2022 was a great year in terms of product development for Billetterie Software. The Legal Practice Manager solution enjoyed significant customer-driven improvements. Our continuous customer engagements gave us a unified understanding of their needs and informed the upgrades and additional functionality, as listed below.
Some previously announced additional features include the Certificate Generation Solution, a process aimed at digitising and automating the issuing of all trademark-related certificates.
The Digital Certificate solution has greatly benefited the National Office for Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) and all interested legal entities using the service.
The benefits include:
One of the finest revelations for 2022 was the introduction of the Legal Practice Management (LPM) Pro. The primary function is to generate IP Bulk EDI documents for E-filing to the National Registry. The LPM Pro generates standard IP forms for viewing before filing. The national registry business rules are applied to all the data for validation before submission.
Our customers and their needs remain our biggest priority. Using Billetterie LPM, they can focus more on client satisfaction and growing their client base.
As we begin the new year, our drive to ensure that Billetterie LPM remains a world-class, cloud-based solution for law firms and legal departments will be much more pronounced.
Essential for us as Billetterie Software is that the LPM product remains the preferred software for managing a legal practice. According to Gartner, 69% of companies will increase their spending on digital technology in 2023. As a result, legal firms should adapt and learn how to use technology to drive efficiencies for their clients or face the risk of being left behind.
Legal practitioners using the Billetterie LPM product will enjoy the following:
What our clients say about us:
‘Thank you for the opportunity to be part of the Billetterie trademark software, I must say that it was a pleasure registering my trademark on the platform. The platform’s user interaction was exceptional and the registration process was simple, quick and effective. 5/5 stars! I would definitely recommend the platform to my network.’ By Ryan Matulich.
Visit our website here for more information and start your automation journey.
Request a demo and a free obligation-free 30-day trial here.
Contact us at info@billetteriesoftware.co.za.
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If you want to save cash, but need a reliable space to store and manage documents, join us as we share some of the best free options available in the world of document management systems.
If you need a digital home for all your documents but don’t want to splash the cash, we’re going to share with you the best free document management software around. Just because they’re free doesn’t mean they’re not up to par. We would happily use all the services we recommend ourselves.
Of course, any service that’s free comes with limitations. If you’re a medium-to-large-sized business looking for an all-singing, all-dancing document management software, the options below may not be enough.
However, if you’re a personal user or a small company looking to effectively manage your digital “paperwork,” the selection below will help you keep your documents in order.
For ease of use, features and versatility, OpenDocMan is the best free DMS.
Yes. OpenDocMan offers a free version. However, paid plans are also available.
We believe Egnyte is the best overall document control software. Read our full Egnyte review.
Open source software is free-to-use source code that gives users the ability to modify and redistribute the code, often to improve the software.
The best free document management software offers as many quality features as possible, without asking for your money. Despite being free, we still expect to see an industry standard level of security, a well-designed platform and basic document management features like search and organization functionality.
These products offer many key features one would want to manage documents. The open source options outdo private companies offering free plans, but even they have features that are ideal for certain users. Read our document management best practices to learn how to make the most of each feature.
All the options below offer a full, long-lasting free plan. While many services offer free trials, they typically only last up to one month. With the selections below, you can trust you’ll have a free account for as long as the service is active.
More details about OpenDocMan:
Pros:
Cons:
OpenDocMan is one of the few open-source document management solutions available, and is a popular choice within the open-source community.
You can add custom metadata-like tags to categorize documents, making it easier to search for a particular document. It’s also possible to create temporary documents that will be deleted on the expiration date of your choice.
The user interface looks better placed on Web 1.0 due to its outdated design. However, if you prioritize functionality over form, you won’t be too concerned with how the platform looks as it works well.
File versioning is available, and users can access any and all revisions made on a specific document. You can also add decision makers who are authorized to review and accept new or edited documents.
Users can set up automated emails each time a document is created, viewed or edited. Moreover, users can set automatic file expirations. Such automations put OpenDocMan on par with paid services.
In the free market space, OpenDocMan is certainly the leading option for those working with digital documents. It comes with many of the key features we look for in a leading DMS, and despite the dated design, it functions extremely well and will give you most of what you need.
