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Automated Timekeeping for Lawyers – Feedback Needed

1 points by bencogatech 7y ago

We have launched Probilly.com and our tool automates email, calendar and document time tracking very precisely. We will release a Chrome plugin to track browser behavior and phone integrations asap. Can somebody tell us how to bring this closer to lawyers? We are checking the tools that are in the market and they suck but have a lot of consultants to push. Feedback for the tool or on selling strategies wanted! Thanks everybody! Feel free to reach out for any questions or requests. Best Ben

bifrost 7y ago
None of the lawyers I know use Chrome and use whatever their corporate IT provides for them (IE/Edge/FF/Safari). Most also don't use Macs. You're also going to need to provide some "proof" that you don't leak privileged information, not sure exactly how you do that.
- bencogatech 7y ago
  Interesting. Do you mean the "Client attorney privilege"? Or that we just resell their data? Could you give me a hint of the firm size? I assume having an IT department means big law? Much obliged
  - bifrost 7y ago
    Could be either in terms of data/privilege. I know a bunch of lawyers, everything from solo, inhouse to Pillsbury/Orrick/WSGR/etc.
    - bencogatech 7y ago
      I see that as a problem also, yes. Not sure how to find a way around it at this point. Hoping to find innovators who trust us. We're not even saving the file data, just matching the file names. Its too heavy in any other way for us. We got a request from a Law Firm who needed HIPAA and I checked the requirements and we kind of comply. This means besides the topics and the recipients we don't save data. Also, our system is light enough to be deployed in a small AWS machine into a custom cloud, but I don't think this would help. This would jsuit make it more complicated?
  - buffaloo 7y ago
    >Do you mean the "Client attorney privilege"? Or that we just resell their data? The fact that you are bothering with a distinction is concerning. The answer is you don't disclose anything. Lawyers are in the business of keeping secrets. Any suggestion of leakiness in your product is an automatic nope.
    - bencogatech 7y ago
      We're not even saving everything. I try to find the right classification of the problem. I am not sure how to react to that, at this point. I'm honest. But we dont.
- bifrost 7y ago
  Pinged one of my lawyer friends, their response: How is this different than intapp? Everyone just uses a spreadsheet anyways, maybe target solo practicioners who need better billing.
  - bencogatech 7y ago
    -> Intapp: We're creating a customer profile and matching your activity from email, calendar, word, phone into that. So you as a lawyer can just check what happened and approve. I hope Intapp is not that far. :) Our hook is that we really deeply integrated into O365 and use that information to pull other information from Android (Beta) for instance. So the idea is, that you just work for a month, open our app and see what happened in detail. ->target: We're at this point targeting anyone and see who responds. :) We go responses across the board, because of that we are not sure where to focus at this point. Thanks man!
  - bencogatech 7y ago
    By the way, Maybe I just found the hook. We're tracking email very precisely, means that if you use your phone on the go, we sill have the time. And tracking emails is really annoying, its a lot of entries of 1-2 minutes. But if it automatically appears on you bill, its abou 10% revenue increase. I mean who starts a clock for one small email, right? We do! Does that makes sense?
  - bencogatech 7y ago
    I would be owing you a big favor if, I could talk to one of your lawyer friends. I am happy to take "shit" I want to understand what we are doing wrong and how we can help. THX
streetcat1 7y ago
There was a company in Portland that did the same using alexa skills. The company folded after two years (and after raising money).
- bencogatech 7y ago
  Yeah, as far as I know, they automated the time entry process. So you need to track your time manually and can push it in your DB (CLio was it?) with voice. Means you have to sit and say: 1) Alexa for Client A please create a time entry. 2) What do you want 3) Please add an entry about an email i read 4) ok how much time 5) it was 5 minutes 6) what was the topic? .... Maybe I am overly dramatic, but we capture the time automatically and you just need to say yes. :) Do you know more about why they failed? Am I wrong? Thx!!!
  - streetcat1 7y ago
    There was a blog that I read with the founder. I am not sure how they worked. The problem with this kind of product is that there are competing with pen and pencil (or the other way that lawyer track their time), so it is hard to change habits.
    - bencogatech 7y ago
      Remember where? Can you find the link maybe? Thanks!

