Legal Technology
This course involves the fundamentals of law office management with an emphasis on the legal technology. Prepares for assisting in law office management and using legal technology. Topics covered include law office structure, time-keeping, billing, case/data management, trust accounting, and ethics.
How this course works
- Work through the activity
- Post by Friday, 11:59 PM
- Reply by Sunday, 11:59 PM
- 1Activity 1
The Modern Law Office
Every law firm has an organization chart, whether or not anyone has drawn it, and in Florida the rules draw part of it for you. Only a lawyer may own a share of a firm…
- 2Activity 2
The Front Door
When someone calls a small firm about a new case, the voice that answers may be a paralegal's. Rules written for lawyers reach that call before the firm has a client.…
- 3Activity 3
Time Is Money
A time entry is evidence written for readers who have not arrived yet. This month it becomes a line on a client's invoice. Next year it may be an exhibit to a motion for…
- 4Activity 4
The Invoice
An invoice turns a firm's time into a client's debt, and much of what goes wrong with a fee goes wrong after the time is recorded. Some entries should never reach the…
- 5Activity 5
Other People's Money
Right now, a Florida firm's trust account holds money the firm does not own: a settlement on its way to a client, a deposit toward an expert's fee, an advance against…
- 6Activity 6
The Friday Payroll Problem
Would you move a client's money to cover the office payroll if the managing partner asked you to? The request, if it comes, arrives with its reasons already attached:…
- 7Activity 7
The Matter File
Open the shared drive at a busy small firm and you may find a folder of files named scan0001, Doc1, and demand FINAL2. Every name made sense to the person who saved it,…
- 8Activity 8
Documents at Scale
A firm that sends fifty engagement letters a year does not write fifty letters. It writes one and copies it, and each copy carries its past into the next client's…
- 9Activity 9
The Calendar
A lawsuit's deadlines rarely arrive as dates. They arrive as periods, such as twenty days after service or ninety days before docket sounding, and Florida's courts and…
- 10Activity 10
E-Filing and E-Service
The last screen of the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal warns that clicking Submit is final. By then the document must already be in the form the rules require, and its…
- 11Activity 11
The Wire Instruction
"Our M&T bank is currently on audit," read the email that reached a Florida lawyer in November 2017, with new wire instructions for his clients' $504,611.13 loan payoff.…
- 12Activity 12
Choosing Legal Tech
A software demo shows a tool on its best day, with clean sample data and a presenter who knows every click. What a firm needs to know shows up later: whether its own…
- PProject
The Office Manual
The only written plan Florida's rules demand of a multi-lawyer firm fits on an index card. It names the trust account's signatories, the lawyer responsible for…