Abacus Anouncements

What’s new in AbacusLaw 2012?

Get paid faster. Make changes faster. Improve organization. AbacusLaw 2012 is the largest release ever, introducing over 15 highly requested features including:

• Remote access to your calendar and contacts: Wirelessly synchronize your AbacusLaw calendar and contacts to your mobile device with the new AbacusSync app. No matter where you are you always have up-to-date schedule and contact information. AbacusSync requires an annual fee per phone or tablet.
• Never chase fees: Instantly and easily collect payment from your clients by accepting all major credit cards. AbacusLaw now integrates with the premier payment processing system, X-Charge, to ensure you’re always paid on time and that you stay in compliance with the guidelines set forth by the ABA and State Bar Associations.
• Facts tab: Store case facts in the new Facts tab so you can review their chronology and analyze whether they help or hurt your case.
• Exhibits tab: Enter exhibits into the Exhibits tab so you can generate exhibit lists for depositions or trials in the approved format for your jurisdiction with a click of your mouse.
• Need to find an email or note? Now, instantly retrieve and review linked emails and notes using the new full-text email and note search bars. Simply enter desired keywords and a list of all the emails or notes that include those words will appear.
• New calendar views: See all linked events for one Matter in a week and month calendar format to visualize what is coming up.
• Forms additions and enhancements: The new word processing toolbar makes it even easier and intuitive to let AbacusLaw automatically fill out your documents and forms.
• Clutter-free client database: Keep prospective clients in the new separate database so you can track and market to them without cluttering or confusing your client work. When someone becomes a client, one-click easily moves them into your client database.
• Keep better phone records. The Call Manager (AbacusLaw’s phone message center) now accepts all notetypes, making it even easier to keep detailed records of your phone conversations and messages.
• Run accounting reports for closed years: You can now run two standard reports on all accounting years closed in AbacusLaw.

Abacus president Judd Kessler, Esq. explained his company’s development on this latest version: “More than ever, attorneys are on the go and need to have access to their schedule and contacts while out of the office. We’ve simplified the synchronization process so they no longer need to dock their devices and use multiple applications to sync. Combined with improved organizational features such as the new Facts and Exhibits tabs, AbacusLaw 2012 truly is an all-in-one solution for law firms of all sizes.”

Abacus Streamlines the Business Formation Process and Provides Opportunities to Advise Clients in the Future

San Diego, CA – May 17, 2011 – With the release of Abacus Business Law, attorneys in this practice area can now easily help their clients form new businesses and modify existing companies by automating the production of routine documents and forms and scheduling important case deadlines with custom workflow rules.

Using Abacus Business Law, successful business attorneys will:

• Reduce Errors in Document & Form Production: Abacus Business Law automatically fills out your documents and forms using information from your existing database. Reduce errors by never cutting and pasting information again. 
• Eliminate Case Bottlenecks and Delays:  Custom reports tell you which activities need to be completed, next while pre-programmed workflow rules (with documents linked to events) schedule important events for you so you'll never wonder what you need to be doing or when.
• Create more business opportunities: Abacus Business Law gives you the ability to advise your clients on what they need to do once their business is formed, creating opportunities to do more for the same clients.

Abacus President Judd Kessler, Esq. said: “Once complete, all business formations require additional steps in order stay in compliance with state and Federal rules and regulations. Abacus Business Law gives business lawyers the tools to anticipate the future needs of their clients and gain their repeat business.”

Criminal Defense Attorneys Can Now Link Charges and Priors to Uniquely Specialized Software

San Diego, CA – January 25, 2011 – With the release of Abacus Criminal Defense, attorneys in this practice area can now easily gather and store information, automate the production of documents and court forms and stay on top of appointments, deadlines and other important case activities. Key features of Abacus Criminal Defense include:

• Case Intake Forms: Easily collect information (court information, incident information and defendant information) to populate Name and Matter records and schedule events.
• Specialized Contact Screens: Easily view information relevant to criminal defense defendants, judges, prosecutors, witnesses, bail bonds companies, police officers and more.
• Custom Matter Screens: Organize and display vital case details including information about the Court, alleged crime, important dates and links to involved parties.
• Charges and Priors: Store and link an unlimited number of current criminal charges and prior convictions for each case and defendant, helping to prepare to merge information into documents and forms.
• Document Templates: Quickly and accurately produce frequently used documents.
• Custom Reports: Instantly view your firm’s productivity, caseload and open felony and/or misdemeanor cases.

