Save time, money with tech buys

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The month-long holiday season is over, your checkbook is feeling a bit tight, but you think it’s time to upgrade the technology at your law practice.

Sheryn Bruehl and David Grove have several suggestions that attorneys should keep in mind as they contemplate a cost-effective approach to technology purchases. Bruehl is an attorney-technology speaker with the firm of Bruehl & Chapman in Norman, Oklahoma. Grove is a solo practitioner from De Forest, Wisconsin.

Bruehl and Grove provided a discussion on “Technology for Tightwads” during the Milwaukee Bar Association’s 2002 Law & Technology Show.

To begin with, Bruehl advocated determining what you’d like to accomplish and checking to see if you already own software that could accomplish that goal. Attorneys need to take some time to determine what they would like to see the technology accomplish for them before heading out in search of a new product, Bruehl explained.

“If you don’t know what it is that you want to accomplish, you can’t just go in and say, ‘Ok, what software do I need to run my law office?’ That’s like going to a doctor’s office and saying, ‘I’m sick — what should I take?’ ”

Once you have an idea of what you hope to accomplish, see if anything in your existing software inventory would help you achieve those goals.

“Technology consultants are always telling me stories of going into law offices and finding out that they already own a fully-licensed copy of a case manager or word processing program that nobody ever installed,” Bruehl said.

Suite Software

Grove noted that many attorneys purchase software packages, but do not utilize all of the programs they provide. For example, the Corel and Microsoft office suite packages come with database programs that an industrious attorney can transform to handle case management.

In fact, Grove described how he taught himself a database program and developed a case management system to deal with billing and time management. That process took approximately three weeks of working in the evenings.

“It did take a while for me to build this database… But now I know what’s going on behind the scenes,” Grove said.

Since the database software comes as a package and it would otherwise not have been utilized, Grove characterized it as being “essentially free.”

Bruehl pointed out that attorneys considering that route need to balance the cost of purchasing an existing billing or time management program with the time that they would spend creating their own system with a database program.

“Most attorneys of average intelligence who will sit down and use the help menus can figure out how to do this sort of thing,” Bruehl said. “It be-comes a question of time versus money.”

She noted that the basic principle behind tightwad technology is the sliding scale between work and money.

“If you want to spend less money, you do more work,” she said. “If you want to do less work, you spend more money. It’s kind of like mowing your lawn.”

Attorneys need to keep in mind that if the time used to customize a database comes from billable work time, it should be counted toward the cost of that system.

How Do You Work?

Obviously, the do-it-yourself method is not appropriate for everyone. When trying to decide what existing software your practice needs, Bruehl said, it’s as simple as looking at your work process to determine what costs you the most money and the most time. Once you’ve identified those things, it becomes easier to research the items that will help you address those issues.

As mentioned earlier, suites of software can help defray the cost of technology purchases. Buying bundled programs can provide “more bang for your buck,” Bruehl noted. But, only if you plan to use all the software. If you purchase additional software that you don’t need, obviously, you are not saving money.

Also look at the vendor Web sites to see if they offer free upgrades to your existing programs that will help them meet your needs. As an example, she pointed to a Microsoft upgrade that includes legal templates and forms not included in the basic Word program.

Bruehl offered another important tip for attorneys who want to avoid headaches and frustration, “Don’t ever be the first
person to purchase a product or an upgrade unless you just really like to suffer.”

It’s fine if you don’t mind dealing with the headaches associated with initial releases of software and if you don’t mind having your computer down for long periods of time. However, attorneys who can’t afford to have their business computers down, should avoid any software labeled “version 1.0.”

“Wait until somebody else has had all the problems, found all the bugs and there is at least one service patch,” Bruehl said.

Whatever you purchase, make sure it will grow with your firm. Make sure it will allow for the accumulation of more clients and for additional staff.

Remember to ask three key questions when purchasing any technology:

1) Will it increase productivity?

2) Will it save you time?

3) Will it help you sleep easier at night?

Even if something does not save you time it can be worthwhile if it will save you peace of mind at night.

“Think about what the technology will do for you and make sure that you are using it to improve your quality of life or the quality of your practice,” Bruehl said.

How Does It Work?

Finally, don’t cut corners when it comes to training on new software, Bruehl said. It gets back to the issue of time versus money, she observed, noting that most trainers will charge anywhere from $50 to $150 per hour. She noted that could be money well spent.

Failing to receive training can mean that attorneys will not fully utilize the capabilities of their new purchases. While attorneys and staff might learn how to utilize basic functions, they might end up taking more steps than they need to. Those inefficiencies can add up over time.

Bruehl offered the following example, “It may not seem worth the investment to learn to save five minutes when preparing a letter, but ask yourself how many letters you prepare every day. How many letters do your secretaries and paralegals prepare every day. That five minutes starts to add up.”

Take those five additional minutes spent on letters and multiply it by four letters per day, five days per week, 52 weeks per year for a total of 5200 minutes or approximately 86 hours and 40 minutes. If you are billing at $125 per hour, that equates to $10,833. That time, she noted, could be saved by investing a few hundred dollars in training.

If you are not going to pay for training, at least take one evening or a Saturday morning to create a dummy file, Bruehl said. Then play with every feature available to see what effect it has on that item. Using dummy data provides the opportunity to learn the software without messing up client information.

As with every aspect of technology purchases, it is a matter of balancing your investment of time with your investment of money and determining which is more important.

Tony Anderson can be reached by email.