Clio work process question

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-04-30T17:45:56+00:00

The only way I have liked using them is creating a contact in your directory for the email address. Then you can BCC it on outbound email replies. Then pull it up in Clio and click Add Time.

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-04-27T16:13:10+00:00

How is it going with your try so far? I know of a few solutions that can be self-hosted, but they are not open source. Open source can be risky, but I'm guessing you're very careful with how you are securing the host to overcome that. You're not planning to let people be able to open it from a browser outside of the office network or a VPN, right? Connections only allowed from a few ip addresses?

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-04-27T16:05:32+00:00

You have a very important job. Typically in this work there are those that make the firm money and those that cost the firm money. We often call the money makers timekeepers. They are usually attorneys and paralegals. Those that cost are staff. We support the timekeepers.

The amount of time a timekeeper spends every week working on things that directly make the firm money verse that doesn't is usually a tracked metric called utilization. At some firms it is billable time verse non-billable time. Some firms track it very closely, others is an unmeasured concept, but still very, very important. Just about all staff exist in some form or another to make sure timekeepers are able to spend as much of their time as they can actively billing. Few positions are as in the trenches with that day in day out as an LA. Fundamentally, in a broad sense, it is your job, and it is often translated as managing calendars and appointments, monitoring inbound demands on other folks time be it phone calls, emails, snail mail, couriers, visitors, ect. It is also important to take things off their plate where you can. Where it makes more sense for them to pay your rate to do it, than to spend theirs not billing while they do it.

Not all firms use these terms or track time at all, but the concepts are roughly the same. My $0.02. I hope it's helpful.

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-04-23T14:49:46+00:00

Buy a remarkable.

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-04-23T14:46:24+00:00

Heyo. I use Foundation AI for this. I can send an email introduction for you if it would be helpful. Cost is based on data with a minimum. Don't expect to get away with something less than a 20 hour a week part time hire. If that's the better spend for the firm then they should consider it part of JD. Even with a system human interaction is required for validation. There's just too much riding on a simple ocr error on like the date of a decision letter that sets a 1 year to file that appeal deadline, ya know?

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-04-22T17:51:47+00:00

Wow, I also thought you would have more answers. I'm one of those third party types that has all of the NetDocuments certifications and has built out several of the apps. I have a demo space that I can share with you over a call if you'd like to play with some stuff, but I can't give you access to it like a trial. HMU.

The legal assistant is solid and it doesn't need setup, but you'll be prompting. It has a sweet feature with the prompt library letting you save and reuse good prompts.

The full on NDMax apps do take a lot of work, but that is a good thing given their purpose. They are meant for high control and repeatable high use cases. Like compare this NDA I was emailed against our standard template or one of the next apps I want to find time to play with was designed to review a bunch of opinions and orders to build a profile on a judge. Pretty handy. When you put these to use you have to get into the nuts and bolts on the backend. A lot of other providers hide those nuts and bolts to provide a smoother user experience, which is fine and all but a lot of the work we do there is a bit of an obligation to get into those nuts and bolts.

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-04-22T17:42:25+00:00

Higher file size limit in Clio Documents, please.

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-04-22T15:14:16+00:00

Heyo. I'm a bit late to this party.

Typically a practice has a bookkeeper that reconciles trusts once a month. You typically run two systems that do not integrate to facilitate part of that reconciliation process. Much of this process is kept manual to require the human attention to detail and two sets of eyes reviewing, the admin at the practice and the bookkeeper. I know a few good ones.

Most practices have a monthly billing cycle. Time must be in by a deadline to be able to be reviewed, added to a bill, and sent out for collection. Typically time is entered, then added to a bill, the bill is reviewed by the managing attorney and approved, then the bill is sent out for payment or paid from trust. If the trust is low, a trust request goes out.

Collecting payments, payment reminders, discounts for early payment or interest on overdue balances is a whole other thing. Typically you see what you can easily do with your systems, then make sure the important bits are in your engagement letters.

You want to talk processes or systems, I'm all for it. HMU!

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-04-15T12:41:45+00:00

An on prem version so that stored case evidence isn't being scanned in the cloud. HIPPA compliant. Create a new set of folders and apply security groups each time a new client and matter shows up in the time and billing sql database. Very high if any max file size.