Abacus president Judd Kessler, Esq. said: “Whether you’re defending clients charged with misdemeanors or felonies, Abacus Criminal Defense will keep you organized and on top of important case details and events. Linking Charges and Priors to your client records makes it easier and more reliable to make informed decisions on how you want to handle each case.”

AbacusLaw 2011 Highlights Case Organization & Management

San Diego, CA – December 6, 2010 -With the release of AbacusLaw 2011, law offices can now do even more to simplify and organize their practices. Here’s a sampling of the feature enhancements:

• Case snapshot: See a chronological list of all case activities that have transpired (notes, events, emails, linked docs) for every name or matter, giving you an overview of what is going on with a case. 
• Full text search: Instantly retrieve and review documents using the new search bar. Simply enter desired keywords and you’ll get a list of all the documents that include those words linked in AbacusLaw. 
• Bill for documents: Just as you bill for notes and events, you can now bill for documents. Simply enter the time spent in the “duration” field and click “bill”.
• Delete accounting entries: Make a mistake in accounting? You can now easily delete entries while maintaining an audit trail of all changes.
• Centrally organize your templates and forms: The Forms Library now goes beyond just PDF court forms to include word processing templates.Easily produce Word or WordPerfect forms and centralize all of your mail merge activities.
• Quickly link documents to your AbacusLaw program: In Windows Explorer, the right-click menu now includes the option to send documents to your AbacusLaw program. Specify the name or matter you’d like the document associated with for maximum organization and easy retrieval.

Abacus President Judd Kessler explained his company's work on the new version: “All legal cases involve high volumes of interconnected data pertaining to people, places and events. The Abacus development team is focused on providing our customers with a user-friendly program that enables them to keep all data neatly organized for optimal efficiency. AbacusLaw 2011 highlights the document handling and organization capabilities of our software.”

Abacus Streamlines Transactional Real Estate Practices So
You’ll Never Miss a Deadline

San Diego, CA – November 17, 2010 – With the release of Abacus Real Estate, firms in this practice area can maintain their office calendar, automate the assembly of documents and keep on top of all projects and cases. Key features of Abacus Real Estate include:

• Intake forms: Easily collect information (case data, party details and events) to populate Name and Matter records and schedule events.
• Specialized Contact screens: Capture information relevant to your real estate contacts including mailing address, telephone number, fax number and email address.
• Specialized Matter screens: Abacus Real Estate has custom matter screens for real estate sales and leases, so you can efficiently collect and organize vital case information.
• Document templates: Abacus Real Estate includes document templates for client letters, requests for information, quitclaim and grant deeds, promissory notes, estoppels letters and notary acknowledgements to quickly and accurately produce frequently used documents.
• Custom reports: Instantly view your firm’s productivity, caseload, clients and case management workflow with custom reports designed specifically for real estate practices.
• Legal calendaring: Custom rules include new client, new transaction, new lease, real estate closing, foreclosure, information request and lien. Never again go searching through the rules or counting on your fingers to calculate a deadline.

Abacus president Judd Kessler, Esq. said: “Whether you’re negotiating a contract of sale, drafting a lease, resolving a dispute over land or participating in a closing, Abacus Real Estate will better organize your case and client data so deadlines aren’t missed and information is readily available.”

Abacus Streamlines Workflow for Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys

San Diego, CA – November 3, 2010 - With the release of Abacus Bankruptcy, law offices in this practice area can do things available in no other single program:

• Keep all data organized: Abacus Bankruptcy is equipped with specialized Matter screens to help track all details of your bankruptcy cases including information about exempt assets, their creditors and co-debtors. You can associate an unlimited number of creditors with any matter and specify their notice location and claim data.
• Intake forms: Enter data for the case and parties in a single window to easily populate Matter and Name records as well as schedule events.
• Track multiple claims: Abacus Bankruptcy enables you to track up to 3 claims for each creditor. Each claim can be categorized as secured, unsecured or have a priority attached.
• Joint bankruptcy: Track a second party as the co-debtor.
• Legal calendaring: Customized rules include Scheduling a Rule 2004 Examination, Scheduling a 341 Creditor’s Meeting, New Debtor Client, New Chapter 13 Petition, New Chapter 7 Petition, and Request to Sell Chapter 13 Estate Property. Easily and accurately calendar deadline reminders to ensure nothing falls behind or falls through the cracks.
• Custom reports: Abacus Bankruptcy reports are customized to give you specific information about your bankruptcy cases to ensure you are meeting deadlines. Reports include the What’s Next Report and Unfiled Petitions Report, as well as the Source Report to help target precious client procurement funds.

