Here is another short trianing video this time for Amicus Attorney Small Firm: How to create and manage an appointment in the Calendar module. For additional Amicus Training please contact us or call us at 415 284-2221

Paolo Broggi
www.2b1inc.com
 

There are a couple of ways for you to connect back to the office with Amicus Attorney 2008 PE.

If there is a PC that you can log back in, you can use GoToMyPC (about $20/month) /LogMeIn (about $12/month) and other remote control programs (e.g. Remote Desktop or pcAnywhere) to control that PC or even the Amicus server. Since we can log into Amicus Attorney 2008 PE from any workstation, from the PC that you logs in, you can enter the your credential and have access to all your info (minus e-mail synch). Only the graphics travel though the internet making this solution a fast one.

The other option is to use VPN to connect back to the office and then open Amicus on your laptop. Normally the bottleneck in this configuration is the upload speed of the office DSL/cable connection (256kbps - regular DSL about $49month) . You could update that speed (738kbps next level up about $79/month) and see a significant improvement in speed. Then you needs to have a server or a router at the office that allows receiving a VPN connection e.g. Windows 2003 server or most routers and firewalls.

Another option is terminal services if you have a server that can support that. In this case it is like having a PC running on the server and only the graphics travel though the internet making this solution also a faster one than VPN. It may require some technical expertise to setup the server in this configuration.

Depending of what you needs you could use Amicus Attorney 2008 Offline capability or with AA 2008 PE SP1 you can use Amicus Mobile…

I hope this help selecting your options. Contact me directly if you need more specific information.

Paolo Broggi
www.2b1 inc.com
Tel 415-284-2221

2b1 inc. is creating free short training segments for everyone to see and learn how to use Amicus Attorney. We are starting with Amicus Attorney 2008 PE. For full Amicus Attorney training classes contact 2b1 inc directly (415) 284-2221 or use the contact us page. Training are create by Paolo Broggi a Certified Amicus Consultant and Trainer since 1997. 

Today Gavel and Gown gave a webinar to us the Amicus Attorney certified consultant introducing the new Amicus Attorney 2008 SP1. In this update that should be available by end of next week, GG has combined a few fixes that are already available online to the Amicus Consultants with some more fixes. Then they added the interface to setup and configure Amicus Mobile.

Amicus Mobile will come as a separate program. You can install the Amicus Mobile module on the same server as your Amicus Attorney server or it can be installed on a separate server. If you want more security a server outside your firewall will do but it compromise speed. Microsoft IIS 5 (Microsoft web server) is required to make Amicus Mobile work as well as ASP.NET 2.0. You will need to get a new license from the Amicus Attorney User Manager interface to activate Amicus Mobile. Once that is done you will see an additional column in User Management. There you can check the users that need Amicus Mobile. You only need to purchase as many licenses of Amicus Mobile as the number of users that will have mobile phone connecting with it back to the main Amicus Attorney server. For example if you have 20 users but 7 of them wants to keep track of their phone calls and enter their time from their Windows Mobile 5 or higher(Amicus Mobile will not work on Blackberry’s iPhones and Treos with Palm OS), you only will need 7 license of Amicus Mobile. For those of you familiar with Amicus Telephone Pro, you will be at home with Amicus Mobile.

2b1 was told that while the fixes will be available through the “check for update” option in Amicus Attorney 2008 on the server. A CD will be shipped out to the clients wanting Amicus Mobile.

Amicus Attorney SP1 is a free upgrade. Amicus Mobile is $149 per license. There is a special promotion right now until end of June: you purchase a license of Amicus Mobile and you can upgrade to Amicus Attorney 2008 PE ALL your Amicus Attorney licenses for a 25% discount. This is a great deal and highly recommended to all Amicus Attorney 7 users. For more details on Amicus Mobile check out my Amicus Mobile post of June 3^rd.

Please contact 2b1 inc to get your upgrade today.

Paolo Broggi, Amicus Certified Consultant since 1997
www.2b1inc.com

I am happy to report that one of the coolest products of the year has arrived. Amicus Mobile is the first integrated mini practice management product for Windows Mobile phones version 5 and up. It needs Amicus Attorney 2008 PE as its backbone since it rides on top of the new Amicus Attorney and Microsoft SQL technology.  I have to say that Amicus Attorney 2008 PE is a recommended upgrade to all Amicus Attorney 7 users because of the additional Task module, new creation of contacts and many other improvements including stability and speed.

Back to Amicus Mobile. As our lives are getting more on the go we do get in touch with clients from our mobile phones more and more. I am sure that most of you have one in your pocket or purse. Wouldn’t be nice to have these little devices do a bit more for us then just phone calls and e-mail? That is what Amicus Mobile is doing. Not only your assistant at the office can send you stickies that you can get in a few moments on your phone, but also keep track of your client’s call and bill for it.

Amicus Mobile has four modules: Call Center, Files, Notes and Time. The Files module allows you to see your file index and open a file. No, you cannot do everything you do in the file like in Amicus Attorney at the office, but you can see all the contacts attached to the file and if a new expert was added at the office you would see the new added contact in minutes on your phone ready to be called.  You can add notes to the file which will be received at your firm in a few moments.