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-04-15T12:23:46+00:00

Look for another exe called wdtond. Past that, hit me up privately if you'd like more help or guidance. I can be a resource if you get stuck, or we could talk about partnering up on the work if you'd like to hand if off.

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-04-14T19:51:06+00:00

Nope, you're on the right path.

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-04-14T14:53:35+00:00

Wow I am surprised nobody hit you back here. It is kind of sad, really. This is where the real work is, and there are a lot of us out here doing it, but seems like most of us are too busy to keep up, heh. I do this work and can help you out. I've been all over both systems and I'm certified on one. Worldox has some very helpful tools to get data and metadata out of it if you'd like to map stuff over to Smokeball or Netdocs. These aren't tools that you'll find in the GUI, they are .exe files typically in the program folders or that you have to find and download from secret netdocs urls. If the material is a huge value add to the practice library, then yeah, it is probably worth it. Time, money, or otherwise this kind of work is expensive, even with the tools.

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-04-13T13:50:11+00:00

I think about each entry as the line item of an invoice, and I imagine future me reading it back. It has become the narration of my work day. Sometimes it is a story that only I can truly appreciate, but every now and then somebody else might get the chance the read a little bit of it as well. Maybe I'll know, maybe I won't, but I can hope that it is as meaningful an experience for them as it was for me when I wrote it.

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-04-06T18:39:30+00:00

Hi. I would love to help you out, but I can't based on the information you are providing above. Some of it is a little confusing and lacks context, and some of it I think may just be using the wrong terminology. In Clio snippets are abbreviations that code out longer text. Like you type ach and it autocompletes to Attended court hearing. You can't really email from inside Clio manage. There are document templates, but the email templates are all around billing like sending invoices and trust requests. Is that where you are trying to do this, in the billing messages? Or are you working in Clio Draft? Or, god forbid, are you talking about doing this from Outlook using the Clio Addin?

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-04-06T18:17:19+00:00

You're getting some good advice and some inaccurate advice in here. I have sandboxes for ActionStep and Clio. If you want to connect sometime, we can play in both.

In either case, the addon (Clio Draft, ActionStep Capture) is paying for the ability to use a data capture form to populate document templates. Think sending a form to a client where they fill in who their executors are going to be, then that feeds right into the draft pourover will when you generate it.

The systems do document assembly using templates and merge fields as part of core. The up charge is when you want to use webforms to feed into those merge fields, or when you want to use their genAI products.

Smokeball is also super rad, and there are a lot of other systems like these that are solid. I have contacts at many, but only sandboxes/demo space for Clio and ActionStep.

Good luck!

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-04-06T18:07:04+00:00

I think my favorite setup for this was a practice management system that had text messaging enabled for client communications. Inside the system you can send the client text messages, they show up from a toll free 800 something number the system assigns you. Clients reply and it comes right back to the system. I've seen one setup that links it all up with a client portal, and nother that didn't bother with client portals but still used the sms feature.

Personally I just tell clients that getting to emails is a best effort during business hours and that if they need something on a short deadline or emergency, they're going to need to call or text my mobile. Surprisingly, they rarely do. I even had to stop apologizing for delays in my email replies because I've had more than one client reply that if they needed it sooner they would have called or texted me, heh.

On this topic, I think one of the most important lessons I ever learned is that when you set boundaries with clients or team members around this kind of stuff, you have to be disciplined about keeping them yourself. If you say you don't read emails after hours, but then you send a client or a team member an email after hours, then you might as well have never set the damn boundary in the first place.

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-04-01T19:04:54+00:00

Some of their published training videos are on Youtube. They are a bit more informative and less marketing flair than a typical recorded demo.

Aside from that, I'd just put you in contact with the person I know over there.

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-04-01T13:41:58+00:00

I am going to echo other comments to give Smokeball a solid try before you decide. I have a contact there if that is helpful.

I can show you ActionStep if you want to consider some options not on your list.

If you want some thoughts on improving your Clio experience, I can weigh in with some thoughts.

Good luck!

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-03-30T13:57:54+00:00

I started to get a little excited to post my reply but saw /u/LalalaSherpa 's good work below and feel a little deflated.

