Legal Practice Management Vs. Project Management

In recent weeks, we’ve been meeting with firms that run a bit differently than standard law firms. A new trend that a lot of firms are moving toward is a project management setup instead of practice management by itself. Firms in these situations still need time tracking applications as well as document management systems and centralized calendars but at the same time need project management tracking tools to gauge their attorneys and see how far along a project may be. In fact, some firms find that tracking attorney work as a project is easier to track and organize and these firms are taking ideas from the construction industry.
Some firms are looking to Applicom’s Apollo for their project management needs. Apollo is a web based project management application that also supports contact management. A lot of task management applications limit you to personal tasks but Apollo offers contact related and project related tasks to aid project management. For example, you may need to remind yourself to track your weekly time, assign a research task to a junior associate for a matter or project, and setup a reminder to book a client meeting or follow up.

Apollo enables you to filter tasks by personal tasks, tasks related to a matter and many more. You can even check on active tasks and overdue tasks. If you delegate tasks to others, you can monitor their progress as well. You can even set milestones for projects with reminds for follow ups with the client. There are many other tools Apollo offers. The calendar enables you to schedule events and receive email alerts. Apollo can even store contacts and documents related to a matter and integrates with Outlook. You can connect contacts, documents, and events to tasks and projects, enabling you to view tasks by contact and even on your calendar. Apollo also features an interactive timer as a billing aid. Simply start the timer connected to a matter and your time will be tracked and associated with that particular matter. Pricing ranges from $23/month to $148/month for unlimited usage and projects.

It would certainly seem that Apollo fills the gap where other practice management applications have fallen short. If you currently work with practice management applications but lack that project management piece that you’ve been longing for, check out Apollo.