Cloud IT For Lawyers

Helping Attorneys Leverage Technology

Monthly Archives: March 2013


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ScanSnap: Still the Right Tool for Going Paperless

As a legal technology consultant and small business owner, I run into the same issues as attorneys – too much paper.  I hate paper as much as the next person but it seems to be a necessary evil.  From receipts, to bills, to tax forms, paper still surrounds us, so how can we ever hope to reach the dream of a “paperless office?”

I have been recommending Fujitsu ScanSnap desktop scanners for many years in the quest to eliminate paper and clutter. It is an essential tool for start-up law firms, as well as larger firms who want to begin the process of reducing their paper.  The amount of billable time saved from walking to the large multifunctional printer/copier alone is worth the purchase price.

I use the ScanSnap model S1500 and the solidly built, duplex, color desktop scanner is a workhorse upon installation. Not only is the hardware superior, but the license of Adobe Acrobat Standard that comes as part of the package makes this scanner hard to beat.

I recently had the opportunity to look at the ScanSnap iX500, the latest version of the wireless scanner released from Fujitsu.  While they tout wireless access for the device, it’s not what you think.  My vision was that I could eliminate another wire from my computer to the scanner, but that is not the case.  Instead, it allows you to scan documents directly from your ScanSnap to your mobile device – iPhone,  iPad and Kindle or whatever your chosen flavor would be.  A great option for on-the-go types, but I’ll have to wait for a future release for a shareable ScanSnap.  In the meantime, this new model is one step closer.

I will continue to recommend the ScanSnap scanner in any make or model.  I still haven’t gotten rid of my paper; however, I am working towards the elusive “paperless office” and ScanSnap is still my device of choice.


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Take another look at Rocket Matter

I’ve been looking at cloud-based practice management systems for a while, and I’m pretty hard to impress.  I saw a demo of Rocket Matter years ago when they first exhibited at the ABA TechShow, and while they had the right idea, they seemed to be consistently overshadowed by Clio’s marketing might.  But times change, and I recently had the opportunity to see another demo of Rocket Matter. If you haven’t seen Rocket Matter in a while, or don’t know about the product, it is time to take another look because Rocket Matter has really upped their game.

For the last five years, Rocket Matter (www.rocketmatter.com) and Clio (www.goclio.com) have been the two big players on the cloud-based practice management market but recently, other options have entered the market. Unfortunately, many of the new systems (and some of the older cloud-based solutions) still have one big problem – they cannot satisfy all the time and billing needs of their law firm clients.  One area where all of these products have struggled has been seamless integration with a critical piece of software used by many small and medium-sized firms – QuickBooks.  While there have been syncs to QuickBooks and links to QuickBooks, true integration between a cloud system and this essential application did not exist:  Until now.

At the beginning of this year, Rocket Matter launched one-button integration with QuickBooks, and just let me say, “Wow.”  This new version of Rocket Matter solves many of the issues that cloud-based practice management systems have struggled with in terms of time and billing. With a required consultation, Rocket Matter will make sure that the Rocket Matter-QuickBooks connection is setup correctly and works as expected the first time.  From there, the time and bills that are easily entered into Rocket Matter can be accounted for correctly in QuickBooks. Accountants of law firms rejoice!  The accountants and bookkeepers can continue to enter their debits, credits and write checks in the correct client and matter in QuickBooks.  Everyone is happy. Problem solved.

If it has been a while since you have seen Rocket Matter, it is worth a new look.  The clean, intuitive interface coupled with the QuickBooks integration is impressive and the demo is worth your time.  In the end, this well-planned move of QuickBooks integration could blast Rocket Matter to the top.