More details about OpenKM:
Pros:
Cons:
The OpenKM document management software is fantastic for managing documents. It comes with automations that make life easier. Automations include but aren’t limited to automated file transformations (to change Word documents to PDFs), automatic file security and automated file movement based on the file description and metadata.
Other features include digital signatures, file versioning, reporting and a built-in task manager. These features make OpenKM more of a workstation with a DMS built into it, something that helps users manage all areas of their business.
Optical character recognition (OCR) allows you to edit and search data from paper documents, PDF documents and images. Users need to take a photo of the document and upload it to OpenKM. OCR technology scans the document and makes it possible to edit and search for it inside the DMS.
OpenKM is one of the best free document management systems available. It may take a little time to grasp, and the training tools could be better, but once you get used to it, it will function as a highly reliable document management system.
More details about OnlyOffice:
Pros:
Cons:
Developed by Ascensio System SIA, OnlyOffice is a free-to-use service that can serve as a DMS and workstation. The platform is an open solution, which often leads to a better product, more flexibility and improved security. You also don’t have to worry about a private company having the ability to snoop around your documents (we see you, OneDrive and Google.)
In terms of functionality, OnlyOffice has a built-in document creator that lets you create Word documents, forms and spreadsheets, as well as audio and video files. It’s extremely basic, and personal users on the free plan don’t have access to document templates like those on a paid subscription.
OnlyOffice is only free for personal use. If you work in a team, you’ll need to look elsewhere or try one of the paid plans. The free version is a bare-bones document management system, so it may not be enough for users with a specific set of needs.
OnlyOffice lets you integrate an external cloud storage solution like Dropbox (read our full Dropbox review) with the platform, letting you access documents and other file types without taking up any of your free 2GB storage space.
We feel OnlyOffice could offer a little more than the bare bones of a space to store and create documents. It’s a good option for anyone who doesn’t want to use mainstream services; however, with only 2GB of space, you may need to use them anyway.
More details about Hightail:
Pros:
Cons:
Like OnlyOffice, Hightail is limited as to what it can do when compared to a paid service. The free Lite plan offers only 2GB of storage and 100MB file-upload sizes. However, we like its usability and some of its unique features.
With regard to DMS features, Hightail enables you to create documents, file them in unique projects and share files with others. While the platform does have more intelligent features to organize documents, most of them are only available on the paid plans, which lets the free service down.
Although this article is predominantly targeting users looking for a space for documents, we would be remiss not to mention some of Hightail’s better features that pertain to video and images.
In addition to documents, you can upload videos and photos to your space, and the impressive part is that you can highlight specific sections of a video or image and leave real-time comments for another team member.
Those looking for a standard document management system that offers templates galore and helps you track your critical business documents should go with a different option. However, for those who want a little bit of everything, Hightail is worth your consideration.
More details about Confluence:
Pros:
Cons:
Confluence is a document management software that provides a space for small teams to create and store documents that pertain to specific projects.
There’s a basic word processor where you can create original documents, or if you’re looking for something specific — like a performance chart — you can select from the many templates available inside the platform. There’s also a search bar that allows you to easily locate specific documents.
The free Confluence plan allows for up to 10 members, all of whom can contribute documents to the space you create. As a group you share the 2GB of cloud storage, so this service is only suitable for light use.
Confluence has made it possible to integrate third-party apps into the service. Users can integrate Google Drive (read our full Google Drive review). This allows users to embed Google Docs and Drive files directly into content created within Confluence.
Confluence lacks many of the smart and organizational features you’d get with a premium document management system, but remember, it’s free.
With that in mind, we believe the platform has created something that has enough character to entice those on a low (or no) existing budget. With the addition of the app integrations, what we have is a more than capable document management system.
Finding the best free electronic document management system isn’t easy, but it’s not impossible. Just because you’re not handing over your cash doesn’t mean you have to settle for less in terms of the features available — and we believe the selection above proves that.
For us, OpenDocMan and OpenKM are the perfect free options. They both offer intelligent automations, and they have fantastic search and categorization functionality. If they were to update their UI designs, they’d be close to offering the perfect DMS.
