Allison Shields of LegalEase Consulting Inc. and the popular website LawyerMeltdown.com hosted Rocket Matter’s May Webinar on
“How to Avoid a Lawyer Meltdown”. She was kind enough to produce her slides for us on Slideshare.net.

Allison recommends Five Steps for Effective Delegation. You can get the first two on this post, but check out the recording and Rocket Matter Podcast to listen to all five and hear them explained:

1. Give clear, comprehensive instructions
2. Ensure that you’ve been understood

Listen to the Rocket Matter Podcast and find out more!

Once in a while we hear appreciation like that at other shows, but this was a very special group of people. So ALA conference attendees and organizers, a big thank you back atcha!

To Boston: Thanks for great weather and fixing your water problem so quickly. We loved our stay on Newbury Street, the wonderful food and beer on Tremont, and the delightful and margarita-laden visit to Harvard Square.

Also, thanks to the folks at the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council for hosting a great forum on cloud computing and inviting Ariel Jatib of Rocket Matter to serve as a panelist alongside particle physicists and other Bostonian geniuses.

To Southwest Airlines: Thank you for not charging us for our checked baggage. It’s on. And to Bryan Billig of Needles: we much appreciate the lift to the city and delivering our designer in one piece.

We will start releasing our video of the 2010 ALA Annual Convention next week, so stay tuned. In the meantime, you can check out our previous entertaining videos at our Rocket Matter YouTube channel and check out our legal educational content, including our Legal Productivity Podcast and monthly Webinar series.

Without any installs or upgrades, Rocket Matter customers are able to access their clients, matters, billing, calendar, and to-do list from their iPhone, Droid, office desktop, and now, their iPad.

In the following video on our YouTube channel, Ariel Jatib demonstrates Rocket Matter functionality on the new device (full disclaimer: both Ariel and Larry, Rocket Matter’s two founders, have iPads and are completely enamored).

On April 5, day one of iPad business usage, lawyers on the Macs in Law Offices (MILO) Listserv were already talking about how they were using the device. Some examples of what an attorney can do with an iPad:

* Review and annotate drafts over lunch
* Spending some time reading.
* Working with PDFs.
* Using Dragon Dictate
* Make calls with Skype
* Remote into desktops at work using LogMeIn.
* Watch classic law-themed movies via Netflix On-Demand (hey Atticus!)

With Jason Mendelson

On a scale of 1-5 (5 being the highest) rank your level of agreement with the statement: I know the most profitable and efficient way to run my law firm.

* This webinar is sponsored by Rocket Matter and is free to attend.
* We’ll be raffling off a $50 certificate to Best Buy!
* We’ll also give away a flying Rocket Matter cow.
* Date: Wednesday, March 31st, 2010
* Time: 12PM – 1:30PM EST
* Check out Rocket Matter’s new YouTube channel and see highlights from ABA Techshow, LegalTech NY and other excellent adventures.

Description:

Rocket Matter is proud to host a free webinar on Law Firm 2.0: Understanding Alternative Fees and the Future of Law.

Someone recently said, “If law firms didn’t know they were businesses in 2009, they certainly know it now.”

The changing nature of the business of law can be daunting, even frightening for most small firms. But with the right knowledge and tools, lawyers in the know have an amazing opportunity to take their firms to new heights.

Join Jason Mendelson and Larry Port as they draw on business techniques to discuss Alternative Fee Engagements, Pricing, Hiring Techniques, and other forward-thinking ideas to craft a 2.0 law firm.

About Jason Mendelson:

One of the most innovative legal business thinkers in the country, Jason Mendelson is a lawyer, venture capitalist, musician, and ABA Blawg 100 award winner.

Prior to his involvement with Mobius Venture Capital, Jason was an attorney with Cooley Godward Kronish LLP, where he practiced corporate and securities law with an emphasis on representation of emerging companies in private and public financings, mergers and acquisitions.

As an attorney, Jason has consummated over $2 billion of venture capital investments, $5 billion in mergers and has extensive experience in fund formation, employment law and general litigation, serving as an expert witness in these related fields.

As one of the first full-time, in-house general counsels at a venture capital firm, Jason has been on the forefront of thought leadership and has co-chaired the National Venture Capital Association’s General Counsel group and is an active participant on the NVCA’s Chief Financial Officer group.

Jason holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics, with distinction and a Juris Doctorate, cum laude, from the University of Michigan.

Jason blogs about his experiences in the venture industry on his
blog Mendelson’s Musings and www.askthevc.com.

Please join us by clicking here!

Right before our eyes a major transformation is occurring within the legal profession. I believe 2010 will emerge as a year that we will look back upon as a tipping point. A year where lawyers left behind the traditional confines of their office walls—no longer tethered by phone cords, computer cords, or real estate leases–to practice where and when it suits their needs and the needs of their clients. 2010 will be the year that being small, mobile, and almost expense-free went mainstream.

Several trends are intersecting to drive this major transformation. They include the rapid innovation of mobile technology, the changing perceptions of consumers, economic trends that are squeezing the bottom line for many law firms, and the rise of solo and small law firms started by big firm refugees. Let me identify and discuss how these trends are coming together to change the practice of law in fundamentals ways, and whether the Apple iPad is the tipping point in this change.

Amazing work Reid, thanks for your insights! Click here to read the full copy.

