Tired of being interrupted by trips to court for a simple status hearing? With ABC Legal’s subsidiary company, Docketly, we’ve got you covered. Let Docketly’s thoroughly vetted appearance attorneys cover for you, so you can focus on the bigger picture.
Appearance counsel get their name because they “appear” in court on behalf of the client’s primary attorney. Think of them as substitute legal representation. They often manage administrative duties with the court so the primary attorney can focus elsewhere.
Areas where appearance attorneys can be particularly useful include:
Say goodbye to spending half a day waiting around at the courthouse for a five-minute hearing or running to multiple court hearings in jurisdictions miles apart.
Increase billable hours and complete more projects without diluting the capacity of the full-time staff of your firm.
Docketly attorneys are checked for good standing, criminal background, and discipline history as well as subjected to periodic audits. In addition, you’re able to view background and performance.
1
With just your contact information, we can get the ball rolling. Our team will follow up immediately to see if our service is the right fit for you.
2
Give us the basic details—we do the rest. You can even batch upload hearings for greater efficiency. Drop-down menus and intuitive prompts help you navigate the system smoothly.
3
Notifications immediately go out to a vast network of best-in-class nationwide appearance attorneys. Custom filters allow you to build your own network and meet the strictest compliance requirements.
4
Your desired attorney will complete the assignment, keeping you updated on status every step of the way. You'll promptly receive a complete and comprehensive report afterward, providing everything you need to know about results and next steps. (It's truly that easy!)
5
Appreciate the ease of self-service compliance document access. View background checks, insurance, resumes, bar cards, drug tests, and more with a few clicks. Download in bulk to submit to your auditor.
#65bf48
#50c066
#40c07f
#3abe95
#43bca5
With Docketly, you get to know exactly who is covering your hearing and their performance history – including how many hearings they have covered, their mean time to report, the average price per hearing, experience level, hearing outcomes, and much more.
We require timely and accurate reporting—usually in less than 24 hours. Forget having to chase down results or wait on attorneys who have a backlog of reports to file.
From time to time, you may have a client who wants to use only pre-approved attorneys for hearing coverage. Pools are a feature that allows you to create a list of pre-approved attorneys for these clients.
When you find attorneys within our network who consistently deliver optimal results and work well for you, you can set them as your preferred attorneys.
Manually entering your hearings into Docketly’s website is easy, but when you are posting hundreds of hearings, the process can become time-consuming. Docketly offers a number of flexible integrations to automate processes and reduce errors—a major time saver for large firms.
Know the status of your appearance attorney's progression with your case at all times, from assignment review to confirmation of arrival at the courthouse to instant notification post-hearing when their report is ready for your review.
With built-in smart controls, the Docketly platform prevents you from accidentally double-booking a hearing or scheduling court appearances that are too far apart for the appearance attorney to reach in a timely manner.
When you use Docketly with ABC Legal’s process servers, you’ll have instant visibility into case status and service progression in one report!
By hiring appearance counsel through Docketly’s secure platform, you can automate the tasks that don’t need a human so you have more time for ones that do.
Docketly provides a technologically advanced system for linking referring law firms with local appearance counsel. As a local appearance counsel I love representing clients in front of the judges I have come to know and respect. Cultivating a good working relationship with the judges is rewarding and beneficial.
Great service for clients needing court attendance.
Great service to help clients and courts. Easy to work with.
Move your case forward with a modern eFiling system.
Our smart pricing allows us to offer the best attorneys for the best price in the industry. The pricing structure combines bundle, cross-client, and market discount to help you save up to 30% on appearance counsel.
The freelance attorneys who are listed on Docketly’s site must be in good standing with their state bar. Docketly keeps all of the paperwork involving an attorney’s good standing and license to practice on file. In addition, this is not simply a box that is checked once and then forgotten about. The team of professionals at Docketly actually updates their freelance attorneys’ standing every four weeks, along with any updates to an attorney’s disciplinary history and potential administrative sanctions, when applicable. Your firm can proceed with confidence knowing that the court appearance attorneys you are working with do not have a disciplinary cloud hanging over their heads.
Yes, Docketly provides an umbrella policy for all appearance attorneys on its network. In addition, attorneys can upload their own malpractice insurance policy. You’re able to easily view an insurance “badge” on the attorney’s profile page indicating they carry their own policy. You can also use this added layer of insurance as a criterion during filtering.
Docketly can help remove any concerns you may have about trusting your firm’s important legal matters to a lawyer who is still green. When you are looking at an attorney’s profile on Docketly, you can see how many cases they have handled and how many appearances they have covered. When it comes to measuring experience, Docketly employs a tier ranking system. An attorney ranked at tier one in a certain practice has the least amount of experience, while an attorney who falls into tier three has the most experience. You can even filter search results if you wish to exclude lawyers who fall into tier one for your firm’s needs.
Docketly also employs a similar tier ranking system when it comes to the type of hearing an attorney is qualified to handle. For example, a basic docket call would fall into tier one, whereas a contested bench trial would fall into tier three. This approach helps ensure that an attorney who is ranked in tier one will not get assigned to a matter that is classified as tier three.
Docketly actively checks the attorney network for debtor representation. You can exclude attorneys who represent debtors from working for certain clients, or you can use this as a custom compliance setting for all of your hearings.
We covered 92% of all hearings automatically in 2019.
The remaining 8% was handled by our coverage team. They work tirelessly to find attorneys in difficult areas,
calling, negotiating, juggling schedules.
You get regular updates about the state of coverage. You will see how many attorneys were notified, how many rejected the hearing, etc. Our coverage representatives will promptly inform you about any unusual circumstances that hinder the appearance counsel in the area, such as conflict of interest for local attorneys.
Docketly helps to avoid accidental no-shows or late arrivals to the hearing through: