, you can set up any combination of tasks with these three separate and powerful actions with the goal of boosting productivity through automation.

    Doing More with Automation

    When different teams are working in the same case matter, communication can become difficult. Fortunately, Legalboards can help you automate actions easily and efficiently.

    • Task Creation: When the same type of task must be completed for all case matters, you can easily automate the tasks for all cards that have moved from column “Property Settlement Agreement” to column “File for master”. You can also create another task for the same movement of cards, resulting in a multitude of actions with just one click.
    • Send Email: In every law practice, sending emails to request documents and other information is part of the routine. Beat that dull routine by creating the action “Send email”. This action automates this repetitive work and gives you more time to do what you love…practicing law!
    • Card Automation: With this action, your cards can automatically move within the same board and/or be created on a different board. This capability can significantly improve your productivity because of the clarity, collaboration, and synchronization it provides to your workflows. For example, you can set up an automation so that when a card is created in the “Billing” column on the Immigration Board, the same card is automatically cloned in another board. This was created specifically to manage the financial workflow.

    To read more about general workflow automation and the benefits it may bring to you, check out Task-chain Automation: What It Is and How To Use It In Your Legal Practice.

    Didn’t find the information you needed? Visit our Support Portal for more specific support.

  • Legalboards and Clio

    Legalboards and Clio

    For today’s time-strapped law firms, being able to collaborate effectively with your internal team and external clients has never been more critical. With so many matters on the go, it’s easy for tasks and deadlines to slip through the cracks, with potentially devastating results for your firm, and a poor client experience.

    Luckily, there are a wide variety of technologies available to help law firms combat these problems. These solutions manage the firm’s caseload, gain visibility into their workflows, and identify and fix gaps in procedures. In this post, we’ll look at how law firms around the world are using Legalboards and Clio, the world’s leading cloud-based legal software, together, and the benefits they’re enjoying as a result.

    Living Better Through Integration

    Firms using Clio to manage matters, contacts, and billing already have a significant advantage over the competition. They see improvements in firm productivity and accessibility. By adding Legalboards to the mix, Clio can be even more powerful.

    Legalboards and Clio integration

    Legalboards is visually based with a user-friendly dashboard that gives firms access to the information they need at a glance. However, sometimes choosing additional solutions to pair with Clio can result in wasted time. This can be from entering redundant information into both systems—but with Legalboards, this doesn’t happen.

    By integrating Legalboards and Clio, law firms can eliminate dual data entry between the two products. This is because information about matters, tasks, notes, time entries, payments, and even custom fields are automatically synced.

    This eliminates unnecessary time spent by admin and legal staff entering client or case information into two systems and reduces the risk that information is entered incorrectly.

    Visual Learners

    Law firms have a lot of moving pieces and firm deadlines (no pun intended). Filing dates, court dates, and client meetings are key obligations. Each of these obligations carries its own list of required work, and drastic consequences if deadlines are missed.

    In fact, failure to meet deadlines is listed as a leading cause of legal malpractice. This only grows in frequency with more staff members being associated with a particular matter.

    A big benefit of the Legalboards/Clio integration is the ability to apply an easy-to-understand visual layer to Clio’s data. Legalboards provides a visual timeline of matter status, tasks, and upcoming deadlines.

    Legalboards: The Visual Matter Management Software

    It also gives everyone working on a matter a clear understanding of what work needs to be done, and by when. This will help firms ensure they’re meeting their professional obligations, identifying breakdowns in processes and workflows, all while delivering a great client experience, every time.

    Automations

    For law firms not using automation, you’re at risk of falling behind. Thanks to software and integrations, law firms are now able to automate workflows. Automations help reduce the risk of error and save valuable time by letting software handle unnecessary busy work.

    With Legalboards’ automations, law firms are able to plan and organize efficiently by automating actions such as: creating tasks, sending emails, and moving cards.

    Automation can be created at the matter level, or at the account level to apply the same task creation for each matter (or client) entering the pipeline. If you’re a high-volume firm or practice group managing a lot of similar cases, this feature can be invaluable.

    It could save countless admin hours that can be focused on doing something more valuable for the firm—like acquiring new clients. For businesses that bill out at hundreds of dollars an hour, every second counts.

    Benefits of Using Legalboards and Clio

    By integrating Legalboards and Clio, law firms can supercharge their Clio experience to operate more efficiently and on schedule. The combined software also provides firmwide visibility into the workflow in order to serve clients effectively.

    See how Legalboards can give your Clio account superpowers—book a demo today.