What we do at Heritage Law.

By Nicole Garton-Jones

Current economic realities, the unaffordability of legal services by moderate income clients, rapid technological change and the encroachment by new competitors into the traditional legal marketplace are all resulting in increasing pressures on lawyers to practice efficiently and strategically. While the effective use of technology can be an important tool, an enormous range of options are available for lawyers to choose from. In the hope of assisting our colleagues at the Bar from overbuying and/or underutilizing expensive equipment and programs, we are sharing information about the technology currently used at Heritage Law.

SOFTWARE
Heritage Law is “paperless” and utilizes practice management software to centrally manage billing, time tracking, matter information, contacts, appointments, documents and document assembly. No actual paper is retained except for wills, corporate records and trust minute books.

We use PCLawPro for billing and time keeping. We use Time Matters Enterprise for matter management and tracking contacts and appointments. Popular alternative practice management programs are Amicus Attorney and PracticeMaster. We use Worldox for document management. Every document is saved or scanned with a client and matter number. Every document saved in Worldox is searchable by client, matter, description and text.

We use HotDocs Professional Edition for document assembly. All our standard firm documents (memo, fax cover sheet, retainer letters, non-engagement letters, reporting letters and demand letters) and estate planning documents (wills, powers of attorney and representation agreements) are automated. Document automation projects can be expensive, particularly for small firms. Practice area “packages” of pre-automated documents can be purchased from companies such as SpeedMatters by Legal Systematics, Inc.

HARDWARE
All staff log into our remote, secure server over the Internet, which is a repository for all firm data and software applications. We currently house and operate our own server, but we are transitioning to a rental agreement with a hosted equipment and services company based in North Vancouver, B.C. called i-worx. The i-worx hosted infrastructure, operating systems and software are collocated in a data centre located in Burnaby, B.C.

Heritage Law has what might be termed a “private cloud.” For solos and small firms, cost effective options to consider are software as a service (“SaaS”) cloud based practice management providers such as Clio and Rocket Matter.

PHONES
We have a VoIP phone system which allows our staff, many in different locations, to use the same phone line and system. Each staff member has a Polycom SoundPoint IP 560 desk phone. Each phone has an ordinary three-digit extension registered through Iristel, a Canadian Internet telephone service provider. The phones can be connected to any ordinary Internet connection in any of the staff member’s various locations, and yet all remain reachable through simple three digit extensions.

VIRTUAL FIRM
We have an online branch office of our firm, www.heritagelawonline.com, which delivers only online legal services, directed toward moderate-income clients who struggle with affording traditional legal services. We have contracted with a company called DirectLaw that provides the secure online client portal.

We received permission from the Law Society of British Columbia on January 8, 2010 to practise online. That said, the Law Society of British Columbia is actively reviewing both cloud computing and the delivery of online legal services in B.C. A Working Group has been struck and further regulatory directives are likely forthcoming. In light of the regulatory uncertainty, Heritage Law is not currently accepting online clients at this time.

Nicole Garton-Jones, B.A., LL.B. Lawyer and Mediator of Wills, Estates, Elder and Family Law Matters

This article was published in the December 2010 issue of BarTalk. © 2010 The Canadian Bar Association. All rights reserved.