Well by now everyone is well aware of the leveraged buyout of Dell Computer by a group led by founder and Chairman Michael Dell, along with a consortium of venture partners include Silver Lake Investors and Microsoft. I’ll leave the financial analysis and LBO breakdown to the quantitative numbers wonks out there. What I’m more interested in is what this means for the legions of law practice consumers of Dell computers and support services.

The Big Questions You’re Undoubtedly Wondering About:

1. Are you SOL in the wake of the privatization efforts that seem to be focused on turning off the public light of scrutiny on the remaking of Dell, a la IBM post-shedding its PC division to Lenovo, into an IBM-like service-focused profit machine?
2. What will happen to that shiny new Dell PowerEdge Server you just installed next month, next year, or three years from now?
3. Should we continue to purchase Dell computer products at all?

The answers to these three big questions is yet to be determined. The ink on the deal isn’t really dry yet – there are hurdles still to be jumped apparently. But presuming the deal is done, this is likely going to be a positive change for Dell product consumers. With the ability to avoid the criticism of shareholders, the company can clean house any way it sees fit. That is likely to lead to an improvement in the range of, and quality of services. After all, one of the prime motivators behind this acquisition is the ability to pull down a curtain so we don’t have to see all the dirty work that goes from shifting the company’s core emphasis from being a hardware purveyor into a powerhouse services shop. Getting services right is bound to be part of the equation.

Will Dell peddle its PC business, the same way IBM did? Perhaps. It IS a massive business unit, responsible for billions of dollars in sales every year, even in a shrinking PC market. Lenovo has made a significant success out of IBM’s former PC business, although admittedly under the lessened regulatory environment known as China.

Will we stop recommending Dell systems in favor of HP or Lenovo or Apple? No. Dell systems, particularly their servers, still offer a very sound value and are likely to continue to power our clients’ practices for years to come. If Dell does spin off the PC business, in all likelihood, it will translate to better service, continued low pricing and more product variety under the stewardship of a new owner whose focus isn’t diluted like Dell’s is now.

So . . . I think this is near term good news for small law practices who either recently acquired or were planning on purchasing Dell’s systems. And if you happen to have been a Dell shareholder, you just got yourself about a 37% premium on your share value – not a bad day’s work.

Um . . . yawn . . . oh, sorry, nodded off for a moment.

What was I saying? Oh, yeah, Google just released its first branded tablet model (made for it by Asus). It’s called the Nexus 7 – c|Net offers its first impressions here today.

Okay, maybe it’s not as much of a snoozer as it might seem. There are some noteworthy things about it, as follows:

• First 7″ tablet to have the 1.3GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core CPU, which includes a 12-core GPU – translation: it should be really speedy.
• Priced like the Kindle Fire but more physically capable – $199 for the version with 8 GB RAM or $249 for the 16 GB version, each with a $25 credit from Google Play to download apps.
• First Android tablet to market with Google’s latest Android 4.1 “Jelly Bean” edition.
• Long projected battery life – Google claims 9 hours running 720p video (impressive if true).

It does now seem to be the best 7″ Android choice by far.  Here’s the purchase link from Google Play (showing shipping in 2-3 weeks).

Personally, in addition to my iPad 1 (that “1″ is hard to admit to these days :-)). I’m using a 7″ Acer Tab A100 tablet and love the smaller form factor. So a 7″ model might be the ideal lawyer’s portable tablet – small enough to literally stick in your pocket, big enough to be very visible and lighter than the 10″ models so easier to balance on your palm while you type onscreen.

First, what’s “SSSS?” It’s MicroLaw’s Summer Sale on Software and Services – something we’ve done every year. But this year, there’s more to celebrate than just long warm days here in the Northern Hemisphere. There’s also MicroLaw’s 27th anniversary which we’re celebrating this month (yep, we started helping lawyers with technology way back in ’85) *AND* we’re celebrating the opening of our new Madison, Wisconsin office.

So what does mean for you? Simple. Saving a ton of money on your summer tech and practice management projects. This applies to all new projects (including those currently proposed but not yet closed) from June 27th to July 31st. Here’s what you get:

• 5% off of some software that’s never otherwise discounted: Autobahn PDF searchable conversion tool and of course, Worldox GX3 (and ask about possible discounts on our other recommended software products for billing and practice management). Software discounts are only available with related MicroLaw professional services, just to be clear.
• 20% off of our MicroLaw Legal SmartMacros for Word. We’ve been automating Word for clients for years with these indispensable layout and formatting tools.
• 25% off of all professional services – technology audits/reviews (our MicroLaw CARES review – “Computer and Resources Evaluation & Study – checking the health of your system and processes), training, tech support, review of existing locally-provided proposals before you pull the trigger, how to fit iPads and Android tablets into your practice, moving to Macs and more.
• 25% off all live or online in-house CLE programming for your lawyers.  Over 30 tech and practice management sessions to choose from – ranging from just one hour to full day programs (and 50% off if you happen to be a law school!)
• 35% off of all technology audits for existing MicroLaw clients as updates to your original audit – if 3-4 years have passed, a lot changes including all the impact of cloud technology, so it’s time to take a look and save a bundle while in process.

