Legal Software offers custom templates, workflows.
Press Release Summary:
Designed for law firms and attorneys, Legal Edition comes with custom templates and workflows that allow users to mold product to match firm's standard procedures and processes. There are also 5 pre-defined templates - Case Management, Client Extranet, Deal Room, Legal Knowledgebase, and Legal Intranet. All templates and workspaces are tied together in firmwide network, providing ability to manage users inside firm and guests such as co-counsel, contract attorneys, and clients.
Original Press Release:
PBworks Beefs up Legal Edition with Custom Templates and Workflows, Makes Service Free for Pro Bono Work
Attorneys can create a custom workspace to exactly match their firm's approach in less than 15 seconds
SAN MATEO, Calif., Aug. 24 -- PBworks, the leading provider of hosted collaboration solutions for business and education, today announced the addition of custom templates and workflows to its Legal Edition for law firms and attorneys. The new features allow lawyers to quickly customize the product to exactly match their firm's standard procedures and processes. Legal Edition also comes bundled with a set of five pre-defined templates, including Case Management, Client Extranet, Deal Room, Legal Knowledgebase, and Legal Intranet. With this release, creating a new custom workspace for managing a case, collaborating with a client, or setting up a deal room takes less than a minute. The company also announced that it is making its Legal Edition free for use in pro bono work.
PBworks Legal Edition allows a firm to create its own custom set of workspace templates, which can be used to create an unlimited number of collaborative workspaces. Typical uses include using a case management template to create a workspace for each new case, and using a client extranet template to create a workspace for each new client or client matter. Creating templates is as easy as editing a wiki. You can even use an existing workspace as a model. Each Legal Edition purchase also comes with included professional services to help you set up a custom template for each practice area.
Legal Edition templates can even include integrated project management functionality. Many firms have standard operating procedures that they would like their staff to use for each case; PBworks Legal Edition allows a law firm to incorporate those procedures (in the form of tasks and milestones) into template workspaces, making it easy to ensure that each new case is handled in thoroughly and systematically.
"PBworks Legal Edition brings huge organizational and productivity benefits to my firm," said Robert Sneed of McConnell & Sneed. "We've set up templates for each of our major practice areas. Handling cases and client matters is faster, easier, and much more organized. This consistency makes us more productive and our clients happier."
Attorneys and staff can assign tasks to specific members of the firm, co-counsel, or even clients, and roll those tasks up into bigger milestones. Each user can view tasks and milestones for a particular workspace/case/client, as well as all tasks that they've been assigned.
"Tasks, milestones, and the network view make my job as a manager much easier," said Sneed. "I have complete visibility into what my staff is working on, and what needs to be done to achieve our goals. I save time, and my team works more efficiently."
All templates and workspaces are tied together in a firmwide "network," making it easy to manage users inside the firm, guests (such as co-counsel, contract attorneys, and clients), and the many workspaces. The members of the firm can search across all the workspaces and templates, including full-text search of any uploaded documents. This searchability eliminates much of the tedious archiving and organization of case files that wastes valuable -- and potentially billable -- time.
"I would estimate that each such "successful" search will save the associate an average of 2 hours of research," said David Shargel of Bracewell & Giuliani, a PBworks customer. "That doesn't sound like a lot, but when there are a lot of users, it adds up."
"Our goal for our legal customers is the same as for all our customers: to get work done more efficiently and effectively" said Jim Groff, PBworks CEO. "Enabling our customers to customize and standardize how they collaborate puts the focus on the work, rather than the technology."
Pricing and Availability
Custom templates and workflows are available immediately, and are bundled with PBworks Legal Edition, which is priced at $50/attorney-user/month. Licenses for paralegals, legal secretaries, and other staff and clients are included for free. Law firms can use PBworks Legal Edition to collaborate with pro bono clients free of charge, even if they are not otherwise PBworks customers.
About PBworks
PBworks (http://pbworks.com/) is the world's leading provider of hosted collaboration solutions for businesses and education. Leading companies and organizations like FedEx, DePaul University, and the FDA choose PBworks to collaborate across geographic and organizational boundaries with employees, customers, partners, and vendors. We host over 900,000 workspaces, serve millions of users per month, and 96% of users would recommend PBworks to a friend. Over 50,000 businesses have chosen PBworks to implement knowledge management, extranets, project management, and a host of other business processes and workflows. PBworks' investors include Mohr Davidow Ventures, Seraph Group, Sippl Investments, and Ron Conway.
PBworks is a trademark of PBwiki, Inc. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
CONTACT: Chris Yeh of PBworks, Inc., +1-650-224-6362, pr@pbworks.com
