Amicus Premium Billing Helps Law Firm’s Business As Well As Its Practice

The firm confidently states that Premium Billing saves them hours of work each billing cycle

Company: Riggs Ellsworth & Porter, PLC
Location: Mesa, Arizona
Number of Employees: 29

The Firm

Riggs Ellsworth & Porter is a law firm comprised of skilled and competent professionals who are dedicated to providing excellent family law and personal injury representation to their clients. They also maintain a fun, family work atmosphere that makes it a great place to work.

The Challenge

This successful mid-sized firm wanted the convenience and time savings of having both time keeping and billing capabilities in the same program. They had been using Timeslips to bill their clients and found the posting procedure onerous.

“Though Timeslips is a good program, the process was time consuming. Our staff would enter their time in Amicus and each entry had to be posted to Timeslips before billing drafts could be printed. To make matters worse, when entries had to be corrected the whole process had to be reversed on both the Amicus and Timeslips sides.”

The Solution

Riggs Ellsworth & Porter had been using Amicus Attorney Small Firm Edition and Amicus Accounting since 2005. The growing firm preferred the more robust functionality of Amicus Attorney Premium Edition, and upgraded to it in 2010. They are currently using 16 licenses of Amicus Attorney Premium Edition 2011 and Premium Billing 2011.

When Amicus Premium Billing 2011 was initially discussed with Riggs Ellsworth & Porter months before its launch, the company waited in anticipation for the billing software to be unveiled because they believe in the Amicus product. “We were already sold on the product line because it meets all of our needs and does it so efficiently,” they indicated.

Working with their consultant Inertia Software Solutions, the members of Riggs Ellsworth Porter took to the Billing program right away. They use Premium Edition with Premium Billing to handle client billing, collections and trust.

“Getting Riggs Ellsworth & Porter up and running on Amicus Premium Billing was a very smooth process,” says Aaron Fritz of Inertia Software Solutions. “Amicus Billing is seamlessly integrated into Amicus Attorney, which they were already familiar with. And it really is an exceptionally easy billing product to learn and use. We knew it would improve the efficiency of their firm and we’re very pleased with the results we’ve seen.”

The Benefits

The close-knit group of professionals is impressed by how much Amicus Premium Billing has increased their efficiency. The ability to tie client and case information with billing and financial information just makes sense to them. “Where billing used to be complicated and time consuming, Amicus Billing has streamlined the whole process. Billing is now accurate, quick, and easy. I am confident to say Amicus Billing saves me hours of work each billing cycle,” says Marcellina Hapner, the firm’s Office Manager.

The quick availability of needed client information has also improved the firm’s customer service. When a client contacts one of the family law or billing attorneys, the attorney knows the case status and financial status immediately. “Amicus Premium Billing has made us more efficient and given us the tools to better support our clients’ needs,” Marcellina adds.

Riggs Ellsworth & Porter affirm that Amicus Premium Billing’s billing templates are professional-looking and customizable to suit the different billing scenarios that they need.

The firm likes being able to view all trust activity in one overview screen, too. “Our new favorite feature is the automatic trust transfer capabilities,” the professionals state. They also continue to track billable and non-billable hours, keep track of tasks, check conflicts, generate reports, maintain contacts, calendaring and utilize Amicus Attorney’s document generation capabilities. “Making an error in trust would actually be difficult to accomplish now. The peace of mind that Amicus Billing brings to the trust accounting process alone makes the switch worth the investment,” says Marcellina.

“Another favorite aspect of Amicus Billing is the similarity of look and functionality to Amicus Attorney. Because we were already familiar with Amicus Attorney the amount of training to efficiently use Amicus Billing was minimal. Almost immediately I felt I had a strong grasp of the use of Amicus Billing.”

It’s the way the program makes sense to them that gives it so much value. “I like that I can start a new employee and need to spend such little time training them in Amicus because the program just makes sense. Amicus is incredibly user friendly,” Marcellina affirms.

Marcellina confirms that Amicus is helping their business as well as their practice. The firm’s attorneys can review a client’s case status as well as have current and accurate information regarding their account status. Amicus billing has also improved the ability to easily share vital client information between administrative and legal staff. “I would recommend Amicus Billing to any firm that is looking to increase their efficiency and potential to effectively serve their clients,” she says.