Abacus President Judd Kessler explained his company's development of this specialty version: "Whether you’re handling a no-asset Chapter 7 or a full blown Chapter 13 case, Abacus Bankruptcy keeps all of your case details and documents organized and allows you to confidently meet all deadlines by keeping all of your appointments in one legal calendar. We have specialized Matter screens to display vital financial and contact information for creditors, debtors and trustees.”

AbacusLaw Earns #1 Ranking From New York Law Journal Readers

The New York Law Journal conducted its first annual reader survey. Over 2,000 legal professionals voted on products and services they find most helpful in dealing with the daily challenges lawyers face. AbacusLaw was named "Best Docketing and Calendaring Software".

Abacus president Judd Kessler Esq. said: “Given the importance of calendaring to every law firm, we're particularly honored to get this recognition. We work hard every day to help our customers be successful. It's exciting to get this feedback."

Abacus Streamlines Workflow for Civil Litigation Attorneys

San Diego, CA – September 22, 2010 – With the release of Abacus Civil Litigation, the power of AbacusLaw software is available pre-customized for that practice area. Civil litigation offices can create contact and case records in a convenient and consistent manner, with information critical to their work captured and presented automatically.

• Intake Forms: Enter data for the case, parties, calendar events and notes using a single window, much like a traditional printed form or a modern web page. The intake screen collects information that populates Name and Matter records and schedules events in the assigned attorney’s calendar.
• Specialized Contact Screens: Capture information relevant specifically to civil litigation contacts.
• Specialized Matter Screens: Efficiently collect, organize and display vital information about parties, filing dates and case handling details for each case.

Abacus President Judd Kessler, Esq. said: "Civil litigation firms have been customizing AbacusLaw for many years. Our staff has worked directly with many of these firms to create a version tuned to their business."

Abacus Automates Case Flow for Employment Law Attorneys

San Diego, CA – September 22, 2010 – With the release of Abacus Employment Law, attorneys can now keep their cases moving from intake to disposition. Firms in that specialty area have reliable, effective tools when representing clients in:

• Wage disputes
• Harassment cases
• Discrimination suits

Included are document templates and new case calendaring rules. Default settings may be customized based on the requirements of the firm’s jurisdiction and the attorney’s preferences.

Abacus President Judd Kessler, Esq. commented: “We worked with employment law attorneys to gain insight into the tools and features they need to effectively manage their practices. Our development staff designed the program to meet the needs of this specialty area.” 

Better Internet Visibility Delivers More Clients to Law Firms

San Diego, CA – July 8, 2010 – Law firms looking for new clients from the Internet can now turn to Abacus for help. Abacus Website Solutions offers attorneys Internet marketing services (including SEO, Pay Per Click and social media marketing) for their existing websites, or for new sites they can select and implement through Abacus.

An effective Internet presence should be central to each law firm’s marketing efforts. Prospective clients find, learn about and approach attorneys based on Internet searches. Abacus professional services enhance the performance of existing sites or brand new websites attorneys can select from Abacus’ wide range of designs. With Abacus, people looking to contact an attorney find the attorney’s site and see the information they are looking for, never wondering if another firm can better handle their needs.

Abacus president Judd Kessler, Esq., explained: “If you don’t have a website, or your current website is unprofessional, disorganized and unattractive, you are missing potential clients. Successful lead generating websites are professional, engaging, convey authority and trust, and compel potential clients to contact you. Abacus Website Solutions will help you get more new clients.”

Prosecutors See Technology Savings Related to Budget Goals

San Diego, CA - February 16, 2010 - Hit with budget cuts while workloads increase, agencies are struggling to find ways to save money, without sacrificing the requisite quantity and quality of their work.

With AbacusLaw Prosecutor software, legal professionals in government agencies get the benefits of case management technology (lowering their cost per case and simultaneously handling more cases effectively), previously enjoyed only by private practice attorneys.

Cost and time saving benefits include:

• All case intake, document generation, calendaring, reporting, accounting/time management and synchronization are contained in one system. No additional database or reporting technologies are needed.
• With everything in one program, there are no costs for multiple vendor products (licenses, updates, support, maintenance, training or administrative personnel).
• AbacusLaw is the only user-configurable system of its type: database structures, screens, reports, queries, calendaring rules, and court forms are completely configurable within the program.
• By using one, integrated system, training and administration are simpler and cost effective.
• Linking all information electronically reduces the need (expense) to locally copy and store tons of paper, and accessing documents with mere mouse clicks eliminates looking for files in use by others or potentially misplaced.

