The LawBill Blog

The best feature of FiOS video service from Verizon, in my opinion, is the free DVR. It permits automated recording of TV shows and the Jump button will skip over the commercials. For the last several weeks I have been storing original “Twilight Zone” episodes. A 30-minute show only lasts 22 minutes without the commercials. The same themes are repeated: the Western Morality Play, the Space Exploration Fear, The Downtrodden Office Worker.

The last type is of particular interest because it portrays contemporary office life, circa 1960. Inevitably, the protagonist works at a desk at which he fills out large paper ledger sheets, line by line, with an ink pen. “How quaint that 50 years ago an office worker’s job was the same as it had been 100 years before that, sans electric lighting and air conditioning”, I would observe as I watched the story unfold.

Last week I spoke at the NJ State Bar Association Solo and Small Firm Section on the topic of “Case Management and Billing Software – How to Choose What’s Right for You”. As I was preparing the obligatory PowerPoint® I wanted to illustrate the “old” way of office automation compared to using LexisNexis PCLaw™, Time Matters® or Intuit QuickBooks®, so I searched the Web and found an image of the original One Write Check Ledger. There were quite a few chuckles from the Bar Association audience at such an “antiquated system.”

Fast forward 36 hours and I am in the office of a prospective consulting client law firm. It was my first visit. The office manager had invited me to discuss how she could improve productivity in the office. She had told me in advance that they already used Time Matters and QuickBooks, but “Not as efficiently” as they believed the programs could be used. This is a very busy office with 5 assistants and two lawyers.

After reviewing their Time Matters usage (which was limited to only the ‘Contacts’ function) I asked to observe the procedure used to enter a New Matter. They pulled out a large double-sided ledger book onto which each new matter was added by hand and the accompanying 3″ x 5″ index card onto which they wrote the same information a second time for ‘quick alphabetical lookups’. I merely shook my head in disbelief.

I was then ushered over to the bookkeeper’s desk. I froze in astonishment: there on the desk was a still used One Write Check Ledger! I stifled the urge to look at the date on my cell phone, for fear it would read 1960. When I recovered my composure I told them that we had “a lot of work to do”.

As I returned to my office the voice of Rod Serling, the “Twilight Zone” creator echoed in my head: “The lesson for this week is that if a law firm owns practice management and accounting software and yet is operating its law business as if it was 1960, you might be in the “Twilight Zone.”

Is your firm operating in the “Twilight Zone”?

What do you think? Let’s get a dialog going.