LexisNexis Launches New Look and Feel with PCLaw 13

Global News

09
Jul
2013

Editor

LexisNexisLegal & Professional, a leading provider of content and technology solutions, announced today the release of PCLaw 13, which alongside new features, includes a major overhaul to the user interface of PCLaw. The software product has long been an indispensable asset for firms who rely on PCLaw for practice management.

“Our own research consistently demonstrates that smaller law firms find it challenging to balance the practice of law with the business of law,” said Loretta Ruppert, senior director for Law Firm Practice Management at LexisNexis. “PCLaw 13 visually surfaces the right information into a compelling and modern all-in-one software suite so attorneys can easily monitor the firm's business performance without waiting for reports and quickly find matter information when a client calls.”

PCLaw 13 provides a slick new interface that prominently displays three new dashboards that provide an intuitive at-a-glance view of a firm’s daily activities, client matters and financial performance. Each dashboard is customizable and enables the user to easily drill down for a more in-depth look at the data.  

“My time should be spent on billable work, not administrative details,” said Keith Upson, principal at the Upson Law Group, P.L. “PCLaw dashboards make it so much easier to get a quick snapshot view of everything that's going on so I can do just that.”

The three new dashboards include:

• My Practice provides an at-a-glance summary of an attorney’s calendar, his or her “to do” list, and most recent matters a given lawyer has worked. The dashboard is structured to reflect how attorneys work and enables them to find the information they are seeking more quickly while also reducing the likelihood of missing a procedural step. The calendar provides a bi-directional integration with Microsoft® Outlook® so appointments scheduled are reflected in the My Practice dashboard and vice-versa. 
• My Clients delivers a snapshot view of the information related to a given client matter including contacts, documents, deadlines and client balances. This puts all the data related to a client at an attorney’s fingertips, provides simplified collaboration and allows the attorney to provide a higher level of client service. 
• My Business offers a summary look of the most frequently requested metrics regarding the financial performance of a firm including income and expenses, billable hours, work-in-process, receivables and bank balances. This provides real-time financial highlights, such as billable hour targets and financial health without having to run reports or cross-reference multiple sources of information, such as spreadsheets. 

Alongside the new interface, PCLaw 13 provides two major new features designed to streamline client intake and billing processes. 

With the client intake template, a firm can simply interview a new client – whether in a face-to-face meeting or by phone – or it can email a simple form in Microsoft Word format and automatically import the data into PCLaw when the client returns the form. In each case, the workflow process is the same, which ensures the integrity and completeness of the information and offers options to easily run conflict checks and generate an acceptance (or declination) letter to a client.

The email templates make it easier for firms to email a client bill, which also reduces the time to collection. Users can create custom email templates that automatically pull in standard invoice summary details and present it into the body of an email with an attached invoice. This ensures consistent and professional invoicing in a short time. 

“The new PCLaw is above and beyond – it marks a shift between the incremental changes made in past and the monumental changes in this version,” added Upson. “I’ve used PCLaw for many years now and what I’m most enthusiastic about is how intuitive I find PCLaw13.”

LexisNexis is offering a 30-day single-user free trial to the new PC Law. This offer is limited to only new customers and the offer is available only in North America.