Part 1. What's So Special About LEAP Expedite?

January 2010

Legal Practice Intelligence witnessed the download and install of the software on an ordinary laptop with an ordinary wireless internet connection completing in less than two six minute billing units.

What can you normally expect to accomplish in two six minute units in the world of legal IT: perhaps a phone call to your IT consultant discussing how much it would cost to buy the new server needed for the latest must-have software for your firm; perhaps another six minutes recovering from the shock of having to outlay many thousands of dollars on hardware and software infrastructure.

With LEAP Expedite neither that phone call nor the server is necessary.

After a few clicks of the mouse you end up with a program that looks a lot like LEAP Documents but is it LEAP Documents? The answer is yes and no. The LEAP developers took the most commonly used features of LEAP Documents but created a brand new piece of software with a completely updated way of using the program.

Intuitiveness and ease of use have been at the forefront of its design. Those people who like sitting in a classroom all day learning how to use software will be very disappointed. This product is definitely not for them. If you want to do something like email a document or assemble a document from a precedent then try right clicking the mouse from where you think this process should begin and chances are that one of the options that come up will accomplish the task.

There are features in LEAP Expedite that don’t exist in LEAP Documents. For example the software loads a contact list directly into Outlook.

Now that you have LEAP Expedite on your workstation you can access court forms and precedents directly from the Smokeball web site. The task of managing precedents and worrying about whether you are using the most up to date version is taken care of entirely by Smokeball. You click the form or precedent from the Smokeball site which then interacts with your particular matter and the finished document is assembled. The precedent selected and the finished document end up on your computer.

Then the magic kicks in. Because it is such a new process, the terminology to describe it allows for some latitude. Your matters' details and associated documents and emails are “backed up” or “synchronised” or “mirrored” on the LEAP server. Hence you don’t need a server for this application at your office.

Provided LEAP Expedite is installed, a colleague at another workstation can access the firm’s data directly from the LEAP server. If you are not connected to the internet then you can still use LEAP Expedite with all the matters and documents that you have created (or synchronised) on your computer. In this sense you can continue to work offline.

It is back to the future for LEAP Legal Software. Many years ago, when they entered the legal software market, they started with LEAP Documents as their first and flagship product. They have done it again with a documents product but this time with the benefit of years of experience and client feedback and with the immense resource of forms and precedents that are available via the Smokeball website.

Part 2. LEAP Expedite: Is It Right For Your Firm? 

© 2010 Legal Practice Intelligence