As experienced CICs, we can help you develop a plan to get the most value from Time Matters for your investment.
For new installations we recommend a group session to establish goals, build excitement, and get everyone on the same page. This is followed by a budgeted amount of one on one training and Q/A time for each staff member. We have used this training method successfully for a number of years. There are also free (with your AMP or LNTPA subscription) training videos from LexisNexis available online that offer additional training value. We do our best to guide you to these resources when appropriate.
As new electronic documents are created, either from scratch or by editing old documents and using “Save As”, they are easily saved directly to a case Time Matters using the auto-naming feature. Rather than depending on each staff person to consistently create client folders and document names, use auto-naming to automate this process. The staff person simply specifies the case, gives a document description and the system files the document away based on predefined rules. The document is instantly available to anyone in the firm directly from the case file.
On the other hand, it’s very reasonable for a firm to scan documents on open cases as they come in day-to-day. Be aware, even the smallest firm will not get the job done effectively with a cheap scanner from a Sunday circular. You must invest in a “sheet feeding” scanner - meaning a scanner that will accept a stack of paper to be scanned, not just a single sheet at a time.
Some firms prefer to put a scanner on each person’s desk. The SnapScan products are very popular for this.
We’ve also seen a lot of success, and typically recommend, using an office copier that offers scanning capability. This requires everyone go to the copier when they need to scan something, but the copier scanners are typically much faster than desktop scanners. Plus it is less expensive to add scanning capability to a copier than to purchase some number of desktop scanners. It’s an issue of scale. We can discuss the options and help you make the best choice for your firm.
Whatever you choose, be sure the system is capable of creating PDF documents as output. You can then use the purchased version of Acrobat, or with the newer versions are of Time Matters, the free Acrobat Reader to save your scanned PDF directly to a case in Time Matters.
The goal of the scanning we’ve talked about so far is to make electronic pictures of paper documents so they are readily accessible on your computer. In other words, we are replacing a trip to the filing cabinet to retrieve a piece of paper with a couple of mouse clicks to see a picture of that piece of paper.
Many people don’t understand why they can’t edit the text once they have scanned a document. Think of that scanned document as a picture. The computer sees dots on the screen, not characters. If you want to edit a scanned document (interrogatories for example) you must first process it with some OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software so the computer will recognize the picture of the scanned document as a page of editable text. There are a number of OCR products available and we can help you make a selection.
Time Matters offers two different methods for automatically creating documents. Both offer unique benefits so you may choose to use both in your project.
While the Formattable Clipboard is flexible and easy-to-use, it does have limitations:
There are a number of tricks to know and ‘gotchas’ to be aware of when designing and creating Merge Templates. We have developed very specific rules and guidelines for effective template design. Nearly every paralegal we’ve worked with has asked that we train them to become merge template experts. This seems like a good idea but once the initial push to create a library of templates is over the paralegal typically forgets most of what they learned. Creating templates isn’t that complicated, but there are enough steps that it’s easy to get lost if you don’t do it frequently.
Our solution to this problem has been to develop a library of generic templates of various types. A paralegal can use any of these templates as a starting point for a new, similar template. Our prepackaged templates will shorten a paralegal’s learning curve, but most firms prefer to outsource the initial push on templates for the project to us. This frees the paralegals up to deal with other project details and learn to use the new system.
The issue comes back to overwhelming the staff with new responsibilities versus introducing a mostly complete system that solves their problems on ‘day one’. The paralegals get real value from templates that are already customized for the firm and in place. Once they have some experience and are more comfortable with Time Matters it isn’t difficult to teach them how to create new templates from the ones we’ve supplied.
Both of these Time Matters document automation capabilities are valuable and offer different benefits in different situations. We can help you choose which technology to use for each of your needs.
Don’t pay a monthly subscription fee for a service to remotely access your office PC over the web! We can inexpensively setup the remote access technology included for free with the Windows you already own.
If you have remote offices we can provide a Terminal Server configuration that will allow your remote workers to reliably access Time Matters, client documents, emails and even the printers in both offices. Best of all your data stays in just one place where it is secure and can be easily backed up.
Data conversion means pulling information from any existing programs and putting it into the new system. Sometimes this is as simple and straightforward as pulling all names and e-mail addresses from everyone’s e-mail program. A slightly more complex conversion would be to migrate all of your client names and addresses from your accounting program. We have many years of complex data conversion experience and can convert calendar data, case data and so on.
One benefit of data conversion is the staff will be very excited to see all of their client contacts available the very first time they see the program. They can receive training on the “go live” day and immediately start doing productive work. Compare this to the depressing alternative of announcing that everyone will stay late for the next week doing manual data entry of contact names and addresses.