The other options, although a little thin on features, will also help you keep your documents in order, while offering some cool features to give you a better user experience. Either way, whichever service you choose, we’re confident none of them will let you down.
While still at it, read our document management vs content management guide to learn how they differ.
Which free DMS do you use? What do you think is the best option out of the selection above? Is there a DMS you would like us to review? Let us know in the comments. Thanks for reading.
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Virtual law offices are an excellent option in today’s digital world. Remote work was beginning to gain momentum before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the worldwide epidemic, and the shutdown of branded virtual law offices became necessary.
Law offices and their clients have become more comfortable with remote work and virtual offices. Recent data has shown that consumer opinion about working remotely changed significantly in 2021, and it is important for law firms to adjust to this change in consumer expectations. Are you ready to create a virtual law office for your clients?
Virtual Law Practice Expectations
A virtual law office conducts business online, not in a physical office. Lawyers may work out of satellite or home offices. Lawyers serve clients via digital communication technologies, like video conferencing, email, and chats. Virtual law firms follow the same regulations as law firms with physical offices, but lawyers are often consultants, not partners or employees.
There are many benefits to virtual legal services. Law firms operating only physical offices should consider offering virtual services to accommodate more prospective clients and meet consumers’ digital expectations.
Benefits of offering virtual services include:
A Larger Client Base
A virtual law firm is open to unlimited clients, whereas traditional offices are limited to clients in a specific, local area. Operating digitally means lawyers can serve clients from all over the world.
This benefit works the other way as well. Clients have a larger selection of law firms to choose from that can best meet their needs.
It’s a win-win all around for law firms and their customers.
Cost Savings
Many businesses have remained remote after the pandemic because they realized how much they could save in overhead costs by shifting to remote work. Even transitioning to half remote and half office work could save companies significantly.
Office space is a huge expense for law firms, so removing the office space provides great savings. Businesses will also reduce expenses on utilities and supplies when moving online. In addition, workers will save a considerable amount of money working remotely, even half-time, as commuting costs will go down.
Flexibility
Virtual law firms allow lawyers to be flexible with their time. They work as needed and are not restricted to specific business hours. Working online saves time, as commuting is not an issue.
Digital lawyers can conveniently work from anywhere, which helps those who have families find a work-life balance that is vital in today’s busy world. Remote work changes the framework of a law office, increases the pool of candidates to be hired, and allows employers to offer unique flexible benefits to employees.
Client Interaction is Easier
Meetings can be more convenient when a law office is remote. Clients do not need to commute or travel to attend meetings. Virtual consultations can involve all the same elements of an in-person meeting but much more reasonably. Digital interaction also makes it easier to meet with clients more often.
Transitioning to a Virtual Law Firm
Attorneys need to take the time to understand the implications of running a law firm virtually. A virtual law firm needs a strong business and marketing plan, just like a brick-and-mortar business. Working with a digital marketing company for such a transition may be helpful. Some things to consider when switching to a remote office include the following:
State Rules on Virtual Law Firms
Each state has its laws regarding remote work. Some states require law firms to maintain a physical location but will allow employees to work remotely. Researching your state’s rules will guide you in operating a virtual law firm.
Digital Communications
Communication is a key component of legal business. Attorneys and clients need to be able to communicate regularly. In a digital atmosphere, reliable communication must be established using modern communication tools, including phones, email, video conferencing tools, and live online chats.
All businesses rely on phones and email in the current marketplace. It may be wise to evaluate your phone and email systems and ensure they provide easy, fast interaction with internal and external clients.
Strong video conferencing is needed for external and internal client meetings. Some conferencing tools available include Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams. It is best to research the options out there and see which conference tool best meets the needs of your particular law firm.
Consider adding live chat to your website to increase immediate assistance for future clients. Live chat is helpful when potential customers have questions or need legal guidance online. It is a great way to pull clients in and highlight your law firm’s availability and commitment to its clients.
Digitized Documents
Once your law firm switches to a remote or virtual office, it is recommended that documentation be virtual or digital as well. The transition to a digital firm means all paper documents must be saved electronically.
