All Collections
Product Announcements
New in LeanLaw: September 2021
New in LeanLaw: September 2021

Quality of life improvements, bug fixes, and more coming soon

Doug Schmierer avatar
Written by Doug Schmierer
Updated over a week ago

What’s new in LeanLaw this month?

Quality of Life Improvements

We've made some changes to the product which will hopefully make your life easier.

  • Flexible dropdowns. Before, lengthier matter names could be difficult to tell apart because the Matter dropdown only showed the first 20 characters or so. We've changed this by making it so all dropdowns will now flex to fit very long entries. If you see something that doesn’t fit the dropdown, just hover your mouse over that entry; the dropdown will expand to reveal it!

  • Expense initials. Before, the options to show user initials on invoices for both time entries and expenses were tied together. Now, these are separate options. Go to your firm’s Invoice Presentation settings to control whether you want your users’ initials to appear on time entries, expenses, or neither!

  • Trust statements attach to printed invoices. Before, the Attach Trust Statement function on the QuickBooks tab of Billing would only work for emailed invoices. Now, any time you attach a trust statement to an invoice, it will also attach to the .pdf, if you print the invoice. This works both when clicking a single invoice to print it or when checking multiple invoices to print in bulk!

  • More users on fixed fee allocations. Before, it was difficult to add more than ten users to a fixed fee allocation because the list of users would begin to disappear below the browser. Now, the fixed fee window will retain its shape, allowing you to scroll and add users indefinitely.

  • Visible rates on the Time Entries page. Before, new time entries on the Time Entries page wouldn't preview the user's default rate for the matter. Now, as long as the Advanced switch on the top of the time entry is active, the user's hourly rate will be visible.

What’s next?

We have some exciting features being beta tested right now. Some firms are already trying out these features, but they’ll be available for all once we know they’re bug free. Contact our support team if you’re interested in trying any of these beta features.

Deposit Report

Our new deposit report can be sorted by your operating account or by your trust account(s). When viewing the operating account, you’ll see all payments made for all matters in the firm. When viewing a trust account, you’ll see all trust deposits recorded in LeanLaw. We hope this report makes your lives a little easier when you’re verifying accounts.

QuickBooks Status Dots

Something our users have missed in our new and improved client and matter layout is the column on the Matters page that showed whether a matter was connected, had a broken connection, or hadn’t yet been connected to QuickBooks. We’ll soon be bringing this feature back with an added filter so you can sort out the Matters that need attention!

Public API

We’re continuing to develop a public API that allows the retrieval of bulk information from firms, such as client contact information, client and matter lists, and more. Developers can use this to securely integrate LeanLaw with other programs, like Sharepoint. The API is in closed beta; please contact LeanLaw if you're interested in exploring it.


Update history


As always, we’ve also been hard at work to squash bugs and improve the UI. Here are the patch notes for last month’s development.

September 30,2021

  • Fixed an issue that caused some custom field interactions with QuickBooks Online to no longer function.

September 28, 2021

  • Fixed an issue where Adjust This Entry to Zero would send a time entry back to Ready to Bill instead of removing it from invoicing and writing it down to zero.

September 27, 2021

  • Fixed an issue that caused the Time Entries, Expenses, and Fixed Fees checkboxes in the WIP Detail report to be slow to update the report if checked or unchecked.

  • Removed the date filter from the WIP Detail report (this fixes an issue where fixed fees wouldn't show up in the report unless they had a date assigned).

  • Added an Include Billed checkbox to the WIP Detail report, allowing it to show detail for all billed entries as well.

  • Added a period filter to the (beta) Deposit Report.

September 23, 2021

  • Fixed the Description field on trust deposits to properly list the source and use that was entered into LeanLaw for that trust deposit, instead of the client name.

September 22, 2021

  • Fixed an issue preventing users from adding many users to the fixed fee allocation window.

  • Fixed all client names in Receivables Report appearing bold, even when Show Matters wasn’t checked.

  • Flipping Advanced in time entries now shows the user’s default hourly rate for the matter. Before, it would just show the word Default.

  • Changed the Attach Trust Statement function in the QuickBooks tab of Billing to work even if an invoice is printed. Before, this feature only worked for emailed invoices.

September 16, 2021

  • Added the Deposit Report for beta testing.

  • Added a new option to Invoice Presentation settings called Include User Name in Description for Expenses. This is off by default. Turning it on will automatically add the attorney's initials to expense descriptions in invoices, if an attorney is assigned to the expense.

  • Expanded Client and Matter dropdowns on many pages and made it so they grow to fit longer names when a user places their cursor over the name.

  • Added a button to the Clients and Matters pages that validates QuickBooks connections, giving each entry an icon showing whether it has a good connection, broken connection, or no connection. This is in beta for now.

September 14, 2021

  • Fixed an issue on the Calendar page that caused some new time to use the Responsible user's rates instead of the selected user.

September 9, 2021

  • Fixed an issue that caused users to be unable to upgrade to Pro subscriptions.

September 8, 2021

  • Fixed an issue where switching a time entry from unbilled to billed could cause the rate to be $0/hr

  • Fixed an issue where the client Account Summary information wouldn't appear if the firm didn't have a trust account connected. Firms without trust accounts should now see their clients' last payments and receivables balance on their clients' pages.

September 3, 2021

  • Fixed an issue where editing a time entry connected to a fixed fee would sometimes mark it as billable.

  • Fixed an issue where “Copy billing and rate info from client” would allow users to create matters with the same name and ID as matters that already existed, which would cause issues if they tried to edit either matter.

  • Fixed the “schedule demo ” links.

  • Added an option, when attempting to create a client with an already existing ID, that allows the user to create the duplicate ID as long as they confirm it’s intentional.

  • Added more protection to the Matter Rates report through the View Matter Rates permission.

Looking for more? You can find last month's release notes here.

Did this answer your question?