Abacus Government Systems President Dennis Baldwin explained his company's development of Abacus Prosecutor: "Every agency deals with people, documents, and cases. AbacusLaw puts them all in one easy-to-use, configurable for each department, database system which produces tremendous cost savings.”

 

Abacus Introduces the Case Dashboard & Intake Wizards for Personal Injury Attorneys

San Diego, CA - December 17, 2009  -With the release of Abacus Personal Injury Specialty Version, law offices in this specialty can do things available in no other single program:

• INTAKE WIZARDS: Start new cases quickly and accurately with automated PI intake wizards. Our single entry system minimizes delays, data validation reduces mistakes, new case rules improve case workflow and our integrated conflict checks reduce errors.
• CASE-FLOW RULES: Reduce case delay and keep your PI cases moving forward with case-flow rules.
• CASE DASHBOARD: Get a concise summary of case status and quickly access case data from the case dashboard.
• DOCUMENT AND FORM GENERATION: Reduce mistakes and wasted time by auto-filling your PI documents and forms.
• CASE CALCULATORS: Analyze medical, settlement, negotiation and wage numbers quickly with Excel based case calculators.

Abacus President Judd Kessler explained his company's development of this specialty version: "Personal injury cases involve a high volume of interconnected data, including facts, people, events, documents, forms, correspondence and email. Successful firms efficiently handle this data, which prevents case bottlenecks, delays, malpractice risk and lost revenue.  We created Abacus Personal Injury to help attorneys organize data and streamline case workflow."

AbacusLaw 2010 Highlights Speed and
Ease-of-Use

San Diego, CA - November 2, 2009 -With the release of AbacusLaw 2010, law offices can now do even more to organize and simplify their practice. Here’s a sampling of the feature enhancements:

• Grab and Add: Create new contacts in Abacus without typing. Copy any name and/or address from another program, document, website or email signature block. "Add from Clipboard" to have Abacus automatically create a new contact record.
• Open multiple windows simultaneously: You can see more than one Name, Event, or Matter window at a time, to jump between tasks or compare records.
• Synch with newer smartphones: Abacus is now compatible with Palm Desktop 6x and Blackberry Desktop Manager 4.2-5.0.
• Administrators can prevent access to Abacus to make changes to the server, perform other updates or run a backup. No need to go to every workstation to log Abacus users off the network.
• Save and Log: The new save and log feature establishes a unified naming convention and path for saving word processing documents and forms. No more having to manually set up case folders.
• Lightning fast search for text in the notes field: If you've used Notes for certain data, but never created a searchable field for it, now you can quickly find them.

Abacus President Judd Kessler explained his company's work on the new version: “AbacusLaw development is always focused on the latest technological trends, ensuring our customers can meet the needs and challenges they face today. Attorneys like the comfort of using our software and the reliability in accessing and protecting their data. AbacusLaw 2010 expands all of these attributes."

Abacus Customer Care Team Moves to New Facility

San Diego, CA - August 3, 2009 - Keeping up with the high growth in sales of its software products and services, Abacus Data Systems opened a new Customer Care Center in San Diego, CA on August 3, 2009.  The facility triples the size of the space available to house call center agents and technical support staff.

Glen Guy, Director of Customer Care, opened the doors at 6 am PST and welcomed the first shift. “We are committed to bringing extraordinary service to our customers and partners. We know it begins with providing an excellent work environment for customer care agents. We are extremely happy with the new facility, a state-of-the-art resource.”  Guy said.

The new facility is equipped with a digital VoIP phone system designed to improve capture of in-coming support calls, optimization of agents’ time, and team collaboration. It also allows for continued growth and expansion, adding additional support and development resources as necessary.

Dangerous Law Office Tactics Exposed

San Diego, CA — June 25, 2009 — In his new book, "Dangerous Law Practice Myths, Lies and Stupidity", Abacus president Judd Kessler, Esq. identifies the many techniques that have been recommended to attorneys over the years, but put their firms at serious risk.

Joined by 5 leading specialists in the legal industry, Mr. Kessler's book presents crucial advice to attorneys and their staffs through the use of entertaining and insightful anecdotes. Thirty-five myths are layed out before the reader, ranging from low fees to rolodex use. Legal professionals will clearly identify these areas of misdirection, recognize how they impact their own practices, and learn what to do to avoid the downside that typically comes from each.

Save shipping and handling when you get the book at www.lawmyths.com.