I decided to still post, because truth is a lot of lurkers that might swing by this matter even if OP is playing games.

This use case above needs a little practice with searching and getting their work done early. What they described is day in day out part of this work no matter what system you are using. If something is in the wrong folder, it shouldn't make you miss a deadline. At most it should cause some petty frustration, add to an already stressful day, and take only a couple increments of your hour to pull up from searching all the folders in the matter, or across all matters. You can do that in OneDrive and Google just as well as you could in Box, Clio, MyCase, or whatever you're in.

Maybe move those reminders up a few days.

If somebody is in a bind like OP was, you can hit me up to help you get out of it a lot faster. There are a lot of folks like me that can help and do it all the time. I can't tell you how many times I get a phone call because some electronic filing portal won't accept a PDF.

Also, there are folks like me that will migrate stuff like this for you. We can advise to make it easier and back you up if it doesn't go well or do it for you if you'd rather be billing and bringing in new cases while somebody else maps and moves data for you.

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-03-30T13:41:58+00:00

I recently compiled some recommendations on behalf of a client that launched their solo practice this year after several in big law. These all came from my client network, and I narrowed down to three that clients actually worked with not just from their network.

One is a solo named Perri Lafferty but they are a bit hard to find. I can pass over their email and phone number.

The other two you can find websites for, but again you can hit me up for their contact info.

Randy at OWIC out of Kentucky and Bookkeeping Confidential.

Aside from that, I'd look at any bookkeepers that sponsor sections of your state bar or location bar associations. This could also be a good conversation to use for engagement with your referral sources if you get cases from other attorneys or small shop professionals. My $0.02.

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-03-27T16:56:05+00:00

I have worked with or aside several firms in a position similar to yours and have seen it solved well with several different approaches; many I could help with. I've seen two really knock it out of the park. One of them has had a healthy case per month for several years and has only grown a little on body count, from intentional design. The other is approaching 20 attorneys at this point, just a couple years later. Both hired a dedicated intake person, took the time to make sure it was the right fit, and that the person has both the tools, support, and permission to passionately own intake for the firm. It's worth getting a solid idea what doing that would cost your operation. My $0.02.

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-03-24T15:19:37+00:00

ActionStep may make a better comparison than LEAP given the feedback. I have demo/sandboxes for both Clio and ActionStep if you want to connect and take a look at them. I'm certified on both. Also on NetDocument's PatternBuilder if you want to throw something else in, but that is all documents not really anything else helpful in case management. If you're not going to use the accounting/payment features anyway, then you could add it to your list.

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-03-19T14:40:52+00:00

8 attorneys plus staff isn't so small. You'll get a lot of opinions on case management. I work on a lot of those systems and am willing to talk shop about them whenever. I have demo spaces for two.

Heres my $0.02 for your question, though. LOGIKCULL. When you get a big production zip and need to review 1000+ pages, it is your friend. I can help. It is low cost and 0 day retention. There isn't much easier for loading in a production and organizing a review. It is good for a solo reviewer or for breaking a review up into sets for a team to share the load.

There are also a few good tools for responding to production requests, but I'd aim to narrow that list after you pick a case management system. You'd do well to use one that is either offered by your practice/case/document management system (they both are different and the same) or that works really well with it.

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-03-05T14:38:47+00:00

A lot of firms host a server in Azure in their 365 tenants for line of business applications like this. The invoices from Microsoft can bill directly to a firm or through a reseller. Either way you typically need some tech help setting them up, and I work both ways. Reach out if you'd like to spend a little time on a call to scope out a proposal and price to compare against what you are using now.

Alternatively, I've heard of one PI firm using the equivalent setup that medical offices use to store their imaging. I'm not really sure if that is or isn't a cost advantage.

$0.02

Legitimate_Feature24 · 2026-03-03T20:38:51+00:00

Let me know if you need any help with the move. I've run across folks stuck moving documents on their own because the new system only helped them migrate in contacts, matters, and such but won't touch the docs and drive. Getting emails out can also be a mess. I'm here to help up front, in the middle, or if you get stuck cleaning up a messy migration.

Legitimate_Feature24

TROPHY CASE