Need Help With Management Reports Examples
Fellow denizens of the blogosphere, I need help.
The dirty little secret of case management programs is that they know everything about their software, but it seems that none of them know anything about running a law firm. I have spent a lot of time talking to a lot of the vendors. Regardless of how good their software is, they all seemed relatively clueless about the actual management of a law firm.
I'm going to be giving a presentation at our state TLA Convention (and a Virginia TLA Conference on Small Law Office Operation) on reports that are helpful in managing a law firm. Primarily a plaintiff's firm, but in reality it could be any type of practice.
I need your help I have a number of reports that I've designed on my own but I would like to include more examples. I would like a copy of any report that you find helpful in your practice. Whether it's keeping the practice on pace, an 'exceptions' report of problem children, a month end report, a report that helps keep track of a case, status reports, reports that help show what a paralegal is getting done ... I am looking for ANY report that actually helps you with your practice.
What am I going to do with them? We'll strip out names (if they're not blacked out, we'll replace them with random names from the phone book), and numbers (if not already blacked out). Then we will reproduce the document in WordPerfect and save to a .pdf.
All the names and numbers will be stripped out. If you want credit for the report, I'll give it. If you want to send it in anonymously, that's fine too. The issue isn't who's killing it and who's barely squeaking it out. I just want to see what others are doing to help run their office (because the case management software people aren't that helpful).
I will make the .pdf file with all of the reports available to anyone that wants it. We will then be able to share ways that we are running our practices and steal the best ideas from each other
It doesn't matter whether you're doing the reports manually or what computer system you are using. It doesn't matter whether you're using Amicus Attorney, TimeMatters, ClientProfiles, PerfectPractice, ProLaw, TrialWorks, Needles or anything else. The key thing is to see what the form looks like.
The hardest part for the computer guy is knowing what you want. I constantly hear "We can do whatever you want." “Ummmm.....yes. But you've got installs in over 1,500 law firms. I understand that every office is different, but do you have the top 10-15 most popular reports?” "We can do whatever you want." “Ahhh........okay.”
I will 'write' the reports in WordPerfect and save them in Adobe. You can then print it out, make a change or two in pen and hand it to your computer guy and say "I want that."
You can fax (843) 448-0223 or e-mail a copy of the report to me. If you fax the report, you can black out employee names, client names and/or numbers if you want before sending. I will take those out anyways. Also, please tell me if you want to contribute anonymously, otherwise I will assume that you want credit for your report design.
If you are going to send one. Please do it soon. Also, I would appreciate any practice management bloggers that would link to this post so that it can get more exposure and we get more reports. Thanks in advance for the help.
P.S. If you’ve requested a PowerPoint disk, you should get it shortly. We sent out over sixty disks yesterday. You have to love the ability of technology to allow a group to collectively do more than any individual.
David:
Man have you hit the nail on the head!! Our firm uses Prolaw and although it's great for keeping track of individual cases, the report writing for PI firms out of the box is non-existent. Sure, "we can do anything" sounds great but we have yet to generate any custom reports that I would even consider sending you as I acknowledge they are lame. SOOOOO, I would greatly appreciate your posting the fruits of your labor to your blog so I make sure I don't miss the reports you create.
Many thanks to you for your wonderful blog!!
Jim
Will you be posting the results on the blog?
Yes, I will.
But of all the shout-outs that I've done, I've only received one report from other people.
Lawyers are very open about how they put cases together, but less so about how they run their office.
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