The Call Center  module allows you to receive messages , the pink slips, from the office that your assistant took and entered them in Amicus Attorney for you and see the calls you have done today associated with the file and contact. Better than in Amicus Attorney in Amicus Mobile you are one click away from returning a call from a message and your mobile will dial the number!

The Notes module in Amicus Mobile is similar in functionality as the one we know in Amicus Attorney. We can type a note and associate it to a file or send a sticky back to someone at the office in real time.

The Time module behaves like expected. Enter a new time entry, select the file, type a description and enter the time. As you click/tab on the Ok button the time sheets is sent over the air to the office where it can be billed in real time.

Amicus Mobile is not just about the four modules, it is about how these four modules are working together. Like you would expect from Gavel and Gown the work flow is what makes this product amazing. As you finish a call from your mobile you will be asked if you want to track that phone call. Click on yes and select the file, enter a note then choose to make a time entry and you are done, no more forgotten or un-billed calls. If you are like me chances are that we forget to enter one or two quick calls a day and that alone could pay for Amicus Mobile $149 per license in one day!

To add the icing on the cake…Since Amicus Attorney 2008 PE can synchronize Appointments, To Dos and People with Outlook, Outlook can push real time any new information or changes directly to your mobile. Now your calendar can be up to date when you create a new appointment and as you do that people at the office will see that you are booked and avoid double booking.

In conclusion I think that Amicus Mobile is revolutionizing the practice management landscape by shifting more functionality in our mobile phones. The ability to keep track of every phone call made to and from our mobile phone and bill for it is fantastic as is the ability to make a note to a file or send a sticky to our assistants. What will Gave & Gown come up next?

Gavel & Gown is having a promotion to upgrade to Amicus Attorney 2008 PE until June 30 2008. For more information please contact us at 415 284-2221 or www.2b1inc.com

Paolo Broggi, IT Engineer and Amicus Certified Consultant since 1997
www.2b1inc.com
P: 415 284-2221

I am pleased to announce that 2b1 inc web site went though some transformation. We have simplified the navigation and make the look and feel a bit more modern. Also we have a new shopping page. hope you like it and if you have have any suggestions please let us know.

Best Regards, Paolo Broggi

Amicus Attorney 2008 PE has a new Task module that allows you to manage your To Dos in a nice and convenient way. You can see your To Do for today, the next  day 7 days or the next  14 days. Then I can see any of my coworker To Do list in the same manner. I am working in a team I can create a profile and select the firm members working with and their respective To Dos. Then I can choose how I want these To Dos to show and finally I can save this and many other profiles to quickly jump from one to another.

  There three format to see the To Dos: Simple, Detailed and Timeline. Simple shows you what is necessary like the date, priority, Title and the File. Detailed adds the DO button, Category, Deadline and Time sheet column. Finally the Timeslips shows you graphically the To Dos of a selected profile.

  If you on the View Linked button the whole To Do sequence open in a new window so you can quickly see which To Dos are connected to the precedent.

  As you enter a new To Do from the new quick enter line you can tab from the Tile to the File column then just type the first few letters of the matter to see a list of matters you can choose from. This makes it very fast to add new To Dos. Then you can assign these new To Dos to you colleges (delegation!) and finally you can check if these To Dos are getting done.

Amicus Attorney 2008 PE Task Module will help you in managing the To Dos in a much easier way.

2b1 inc gives trainings in Amicus Attorney 2008 PE. Please contact 2b1 inc at 415 284-221 or Contact us to get more information or to schedule a training. We also to remote training directly into your office.

Paolo Broggi, IT Engineer and Amicus Certified Consultant since 1997
2b1 Inc

Amicus Attorney 2008 Premium Edition Announced today - March 3, 2008

Today Gavel & Gown Software have announced the new upgrade to Amicus Attorney 7 Premium Edition (Amicus Attorney 7 Standard Edition is no longer available).

It has been about two years since Amicus Attorney 7 came to market and there was the Amicus Attorney 7.1 update that fixed many bugs about a year ago. Then there were additional patches up to October 15 of last year. Issues that we were still having with Amicus Attorney 7 were the ability to process more than one server request at the time. If someone would send a long request to the server e.g. posting a month worth of time entries or performing a document assembly all the other Amicus Attorney 7 users had to wait until the server would finishing processing the first request before it could fulfill the request of a second user.

No more! Amicus Attorney 2008 Premium Edition, PE is full Multi-Threaded. This means that the server can serve many users at once. Having a server with dual or quad core with really make Amicus Attorney 2008 PE shine. Some of these speed improvements are due to the use of .NET v2.0 (AA7 was using .NET1.1) and Microsoft SQL 2005. Also Amicus Attorney 2008PE is not relying on the older COM technology which makes this program faster and more stable.

Another major advancement is the Offline component. Gavel & Gown programmers have rewritten the entire module to make it more stable and to play well with the other programs. This module can handle better exceptions between records in the main database and in the offline database during synchronization.

