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BlueStylus: Basic, mobile case management—cheap
RICHARD WEINER
Technology for Lawyers
Published: July 1, 2016
For those of you who don’t trust mobile apps to run sophisticated case management systems, you may want to check out this new, small and slick-looking mobile CMS app—especially since it offers a free trial.
BlueStylus was developed by attorneys who were looking for an easier way to post time and billing on a mobile platform. What they wound up developing was a full, cross-platform CMS solution that can be accessed from any device.
It is hosted on a private cloud, run by the company itself, which helps with security (although, again and forever, no cloud security is perfect). But users’ data is managed by an accountable, on-site staff, which, at the very least, covers attorneys’ data security ethics questions.
And-- it only costs $7 per month per user, after a 30-day free trial.
The system works individually or firm-wide, and staff members’ access can be given and taken away with a few clicks.
The heart of the system is its time and billing function, which works out of a dashboard. From the dashboard, you can, among other things, track appointments, tasks and billed hours by individual; use work templates to automate task hand-off among colleagues; integrate with email; capture billable time on the fly; create invoices out of customizable templates; and close books quickly with batch invoicing.
Creating a new case also creates a notice to run a conflict check.
The collaborative file sharing function allows a user to create a checklist of documents to be shared with the client by invitation through the secure cloud function—sort of like a private, client-based Dropbox-like function.
And all on your mobile device.
BlueStylus was developed by a company which previously developed an app for bankruptcy trustees, and some of that technology is also integrated into this new app.
BlueStylus also has full integration with PACER, CM/ECF and the federal Case Locator, through which as user can download federal court dockets, court filings and other case documents.
Looks like this product is worth checking out, at least for the free trial. Take a look at http://bluestylus.com/index.aspx.