| The best way to think about the
difference between Outlook and practice management software is the
old expression, “Jack of all trades, and master of none.”
Microsoft designs Outlook to be general enough that absolutely anyone
can use it. Most likely your doctor, your child’s principal
and the owner of your favorite restaurant all use Outlook. It is
the jack of all trades. Conversely, legal practice management software
focuses on one trade – attorneys. You will find every feature
of the software designed for law firms. The difference can save
you time, make it easier to organize your practice and help you
capture more of your billable time. Here are some differences between
the two.
Business Card v. Client File
Contacts in Outlook are designed to keep track of personal information
– the information on a business card. In contrast, practice
management software is designed to track entire client files, including
contact information. That means, out of the box, Outlook is ready
to track information like “Nicknames," “Birthdays”
and “Spouses,” while practice management software has
case and client files that are ready to organize information like
jurisdiction, area of practice, documents related to a case, meeting
notes, research and e-mail (see the chart below for other examples).
Conflict of Interest Search
Outlook can search your computer for e-mails, appointments and contact
information for signs of a conflict. Practice management software
can search the records of everyone in your firm for e-mails, appointments,
contacts, meeting notes, notes on fee, cost entries, research and
other client file information. Your conflict search includes the
entire office, no matter who is out of the office that day, and
the search only takes a few seconds.
Tracking Time
Because practice management products were designed for law firms,
most are designed to work with billing software. That means you
can easily turn your appointments, e-mails, research and time spent
writing documents into billing entries. Tracking your time becomes
much more efficient when you can turn any appointment on your calendar
into a billing entry.
Document Assembly
Outlook and Word integrate through “mail merge” functionality.
This lets you insert fields from a contact into a standard letter,
but your options are limited to the personal information tracked
in Outlook e.g. name, address, etc. In practice management software
you can do the same thing, and much more with document assembly
functionality. You can insert into a document any information from
a case file (e.g. insurance carrier, opposing counsel, etc.). The
document assembly process can also automatically create a billing
entry for the time you spend on the document. It can automatically
schedule a follow up task for you x number of days after you create
the document, for example, to follow up with opposing counsel regarding
the letter you are sending them. You can even have the document
assembly process prompt you to fill in a few blanks for information
that you may not have in the practice management software case file
– for example the date that a document was signed.
Sharing Information
Practice management software makes it easier to work with a team
of people in your law firm. You can view appointments for your team
members to see when someone is free for a meeting. When you pull
up a client file, you can see all of the information for a case
- that means every e-mail that anyone has sent or received, as well
as all documents, research and notes that anyone has for a matter.
This helps you save time that you would otherwise spend keeping
track of the work other people in the office have or have not done.
Chain of Events and Court Rules
Outlook lets you create recurring events. For example, you can schedule
a regular staff meeting each Tuesday at 9am. Practice management
software can do that, but it also can automatically create a series
of appointments and tasks that you can reuse –Calendar Plans.
This can be helpful if, for example, there are a series of things
you need to do each time you open a new case file. It can also be
helpful to track court rules or the tasks that you need to complete
prior to a trial. The items in your calendar plan can be automatically
created and scheduled based on a reference date, for example the
date of the trial. Once created, each task will appear on your calendar
or task list.
Cost to Customize
You can get around some of Outlook’s limitations through customization
(which can be expensive). For a law firm, Outlook cannot approach
the level of usefulness that practice management software can offer.
Do not try to stuff your case file into a Rolodex. If you want software
that helps you manage your practice, you should be using practice
management software.
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