It is wise to research digital document software as documents will need electronic signatures. Software should be user-friendly and protect the privacy of your clients and their documents.
Remote Law Firm Management Software
Managing a virtual law office is different from managing a physical office. Legal practice management software assists with scheduling, document sharing and storing, databases, billing, accounting, time tracking, and workflow management.
Updating Company Policies
Official company policies must be updated due to the unique facets of working remotely. All former company policies must be revised to accommodate the new online work.
A virtual law office’s new policies should include the:
Website and Digital Marketing Strategies
A strong online marketing strategy, including a well-designed website, is a key component to the success of a virtual law office or any business. When transitioning to a virtual practice, evaluating and possibly overhauling your online marketing plans makes sense. It may be beneficial to create a new website geared towards remote businesses. A professional digital marketing agency will be able to help in this endeavor.
Digital Marketing Next Steps
Transitioning to a virtual office is complicated but provides numerous opportunities to grow and expand your current law firm. Consider making a list of all your next steps and start formulating your plan!
Annette Choti, Esq. graduated from law school 20 years ago, and is the Founder of Law Quill, a legal digital marketing agency focused on small and solo law firms. Annette wrote the bestselling book Click Magnet: The Ultimate Digital Marketing Guide For Law Firms, and hosts the podcast Legal Marketing Lounge. She is a sought-after keynote and CLE speaker throughout the United States and Canada. Annette used to do theatre and professional comedy, which is not so different from the legal field if we are all being honest. Annette can be found on LinkedIn or at at annette@lawquill.com.
Annette Choti, Digital Marketing, Small Law Firms, Virtual Law Firms, Virtual Law Office
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Many tout AI in ediscovery as the next big thing for the legal tech world – but what can this technology really do for lawyers today?
Can you tell the difference between a picture of a cute brown chihuahua and a tasty blueberry muffin? Most humans can do this easily. (But it’s harder than you might think – take a look here.) Can a computer tell the difference? Only if you correctly train it to do so – and once it’s trained, the answers can be objectively accurate. This is the simple premise behind “artificial intelligence,” or AI, which is the science of teaching computers how to “learn, reason, perceive, infer, communicate, and make decisions like humans do.”
Every Day AI
Spell-check is a decades-old function you probably take advantage of in your favorite word processing software. How does the computer know you spelled a word wrong? Because it’s been “trained” using a dictionary. But in traditional spell-checkers, this dictionary is all the computer has to go by – you can manually add new words to it, but it won’t learn anything new on its own.
Now, word processors use AI to give spell-check tools wider capabilities. Some platforms will self-train new spellings based on the number of times that you use a unique word and how often you manually correct it. Word processors also make suggestions for grammar and syntax, using AI to understand the intricacies of written language that can’t be conveyed in a simple dictionary of words and spelling.
How does Netflix know what movies or shows to suggest you watch next? It’s based on the shows you’ve already binged, and compared with hundreds of millions of other viewers that watched similar shows and movies that the Netflix mothership computers “learned” from. Dozens of other technologies that you interact with everyday use the same methodology, like Amazon, Siri, spam recognition servers, and even the Photos app on your phone. (Can it recognize a chihuahua vs. a blueberry muffin?)
When it comes to the legal profession, AI can be similarly used for document filing. If a document management system watches how you regularly file documents or emails from a particular client, it can train itself to suggest that same filing protocol on other communications with that client. Or computers can be trained to compose contracts with similar clauses and sections based on past approved contracts. This could be even more acceptable and accurate than the “manual” process of a lawyer pulling up an old contract and attempting to change all the old names and dates, which often means something gets overlooked.
AI is NOT a Replacement for Human Expertise – It’s an Enhancement
In order to successfully embrace the practical applications of AI in ediscovery, we have to shift away from a mindset of “robots replacing humans,” which is a storyline that only exists in science fiction movies. AI is a tool that helps you get your job done, like a pencil, a stapler, a printer or fax machine (if you still have one).
As legal journalist Bob Ambrogi stated simply, “AI is a tool. A tool that we control.