This mention of manual data entry does bring up an important point. Automated data conversions can almost always be accomplished given enough time and money. If we can accurately convert 1000 names and addresses in two hours then you are certainly ahead of the game. But sometimes conversions are too complex to be done this quickly. That’s why we typically estimate 1-3 hours to examine your data and make a recommendation. Sometimes we are able to complete the entire conversion during this initial examination period. If not, we will give you a range of hours required to complete your more complex conversion. Sometimes this is the best way to go. However, sometimes you will be better off to simply hire one or two temporary workers to manually enter the data. We will give you the information you need to choose the most cost effective plan.
Again we work with the point person during this phase of the project. They should know enough about the existing programs and what information needs to be converted to guide us in our efforts.
Relatively complex conversions are best done in multiple passes. We copy data from the old system, setup a procedure to massage and convert it, and then import it to the new system. This is all done well before the actual “go live” day. This allows everyone to examine the final product and make any adjustments necessary to the process. We can dump the data converted in the test from the new system, make adjustments, and go through the procedure again, as many times as necessary until everything is just right. We do one final conversion of the real data just before “go live” day.
Time Matters is a very flexible program, but its ability to be customized does not include any option to handle complex mathematical calculations. We developed an add-on product called CaseWORTH to fill this need. CaseWORTH isn’t technically a feature package. It’s a separate software product that works with Time Matters to complete the big picture for civil litigation firm.
You can learn more about CaseWORTH at www.caseworth.com
Would you like today’s appointments and yesterday’s performance numbers in your email inbox on your iPhone, Blackberry or home PC?
Whether you are the managing partner or an associate MatterFX keeps you in touch with Time Matters, the nerve center of your firm’s operations. Calendar, billing, document production – whatever you can think of – if it can be tracked in Time Matters it can be delivered to your email inbox automatically, effortlessly.
Developed by experienced legal IT consultants for lawyers on the go, MatterFX comes with a great set of email reports and can be extended to track what matters most to you. Here are just a few included reports:
Delivery of reports can be tailored to your needs. Want your calendar in the morning and productivity reports in the evening – no problem! Want your calendar at 7:30 and Noon – done!
You and your staff invest the effort into managing your world with Time Matters. Get the most value from that goldmine of information delivered where and when you need it!
MatterFX – What do you want in your inbox?
You can learn more about MatterFX at www.matterfx.com
A user interface is the part of the software you “use”. It is the screens your see, the buttons you click, the fields where you enter information. Time Matters is very customizable, but if you want your Time Matters to look and operate just so, we can design a custom user interface to meet your needs. Years ago it was common to hire someone to write custom software from the ground up. That simply isn’t economically feasible anymore because robust and flexible systems like Time Matters are common. | ![]() |
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Our custom interfaces offer value by building on top of the powerful Time Matters engine. So we aren’t building from the ground up. Our custom software adds value to existing products by building a custom skin or look and feel for the commercial product. |
Would you like to discuss how a custom interface for Time Matters might help your staff be more productive with less training and chance for errors? Contact us here. |
The dashboard in your car constantly reports information about the health and status of your vehicle. We can build a custom dashboard to constantly report information about the health and status of your firm. See staff productivity, billing status, case load trends, important deadlines, running SOL list, or really anything you want or need to know.
Would you like to be able to put your finger on the pulse of your firm at a glance? Contact us here. |
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Our TMJustice product is an example of an alternate skin over the powerful Time Matters engine. It is designed specifically to allow prosecutors to securely share Time Matters case information with various law enforcement and justice entities, such as a sheriff's office, jails, city police stations, courts/judges and a clerk's office. These entities need access to the prosecutor’s case information so they can coordinate their efforts. TMJustice allows these entities to see information like defendants, case numbers, assigned prosecutors and defense attorneys, charges, incarceration status, next hearing date, next trial date and so on. Some entities also need all, or carefully restricted, access to case documents. Preconfigured views allow case information to be easily filtered and grouped as each user requires. Authorized users can export the case data to PDF or Excel. New TMJustice portal users require practically no training to find the information they need in seconds. |
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Would you like to discuss how you might securely share your Time Matters information with co-counsel, selected clients, remote offices or just for your own convenient access?Contact us here.
Click here to watch a short TMJustice demo video. NOTE: TMJustice is just one example of how Matters in Motion can build a custom portal to Time Matters for secure use on the web or just on the PCs/Macs in your office. If you want to see your Time Matters information on a Mac, a custom web portal is an option for you. If you like the capabilities Time Matters offers but wish it looked “just so” contact us to discuss our custom development services. |
Would you like to share your information between Time Matters and another program? Contact us here.
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