What’s new in LeanLaw this month?
Subscription updates
Subscription pages and prices have been updated. You can now switch between a monthly and yearly plan from your Subscription page without needing to contact a representative. Additionally, subscriptions can now be purchased at a discounted price. Purchase 3 years at a 20% discount or 2 years at a 10% discount!
Go to your subscription page here to view all options.
Step-down Origination
Step-down is a feature created for firms that offer their attorneys origination incentives for a limited period of time after a matter opens. When step-down is enabled, the firm sets a period of months in the Reports Settings page. LeanLaw will then use this period to determine whether to allocate origination from a payment for each matter. This determination is based on the length of time passed between the matter’s “Opened” date and the payment’s date.
For example, if you have a matter with an Opened date of 1/1/22 and a step-down period of 6 months, a payment you record for the date 7/1/22 or earlier will allocate origination to the matter’s originator(s). However, a payment recorded to the date 7/2/22 would allocate 0% origination, because its date falls outside of the step-down period.
The step-down date for each matter can be found on its Info tab and in its Billing and Rates tab.
Because this feature fundamentally changes a central feature of the product, it will be available on an opt-in basis for now. Contact us if you’d like Step-down Origination in your firm.
Deposit Report
If you've ever found yourself annoyed at how much effort it takes to put together a list of transactions to verify deposits, you might find our Deposit Report useful. This report lists all transactions from LeanLaw that create a deposit to your account(s). When you select a trust account from the Select Account filter, this means all trust deposits which your firm has recorded. When the checking/operating account is selected from the filter, this means all payments which your firm has recorded. The Deposit Report is all of your transactions listed in one report!
Note: the Deposit Report currently only shows deposits made to an operating/checking account or to a trust account. The report doesn't yet support transactions recorded to an Undeposited Funds account. You can see if your firm uses Undeposited Funds in Trust settings.
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.
Public API
We’re continuing to develop our 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.
Distribution Locking - now in beta!
Currently, any change you make to allocation settings (such as origination, firm share, and responsible percentages) will apply retroactively to all payments received. This is great for allowing you to correct or adjust report data, but it also limits the accuracy of past compensation reports in firms that change allocation settings.
With distribution locking, any distribution set to either To Distribute or Distributed will have its allocation values frozen. This allows your distribution reports to remain accurate no matter how your users' percentages change over time.
Update history
As always, we’ve also been hard at work to squash bugs and improve the user interface. Here are the patch notes for our development.
January 30, 2022
Changed the Subscription page to reflect new deals and price changes, and to allow users to switch between monthly and yearly subscription types.
January 28, 2022
Added the step-down origination feature. This feature is now available to be beta tested.
Changed the "Show Matters for User" filter to say "Show Matters Involving" to clear up some confusion.
Changed the "Create Expense" button in the Expense Templates page of Firm Settings to say "Create Expense Template."
Fixed an issue where Total columns in the Ready to Bill report could be offset in firms without client IDs.
January 17, 2022
Fixed issue where revenue report was broken for several firms
January 15, 2022
Refactored the Firm Settings page in vue (javascript).
Changed the draft invoice checkboxes to make them no longer appear in printed drafts.
Fixed an issue where the Time Period filter on the Time Entries page could search beyond, or short of, the intended period in certain time zones.
January 14, 2022
Added the distribution lock feature for beta testing.
January 12, 2022
The Deposit Report is no longer in beta. All firms with LeanLaw Pro now have access to Deposit Report on their Reports page.
Made bulk invoice editing buttons visible but inactive while no relevant boxes are checked.
Added an error message for when users have Enforced Rounding enabled and attempt to create a time entry that doesn't have a valid Hours value.
January 11, 2022
Added QuickBooks icons to the Trust Account Balance and Account Balance labels on the Trust Account tab to signify that these values come from the matter's QuickBooks account.
Fixed an issue where invoices created with QuickCreate would sometimes use tomorrow's date.
Fixed an issue where the Collected Total value for the Revenue by Client and Matter wouldn't include expenses if the report was exported.
January 3, 2022
Fixed an issue where Billing filters could miss time entries, depending on the user's time zone.
Looking for more changes? You can find last month's release notes here.