It’s a tool that can make us more effective and efficient at what we do.
It’s a tool that can help us deliver our services more quickly and at lower cost.
It’s a tool that can help us serve more clients and serve them better.
It’s a tool that can enhance the delivery of legal services and that can help to close the yawning justice gap.
It’s a tool for good, not for evil.”
At the Nextpoint On Point User Conference in September 2022, we invited legal technology thought leaders to participate in a panel titled “The Future of Legal Technology and Artificial Intelligence,” and the discussion echoed Ambrogi’s thoughts.
Joey Gartner, Director of the ABA’s Center for Innovation, stated, “Technology is a tool. It will not solve all of your problems, but it will solve some of your problems.”
Dan Linna, Director of Law and Technology Initiatives at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and McCormick School of Engineering, added, “These tools can help us not just be more efficient, but improve the quality of our work product and give us better outcomes.”
Every legal professional is familiar with the hours spent in a law library researching case law, tracking down the best opinions and articles to support or refute a legal stance. What if a computer could be trained to understand a legal query and produce a set of research results that could achieve your goal? Of course, you wouldn’t trust those initial results until you verified them and then possibly further trained the computer to provide more accurate results. The focus is not specifically on “automating” the task of legal research, but “augmenting” the decisions that are ultimately made by humans.
Objective vs. Subjective Decisions
Perhaps the friction with AI in the legal profession comes from how the decisions are made. Answering whether or not a picture shows a chihuahua or a blueberry muffin is an objective question – it’s either a dog or a baked good, and every sensible human will answer the question the same way.
When it comes to making certain decisions in the legal field, like whether a document is relevant or not to a litigation matter, many lawyers argue that kind of decision can only be made subjectively based on their [human] years of experience and professional knowledge. Those lawyers can’t fathom that such a decision could be made by a computer… and they would be 100% correct, unless that lawyer “trained” a computer by highlighting relevant or “hot” documents, which would allow the computer to recognize similar relevant documents. And the computer can make those decisions without taking a lunch break or involving emotional attachments or sentiment.
But no litigator worth their salt would allow documents identified as “relevant” by a computer to be produced without looking them over first. In other words, the computer hasn’t replaced the litigator’s stance and experience, it has simply assisted by providing a starting point, or at least a jumping off point to identify a corpus of data and documents and files. At the very least, the computer could prioritize a list of documents that need to be reviewed that could save a lot of wasted time and effort. Again, it’s not “artificial” intelligence, it’s “augmented” intelligence.
Sonali Ray, the Director of Legal Strategy at Nextpoint, participated in the On Point AI panel and encouraged litigators to “work in conjunction with the technology – look at it as an assist, not an ‘easy button.’ The human eye is not perfect. Even though there are elements of the machine that aren’t perfect, neither is your technique.”
Dan Linna echoed Sonali’s comments by stating, “We still hold onto this mythology that humans (especially lawyers) are perfect in the work they’re doing. But studies show that humans are not perfect. There are huge opportunities to use computation to augment the work that humans are doing.”
Bruce Fein, the Legal Director and co-founder of Dagger Analytics, provided a helpful definition of how AI can help in the realm of ediscovery and litigation: “In the legal context, AI is about getting a computer to make a decision, like relevant or not relevant. These tools are intelligently moving toward the best algorithm for making that decision. Rather than you creating that algorithm, the computer is figuring it out for you.”
From Artificial Chihuahuas to AI in Ediscovery
In concluding the On Point AI panel, Dan Linna shared a vision for where AI could enhance the legal profession: “All too often we think about using AI to do things that we’ve always done, just a little bit better, a little bit faster, a little bit cheaper. But we need to change our mindset to think about how we can use AI to transform the things that we do. We need to start thinking more about some of the other AI principles that are being discussed in other areas that AI is being used – fairness, transparency, accountability.”
In order for the legal profession to successfully integrate AI tools into ediscovery projects, it’s important to understand that the technology is simply a tool that can help us better accomplish certain tasks, as well as transform and reshape legacy, manual approaches to litigation. And in the process, AI can help us avoid any confusion between chihuahuas v. blueberry muffins.
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