Abacus’ Worldwide Presence Reaches 60 Countries

San Diego, CA — May 22, 2009 — Abacus Data Systems has now reached the 60 country mark. The appeal of AbacusLaw has been driven in part by firms looking to:

• Track schedules for important events
• Bring up client information quickly and easily
• Link emails, documents and notes to client and case records
• Share information with multiple people in the office
• Work with a vendor dedicated exclusively to law office software

AbacusLaw’s global popularity is growing daily. Abacus President Judd Kessler observed: “As competitive pressures impact attorneys in every nation, AbacusLaw software is a vital component of successful law practices. We are pleased to be working with so many outstanding firms. We’ve enhanced our software and expanded support for our customers around the world.”

Abacus Rainmaker Helps Law Firms Grow Despite the Economy

San Diego, CA — April 14, 2009 —With the release of Abacus Rainmaker, attorneys have the ability to capture and understand critical data about their clients and prospects, the firm's marketing efforts and its client service. Adding Abacus Rainmaker to AbacusLaw v18 provides the following benefits:

• A better return on your marketing dollars
• More effective prospecting
• Better client service
• More repeat business
• More referrals
• Improved brand image

Abacus President Judd Kessler explained his company’s development of this specialty version: “Attorneys' AbacusLaw case and contact data is a goldmine for their firms. Abacus Rainmaker helps you capture and process that information in easy ways, giving you valuable insight into what's working and what isn't. You'll learn where to save on marketing campaigns that are under-performing, and where to boost your investment for increased new business. While some firms have stalled during the recession, our customers' firms can gain momentum and out-perform their competition by using Abacus Rainmaker.”

Abacus Streamlines Forms and Calendaring for Immigration Attorneys

San Diego, CA - December 10, 2008 -With the release of Abacus Immigration, law offices in this specialty can do things available in no other single program:

• INTAKE FORMS: When interviewing a client, select and fill the appropriate intake form - citizenship, employment, visa petitions, etc. - and Abacus Immigration automatically creates the matter record, creates contact links, sets rules-based calendar events and prepares the data for seamless output to immigration forms.
• COURT IMMIGRATION FORMS: To fill any PDF immigration form, such as a notice of entry of appearance as attorney, petition for alien relative, or application for visa and alien registration, just select the matter record, then the form. Abacus Immigration fills the form with a single mouse click.
• LEGAL CALENDARING: Abacus Immigration's fully integrated alarms, reminders, and comprehensive reporting ensures all your hearings, client meetings, information requests, and filling deadlines never catch attorneys by surprise or fall through the cracks.

Abacus President Judd Kessler explained his company's development of this specialty version: "Attorneys on our staff and in law firms across America participated in creating this comprehensive, practice-specific program. Data captured at any point in the client relationship can be used without re-entry for contacts, letters, court filings, billing, accounting and more."

Abacus Announces Lowest Cost, Most Powerful Judicial Council Forms

San Diego, CA - December 3, 2008 - Abacus Forms automatically fills in Judicial Council forms from your case records without re-entering data. You can do other things with Abacus Forms that your current system can't do, such as:

• See blank forms in a preview pane so you know you're choosing the right one
• See your completed forms in easy-to-view forms folders and in the preview pane
• Create your own fill-able version of any PDF form from any jurisdiction or agency

Abacus President Judd Kessler observed: "You may know that Abacus offers all this in our full AbacusLaw system. What you didn't know is we now offer a version of Abacus Forms for Judicial Council that doesn't require you to have any other Abacus program." Starting from a simple intake form you can produce a completed form or group of forms to print or email to the court. Each time you select a court form, Abacus will auto-fill that form quickly and easily with any matter and linked names information. You finish completing the form, then print and save it as a PDF. Abacus Forms keeps all the contacts, matter and notes information for your cases. Mr. Kessler noted: "Abacus developed the best CA Judicial Council forms software and given it the best pricing of any product in this category. We're growing our forms business at a time when other vendors are discontinuing theirs."

Intake and Court Forms for Family Law Attorneys

San Diego, CA - July 9, 2008 -With the release of Abacus Family Law 2.0, law offices can do things available in no other single program:

• INTAKE FORMS: Automatically create a new matter with linked contacts, events and notes quickly and accurately - all from just a single screen.
• SPECIALTY SCREENS: New custom matter screens for divorce, custody, guardianship, domestic violence, support and paternity streamlines work flow.
• PDF FORMS: AbacusLaw auto-fills your PDF court forms from matter and linked names data. Legal professionals can add, edit and customize any form using the built-in forms designer.
• COURT RULES: Automatically generate calendar deadlines using the rules set by courts in your jurisdiction or your own office preferences.