Now that we know Amicus Attorney 2008 PEis stable and fast let’s take a look at the new feature. Like in Amicus Attorney 2008 Small Firm Edition (SFE) 2008 Premium gets the Task module. With it you can see all your To Dos in many different ways. Also you can check your coworkers To Do list and see what gets done and what is left behind. This is a great feature for attorneys to see the progress of a matter. In addition to the views available in SFE, PE also add the ability to see To Dos in a Time-line view which makes it a breeze to see what is next on maters. In the new Task module you can quickly add new To Do by entering them in the new section just type the To Do’s title and the first letters of the matter very simple and fast. Like in the Calendar module in Task module you can create Task Profiles so for example I can check the events of my team for my important matters over the next 14 days, or a profile for my new litigation trial.

Another time consuming issue in Amicus Attorney 7 was manually adding people information in the People Module. We had to click in so many places to enter the complete contact information to make the assistants scream. This interface has been redesigned and there is a new Basic pan. Now in Amicus Attorney 2008 PE you can just type the address or the phone number in the field directly and it gets assigned into the right field. There is a Drop-Zone on the left where you can copy the signature from an e-mail and 2008 PE will parse the address and put the information in the right fields. You still want to double check and occasionally correct those more strange addresses.

In the Communication module we now have the unsaved e-mails back like in Amicus V+. According to the programmers its was their intent to put it on Amicus Attorney 7 but they did not have enough time. It is here now so for those of you upgrading from Amicus V/V+ you are still in familiar territory. Also improved is the way to save multiple attachments from the Amicus Attorney 2008 PE Email Detail window to save attachment to the client and matter folder. in the Outlook e-mail preferences you have more options. You can check the “When I save Attachments on Unsaved E-mail also save the underlying e-mail with the Files association”. Still in the Outlook E-mail preference you can now choose to save Firm Members e-mail.

More importantly we can now click on an e-mail link in a contact card and have the new Outlook e-mail come up with your signature!

More energy went into custom field as well there we can now replace one custom field with another (of the same type e.g. text with text) that is more important if you converted from Amicus V/V+ because the conversion did create many redundant custom fields.

Another time saving feature of Amicus Attorney 22008 PE is the ability to type the initial of your file and contact when creating an event in the Event Details window and have to rely less on your mouse.

The integration with PDA is now done exclusivelythrough Outlook. If you have a Palm device you will need enable the link from the Palm/Treo device to Outlook and have you device synch through Outlook. The advantage of doing this is that you can choose any PDA: Palm, Widows Mobile, Simbian or BlackBerry PDAs. As well as long as they synch with Outlook you have your Appointments, To Dos and Contacts in your pocket. This link is more robust then in AA7.

Last but not least Amicus Attorney 2008 PE now can show you the closed files with its total number!

Amicus Attorney 2008 PE requires Microsoft SQL 2005 which is now free with the program itself.

And now for the pricing:

There is a launch promotion from now March 3 until March 31, 2008Upgrade from version 7 – save 25% off the regular price. All other upgrades – save 30% off the regular price

Upgrade page Link

Some more details:

· Effective today, Gavel & Gown will no longer be selling new installations of Amicus 7 Premium Edition.

· Any customer who has purchased Amicus 7 Premium Edition since January 1, 2008 is eligible for a free upgrade to Amicus 2008 Premium Edition. A $49 per firm administrative charge that includes shipping and handling applies.

· Amicus Attorney 2008 Premium Edition includes Microsoft SQL 2005 at no additional charge.

· Premium Edition is the upgrade path for all version 7 customers. There is no longer a Standard Edition.

· There is no free support period for customers purchasing new or upgrading to Premium Edition. To obtain technical support on Premium Edition 2008 you must have a current Annual Technical Support Plan in place.

To upgrade please contact 2b1 inc at 415 284-2221 or Contact us

Paolo Broggi, IT Engineer and Amicus Certified Consultant since 1997
2b1 Inc

Gavel & Gown Announced the Amicus conference for Amicus Certified Consultants in Toronto on March 27 and 28 2008. In the past a conference signaled a coming of a new upgrade to the firm products. In this case since Amicus Attorney 2008 Small Firm Edition and Amicus Accounting 2008 were released later last year (2007) the only product that has not been upgraded yet is Amicus Attorney 7 PE (Premium Edition only as the standard edition is no longer available). I’ll be writing on this blog what is going to be announced and discuss new features and products. check back at the beginning of April.

Paolo Broggi, IT Engineer Certified Amicus Consultant since 1997
2b1 Inc.

2b1 inc.

Grand Voir Dire is a new software created by an attorney who was tired to use and loose stickies in the Voir Dire process. This software with its clean interface make the Voir Dire process a bit more plesent.

First enter the name of the jurrors then assign each name to one of the positions. As the Judge and the oppsing lawer ask questions quckly and easily write down your notes in the jurror’s note space. Keep track of the juror’s ethnicity and make it work to your advantage.

Grant Voir Dire will keep track of how many juror’s were excused and by whom the judge the opposing lawyer or yourself.

If the jurror is excused drag and drop the next jurror in the vacated place.

Paolo Broggi, IT Engineer Certified Amicus Consultant since 1997
2b1 Inc.

2b1 inc.