According to an ABA Study – Profile of Legal Malpractice Claims – calendar related errors are the leading cause of malpractice actions against lawyers, accounting for more than a third of all malpractice claims, and with more than 70% of claims filed against firms with five or fewer attorneys.
In response, LexisNexis Firm Manager has released an entirely new way to ensure important deadlines are uniform across attorney and law firm devices.
“Calendar synchronization is a necessary evil for any busy attorney that needs to be aware of his calendar in and out of the office,” said attorney Mike Clark of Clarke Griffin, LLC, a small law firm in Portland, Oregon. “Most of my calendar reviewing takes place outside the office and away from my computer. Syncing to my calendar on my phone is one way I’ve been able to stay independent.”
The Firm Manager product makes synchronization easier and more reliable by leveraging a new integration technology for the Microsoft® Outlook and Microsoft Office 365™ calendars. For the solo- or small law firm attorney, this provides a more assured way to ensure important events, such as docketing, are synchronized across individual law firm devices, including computers, tablets, mobile phones and the law firm calendar in the online practice management solution.
Any docketing capability a Firm Manager client uses, for example from rule-based deadline management systems such as those provided by LawToolBox.com, Inc., to automate deadlines for state and federal court litigation with an Office 365 calendar, will be automatically reflected within Firm Manager.
“When an attorney in a court room makes a calendar change on their mobile device, the change will be uniform across all their calendars and devices without taking any further action,” said Susan Harman, vice president and product champion for the Firm Manager team. “We’ve been able to do this by working closely with the Microsoft team to leverage their newest application program interface (API) and thus eliminate for our customers the hassle of downloading and installing plugins.”
The feature is squarely aimed at helping small law firms reduce the risk of malpractice and gaining potential discounts some malpractice insurance carriers offer for using such practice management software. The update is in keeping with the Firm Manager focus on working closely with attorneys in developing the core features most important to small law firms.