1 points by bencogatech 7y ago

bifrost 7y ago

None of the lawyers I know use Chrome and use whatever their corporate IT provides for them (IE/Edge/FF/Safari). Most also don't use Macs. You're also going to need to provide some "proof" that you don't leak privileged information, not sure exactly how you do that.

bencogatech 7y ago
Interesting. Do you mean the "Client attorney privilege"? Or that we just resell their data? Could you give me a hint of the firm size? I assume having an IT department means big law? Much obliged
- bifrost 7y ago
  Could be either in terms of data/privilege. I know a bunch of lawyers, everything from solo, inhouse to Pillsbury/Orrick/WSGR/etc.
  - bencogatech 7y ago
    I see that as a problem also, yes. Not sure how to find a way around it at this point. Hoping to find innovators who trust us. We're not even saving the file data, just matching the file names. Its too heavy in any other way for us. We got a request from a Law Firm who needed HIPAA and I checked the requirements and we kind of comply. This means besides the topics and the recipients we don't save data. Also, our system is light enough to be deployed in a small AWS machine into a custom cloud, but I don't think this would help. This would jsuit make it more complicated?
- buffaloo 7y ago
  >Do you mean the "Client attorney privilege"? Or that we just resell their data? The fact that you are bothering with a distinction is concerning. The answer is you don't disclose anything. Lawyers are in the business of keeping secrets. Any suggestion of leakiness in your product is an automatic nope.
  - bencogatech 7y ago
    We're not even saving everything. I try to find the right classification of the problem. I am not sure how to react to that, at this point. I'm honest. But we dont.
bifrost 7y ago
Pinged one of my lawyer friends, their response: How is this different than intapp? Everyone just uses a spreadsheet anyways, maybe target solo practicioners who need better billing.
- bencogatech 7y ago
  -> Intapp: We're creating a customer profile and matching your activity from email, calendar, word, phone into that. So you as a lawyer can just check what happened and approve. I hope Intapp is not that far. :) Our hook is that we really deeply integrated into O365 and use that information to pull other information from Android (Beta) for instance. So the idea is, that you just work for a month, open our app and see what happened in detail. ->target: We're at this point targeting anyone and see who responds. :) We go responses across the board, because of that we are not sure where to focus at this point. Thanks man!
- bencogatech 7y ago
  By the way, Maybe I just found the hook. We're tracking email very precisely, means that if you use your phone on the go, we sill have the time. And tracking emails is really annoying, its a lot of entries of 1-2 minutes. But if it automatically appears on you bill, its abou 10% revenue increase. I mean who starts a clock for one small email, right? We do! Does that makes sense?
- bencogatech 7y ago
  I would be owing you a big favor if, I could talk to one of your lawyer friends. I am happy to take "shit" I want to understand what we are doing wrong and how we can help. THX

streetcat1 7y ago

There was a company in Portland that did the same using alexa skills. The company folded after two years (and after raising money).

bencogatech 7y ago
Yeah, as far as I know, they automated the time entry process. So you need to track your time manually and can push it in your DB (CLio was it?) with voice. Means you have to sit and say: 1) Alexa for Client A please create a time entry. 2) What do you want 3) Please add an entry about an email i read 4) ok how much time 5) it was 5 minutes 6) what was the topic? .... Maybe I am overly dramatic, but we capture the time automatically and you just need to say yes. :) Do you know more about why they failed? Am I wrong? Thx!!!
- streetcat1 7y ago
  There was a blog that I read with the founder. I am not sure how they worked. The problem with this kind of product is that there are competing with pen and pencil (or the other way that lawyer track their time), so it is hard to change habits.
  - bencogatech 7y ago
    Remember where? Can you find the link maybe? Thanks!