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Success Profile
The Complete Practice Manager: Achieving Total Integration and Performance with Client Profiles
How one law firm assessed its technology needs, weighed the options and made the move to improve organizational performance with Case Management by Client Profiles
By Deborah C. Stevens
Managing shareholder
Lewis, King, Krieg & Waldrop

Lewis, King, Krieg & Waldrop, a Tennessee-based firm, gained real efficiencies when it began using case management software in 1995 to centralize all case-related information for its insurance and product liability defense practice.

However, the attorneys and staff still had a lot of busywork. Contact information, case numbers and other data had to be retyped into every document generated. Data had to be pulled from multiple applications to answer even the simplest client questions. Case-related documents and e-mails had to be hunted down every time they were needed because they were stored separately from the core case information.

Our initial deployment of case management software nine years ago made us an early adopter, and we had no particular quarrel with our original system. It worked as advertised, enabling us to consolidate all the docketing, calendaring, tasks, contacts, comments and notes on all cases in the office in one location. This made quick work of tasks, such as finding trial dates and deposition schedules, accessing individual attorneys’ calendars, or searching for legal matters that already were in house to avoid reinventing the wheel on cases involving similar issues. However, we knew we needed a more comprehensive system to streamline our operations even further. We needed an entirely integrated practice management system.

The Technology Audit
Our transition to integrated practice management began in 1997 during a period of rapid growth for our firm. We engaged the services of legal consultant Altman Weil Inc. to evaluate our technology infrastructure. At the time, we were using RealLegal’s Practice Manager (previously owned by PMT Inc.) for case management, Novell’s GroupWise for e-mail, Corel WordPerfect for document processing and Juris for time and billing and financial management. We asked Altman Weil to look at three main areas: First, we wanted to know if we had the right software applications for our needs. Second, we needed a way to update the various databases between our three offices in Knoxville, Nashville and Sevierville, Tenn., in real time to make sure critical information was available instantly to all associates involved in a case. Finally, as the year 2000 was around the corner, we wanted to be sure our computer systems were prepared to meet the millennium.

The Request for Proposal
In addition to recommending hardware upgrades to address both the year 2000 issues and the growth of the firm, the consultant advised us to move to a more robust software installation that could support our multiple offices across a wide area network. Altman Weil suggested we look at RealLegal, Synaptec Software, ProLaw by Thomson Elite, Computer Law Systems and Client Profiles. They then helped us write the request for proposal. Our challenge was to find an affordable system that would meet our needs without also needing extensive customization.

The Software Selection
We solved our problem by switching to Client Profiles, a practice management system that integrates case management with other front and back-office functions, ranging from document assembly and scanning, to document, e-mail and financial management. This has saved the firm hours of time, reduced errors, helped control administrative costs and enabled our 50 attorneys and 100-plus support staff to serve our clients more quickly and effectively.

We chose Client Profiles for a number of reasons. It offers a full suite of applications with the integration we were looking for, and it has a clean interface that is easy to use. It employs an industry-standard database (initially Sybase, now Microsoft SQL Server) that we knew would protect our investment moving forward. In addition, the price for licensing, training, maintenance and software conversion services was midway between our low and high quotes of $58,000 and $138,000. Equally important, Client Profiles had a professional services division that could handle all of our software and hardware needs. The division helped convert all of our legacy data, install our newly purchased PCs and file servers, and design the network to allow all of our offices to share information seamlessly. Having one firm responsible for the entire project helped avoid the possibility of fingerpointing if something were to go wrong and ensured accountability.

The Rollout
We began by deploying Client Profiles’ integrated front-office functions, including calendaring, task management, contact management, case information, document assembly, document management and e-mail management. We had to import thousands of files we had residing in Practice Manager, Juris and a homegrown case management system we built in the early 1990’s, into the new software. In some cases, we needed complex conversion procedures to translate the proprietary storage formats used in some of our legacy applications.

This portion of the project took several months. We spent several more months customizing forms, party types and calendaring for different practice groups, clients and jurisdictions. Our insurance litigation practice group, for example, needed a set of parties completely different from the non-insurance litigation, construction, commercial or regulatory groups. Client Profiles software now comes with 75 party types and 150 case templates, so much of the customization no longer is necessary. At the time, however, we had to tailor almost all fields and forms to fit our needs.

The Time and Billing Story
All three of our offices were up and running with the front-office components of Client Profiles by late 2000. The suite didn’t have a financial management module yet so we continued to use our legacy Juris time and billing system until Client Profiles acquired the highly regarded ClockWork program. We implemented ClockWork as a standalone application in 2002. In the meantime, we waited for a major software overhaul in Client Profiles that would provide the necessary integration with the rest of the suite, as well as more advanced reporting.

We plan to implement that new Client Profiles time and billing module. When that happens, we no longer will have to enter new case information in both ClockWork and Client Profiles, nor will we have to search multiple applications to be sure we are not serving on opposite sides of the same case or export information to Microsoft Excel for reporting purposes. These shortcuts will save an enormous amount of time, triggering another significant jump in productivity.

The Latest: Treos and Scanning
Newer upgrades to Client Profiles also are benefiting our firm. For example, the software added support for mobile computing devices, so attorneys who are equipped with palmOne’s Treo smartphones now are able to access contacts, calendars and other key information stored in Client Profiles from the road. We also plan to use the recently released eRouter™ scanning and imaging module as part of a complete scanning system. It will enable us to reduce storage costs by allowing paper-based documents and images to be converted to digital form. The module will give us the ability to attach scanned material to the appropriate files in Client Profiles’ document management module, and allow us to automate workflow capabilities, permitting scanned documents to be electronically routed to specific groups or individuals for review. It also provides text annotation tools ranging from highlighting to audio notation and a variety of other aids to help us tame the sea of paper that bombards our office on a daily basis.

The Results
Since implementing Client Profiles, we have increased our productivity in a variety of ways. Data entered anywhere in the system now is instantly available to any of the seven application modules we are currently using. This allows us to eliminate the need to type information such as a contact name or a matter number more than once.

All case documents and e-mails are now attached to associated case information, creating a virtual file folder that avoids time-consuming searches and the risk of misplacing a vital element of the case history. Document assembly is faster because matter names, file numbers and other fields are extracted automatically from the system and inserted into pre-built forms. With these and other features, our attorneys and staff can do virtually all of their day-to-day work from a single desktop. There are no more islands of data. It’s a classic example of the old adage “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

The Lessons
For a firm of our size and reputation, practice management isn’t an option, it’s a necessity. The left hand always has to know what the right hand is doing. If an insurance adjuster in a case moves from Atlanta to Nashville, that information must be available to anyone in the office through a central system. If a client or an opposing attorney calls with a question about a court date or an expert witness, we need to be able to find the answer in a few clicks and provide it while the caller is still on the phone. If we still had islands of information scattered throughout the computers in our three offices, it would be just as inefficient as having our case information squirreled away in unfiled folders on the desks of every attorney in the firm. Technology has given us the tools to work better and smarter. We see the benefits every single day.