Company marks milestone and expands services to include custom import work and tailored training options

BOCA RATON, FL – February 2, 2010 – Rocket Matter®, the leading Web-based legal practice management and time and billing solution for small to mid-sized law firms, today announced the two-year anniversary since their public launch. As part of the company’s continued growth and vision to provide excellent customer service, they now offer Rocket Matter Professional Services to minimize downtime as law firms migrate from their old software to the company’s newer Software as a Service (SaaS) platform.

“For the past two years we’ve sought to make the transition to Rocket Matter easy for law firms,” stated Larry Port, Founding Partner and Chief Software Architect for Rocket Matter. “We know that moving from one application to another can be disruptive and time consuming, and we have rolled out a lot of free training and data import functionality. But we realize that firms, especially larger ones, have more specialized requirements that benefit from customized, dedicated attention.”

Rocket Matter Professional Services will now be offered in addition to many already existing free options for data import and training. When starting to use Rocket Matter, new clients have the ability to import their Outlook calendar and contacts, vCard files and Internet calendar records. They are also able to pull data in from Gmail, Google Calendar, Mac Address Book, and many other standards-compliant programs.

As part of Rocket Matter Professional Services, Product Specialists are available to help manage more involved imports from programs such as Time Matters, Amicus Attorney, PC Law, Tabs3, and others as well as set up specialized, custom-training programs to help firms make a smooth and quick transition.

If you are interested in learning more about Rocket Matter, visit www.rocketmatter.com or look for the company at leading legal technology events in the industry such as Virtual LegalTech, LegalTech New York, and the ABA Tech Show.

About Rocket Matter, LLC

Rocket Matter, LLC (URL: http://www.rocketmatter.com) provides a Web-based legal practice management and time and billing solution for small to mid-sized law firms. Rocket Matter® is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application, providing increased security, business continuity, decreased technology infrastructure and maintenance, and improved return on investment for information technology expenses. Launched in February 2008, Rocket Matter’s corporate headquarters is in Boca Raton, FL.

That’s why we’re excited to see Paul C. Easton’s blog, Legal Project Management.  And we were even happier to see his recent post, which underscores that we share a similar vision:

These are powerful applications to be sure. I used to use Time Matters and was a fan. But these tools tend to be slow to adapt to new collaborative technologies and they integrate poorly with mobile devices. The future, I believe, rests with the new SaaS practice/case management solutions, such as Rocket Matter….

Read more: http://legalprojectmanagement.info/2010/01/sharepoint-killers.html#ixzz0dM8TzAlg
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Share Alike

Allison knows a thing or two about making law offices more profitable and efficient:  she’s a former practicing attorney and law firm manager who helps lawyers create more productive, profitable and enjoyable law practices.

Here’s a great quote, but click here to access the full article:

At a recent meeting of solo lawyers, one attorney remarked to me, “I would tell anyone who is starting their own practice to invest in practice management software from the very beginning. It’s the easiest and best way to stay organized. They may not think they need it right away, but it’s an investment worth making, and it’s much easier to have it ready from the start and enter each client as they come, rather than having to convert later when you’ve got a lot of clients and other work to focus on.”

I had a great talk with Ari, learning about his book “The Opportunity Maker” and his business philosophies. We conversed at length about the wild transformations we’re seeing in legal and Software as a Service, and explored some topics on increasing efficiencies at law firms.

One of the topics we explored was how law firms could leverage tactics from the software industry, such as Agile techniques or recurring revenue models.  These are ideas I explored in a recent issue of ILTA, posted here.

You can read more here as well as listen to my interview with Ari.

BOCA RATON, FL – April 2, 2009 – Rocket Matter®, a leading web-based legal practice management and time and billing solution for small to mid-sized law firms, today announces the availability of document storage in their signature product – Rocket Matter.  This new tool allows users to easily organize their files via a secure mechanism for massive data storage.

Rocket Matter is a web-based SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) product that addresses legal practice management and time and billing needs of law firms.   

“Rocket Matter brings legal productivity tools to today’s market that are easy-to-use and provide efficiency,” says Larry Port, Founding Partner and Chief Software Architect. “We heard from our customers that document storage was an important feature to them, which is why we are excited about this announcement.  We add features based on their feedback and want our customers to run their practices as efficiently as possible.”

Rocket Matter’s document storage tool provides the following features:

* Ability to organize documents by matter number and by tag (notes added within documents).
* Documents are stored using a highly available and redundant secure server.
* All traditional office documents can be uploaded – Word, WordPerfect, Excel, PDF, .txt, and .csv files. 
* Ability to upload files up to 2MB.
* Unlimited storage capacity; 10GB of included storage (about 100,000 Word documents).
* Notes can be tagged, billed and deleted just like documents.

Rocket Matter requires no installation or upgrades.  Users navigate Rocket Matter securely using an Internet browser and by simply logging in to use the application.  Known as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Rocket Matter represents an evolutionary development in the typically non-innovative world of legal practice management software.

About Rocket Matter, LLC

Rocket Matter, LLC (URL: http://www.rocketmatter.com) provides a web-based legal practice management and time and billing solution for small to mid-sized law firms.  Rocket Matter® is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application, providing increased security, business continuity, decreased technology infrastructure and maintenance, and improved return on investment for information technology expenses.  Launched in February 2008, Rocket Matter’s corporate headquarters is in Boca Raton, FL.