Celebrating 2024
As I reflect on our second full year as Quartz IP, I’m filled with gratitude for the hard work and innovation of our team, for the tremendous support of our clients and partners, and for an impressive list of accomplishments.
It‘s been a fast-paced, rock-tumbler of a year…
It seemed like 2024 got off to a slow start for much of the IP market… Change management was challenging for everyone as IP groups (and everyone else) got re-acclimated to the “new normal” of post-pandemic working.
IP practices continue to feel the squeeze between cost pressure from their clients and challenges hiring and retaining talented staff while managing operating costs. PracticeLink is an essential tool for protecting practices from risk, ensuring consistently great client service, and providing the scale to unlock profitable growth.
We took on a lot this year…
We released PracticeLink 2.3, our “faster, friendlier, more connected” update. This included a fresh interface, centered around the Planner view and Badges, which make it easy to keep track of what’s due and what’s important. We also introduced our integration with the Prokurio filing cost estimator, giving teams quick access to the most comprehensive filing and prosecution estimates available.
We worked closely with our partners to provide better integration with docket systems. Building on new API interfaces from FoundationIP and CPi, we’ve been able to sync data more frequently, ensuring that attorneys and professional staff always have access to the most current information about their docket.
Most important (to me, at least) is our huge investment in making PracticeLink just run faster. We developed automated testing tools that simulate large workloads while our team runs through real-world work to find the most troublesome delays. This helped our engineers scrutinize everything and figure out ways to make our code more efficient. It was a lot of work, but the result was an amazing 60% reduction in screen loading times across the entire application, even under very heavy loads.
This was a critical investment for us, and one that a lot of companies don’t get to make. But as the operating platform for some of the largest IP practices in North America, every minute we save practitioners and professional staff adds up to serious cost savings.
We’ve added some tremendous talent…
Of course, having a fast, awesome, product is only good if you can get firms set-up and using it. PracticeLink implementations are not simple. Building a technical bridge between whatever combination of docket system, document management system, and finance system that a firm might use, then integrating with the different customizations they’ve made to those systems, requires some major technical heavy lifting. Then comes the work of walking teams through all the options of what’s possible in PracticeLink to configure an experience that makes them more effective, helping the entire practice adopt new ways of working at a pace that works for them.
To do that last part well, we needed consultants who have sat in the same chairs as our users, who understand their needs, and who know how to run successful software projects. I am so happy we were able to add Jessica Culvey and Lynnea Fredrikson to the team as Implementation Consultants. Jessica and Lynnea each have more than 15 years working at a variety of IP firms, and they help guide our clients through implementations step-by-step. We have also invested in new tools and processes that cut months from the time to the initial Phase 1 rollout. This means users get access to their calendars, soft docket, and consolidated matter views faster, and start seeing productivity gains earlier.
We also flew past an important milestone…
We have processed over 500,000 pieces of inbound mail on behalf of our clients this year, cutting the time users spend identifying and routing that mail by about half.
We’ve also been thrilled to welcome more giants of the IP world to the PracticeLink family. These are large and growing firms, serving clients with complex needs, investing and innovating to accelerate their growth.
And we’re not done!
We have exciting new product developments underway for 2025. To make sure we’re on the right track, we formed a Client Advisory Board that meets frequently to review our designs and make sure these new features will meet real-world challenges. Stay tuned for more announcements, but for now, I’ll say paralegals and legal assistants can look forward to some seriously powerful time-saving tools in PracticeLink next year.
True to our name, the challenges of this year have only polished us and made us better at what we do. I am so proud of the way our Quartz IP team continues to deliver results for the people who rely on us every day.
On behalf of our entire team, thank you for your support, and for pushing us to continue delivering Excellence in IP Operations.
Happy Holidays from the entire Quartz IP team, and we’ll see you in 2025!
Adam