Miscellaneous

Clio Turns Two, As Lawyers Ease Into the Cloud

By Robert Ambrogi

Today marks the second anniversary of Clio, the Web-based practice-management suite. This milestone is notable because it signifies the legal profession’s increasing comfort with and use of cloud-based applications.

I first wrote about Clio in June 2008, when it came out in beta. When its formal version was released at LegalTech New York in 2009, I picked it as one of the 10 Tech Stars of the show.

Yesterday, Jack Newton, president of Themis Solutions, the company that created Clio, showed me some of Clio’s latest enhancements. Among the most notable are:

• E-mail integration. No matter what e-mail system you use, Clio can be used as an e-mail repository, linking your e-mails and attachments  to your matters and clients. Clio does this by assigning each matter a unique drop-box e-mail address which you then use in the BCC field.
• Enhanced calendaring. Clio’s calender was overhauled this year to make it easier to use. The new interface is similar to that of Google’s calendar, including the ability to drag and drop appointments, have multiple calendars, and share a firm-wide calendar.
• Customizable invoice templates. This new feature allows greater customization of invoices, with more professional-looking results.

This second year has brought considerable growth for Clio, Newton told me yesterday. Consider these numbers:

• On its first anniversary, it hosted 150,000 contacts. Now, it hosts over 1 million.
• A year ago, it hosted 20,000 matters. Today, it hosts over 200,000 matters.
• Last year,  it hosted 25,000 documents. Now, it hosts 320,000.

There is more news to come from Clio, Newton said, with another major enhancement slated to be announced within the next month. So to this blog’s readers, stay tuned. And to Clio, congratulations and happy anniversary.

Full post as published by Lawsites on October 01, 2010 (boomark / email).