Our new office is located at 6601 Grand Teton Plaza, Suite 8 in Madison, WI. I’m personally staffing that office while Renee and Abe hold down the company headquarters back in Milwaukee.

GRAND OPENING SPECIAL! Just for greater Dane County area clients, take an extra 5% off all professional services until July 31st!

Ask Ross here about any questions and/or to talk about your firm’s, legal department or Bar association’s needs. We’re ready to help and also help you save!

Why “DocuLaw?” Hold that thought until the end of this post . . .

Every so often I feel the need to answer the questions I get from lawyers everywhere who email me asking questions like, “We really enjoy your CLEs and your blog posts, but how do you actually make a living?” That probably tells me that my company has a branding issue, but . . . the answer is really simple and here it is. For the last almost 27 years since I founded the company, MicroLaw has exclusively focused on a mission of guiding legal entities – law firms of all sizes, corporate and governmental legal departments, government agencies and Bar associations / Law Societies – in the most effective use of technology and how it integrates into the flow of their practices and businesses.

We embody the “Five B’s Approach” that I talk about in some recent CLEs: Best Practices, Being More Profitable, Battling Malpractice, Being Ethically Compliant and Better Quality of Life. We see these five goals as being the right reasons for a smarter law practice management and legal technology approach for any type of law practice, public or private.  Technology for technology’s sake can be a lot of fun as a hobby and it’s great to be enthusiastic about legal tech, but we’ve never thought of it as an end in itself – that just isn’t a sound business strategy.

We’ve always been fiercely independent in terms of any products we recommend – this makes us very different in an age where most “consultants” are really “vendors.” We objectively evaluate our clients’ needs and make recommendations. Sometimes we recommend that nothing new be bought, but rather, existing tools be better used. If we do recommend products, we certainly have our favorites and benchmarks, but we often recommend products that, for implementation, we may need to refer out to a qualified expert rathering than being able to handle it ourselves. This is important – we exist to analyze and advise and manage projects, first and foremost.

Wow – some of that sounds awfully formal, so here’s the informal version. We help with every technology that involves something that plugs in for power or runs on batteries (in a legal practice environment – stop that snickering :-)). That means everything from:

• Law practice management and technology audits – how are you doing? what can you do better? what’s your next set of steps? This includes a detailed review and audit of your network, hardware, security, remote access, mobility plans and backup infrastructure, including reviewing IT upgrade proposals and even VOIP and IP phone system proposals. Oh, and we also speak Mac in case you were wondering.
• Cloud strategies – we help our clients figure out what elements of cloud technology make sense for them and help them select and implement the services that make sense. From practice management to document management, financial management, secure data storage, online backup and fax technologies and more.
• Document streamlining – this means document, email and paper management – that can mean a version of our Paper LESS Office approach tailored to a practice, document/email management with leading tools like Worldox GX3 or NetDocuments or even the DM functions within some practice managers. It can also mean developing scanning approaches and helping practices figure out what to do with their existing and to-be-accumulated paper.
• Financial systems – helping get your money straight and your billings/collections maximized – we’ve worked with many legal financial systems over the years and particularly like the venerable Tabs 3 system for many of our clients, but also systems like Rippe-Kingston, Omega, and others. We also help practices migrate from one system to another.
• Practice management systems – the core of our existence, focusing on our long-espoused belief that it’s all about “building complete electronic cases files.” PM systems are the beating information heart of a practice and we help either select a system and help with the best way to implement it, to migrating from one system to another. We recommend both “terrestrial” and “cloud” systems based on what makes the most sense for any given client – and then we help make sure that PM, document management and financial management work together as one integrated system, accessible from anywhere, anytime, from any device. So whether it’s Tabs PracticeMaster or CLIO, JustWare or anything else, we can help
• Microsoft Office – we help with legal-focused selection, configuration on all aspects of Microsoft Office – Word, Outlook, Excel and PowerPoint. our custom-created training reference materials have drawn raves from our clients as have our CLEs on these subjects – and of course, how they integrate with document management and practice management systems.
• Adobe Acrobat and PDFing – we help educate our clients about everything legal professionals need to know and understand about living in a PDF-centric world, and how to securely use Acrobat to their best advantage – with tools like Bates Stamping, Secure Redaction, Electronic 3-Ring Binders, Typewriter, Security, Editing, Comment and Markup, PDF File Comparisons, Creating Forms and more.
• Remote Access and Mobility – we help clients figure out the best and most secure “work away” capabilities include Windows RDP, Citrix, Logmein and then extension of practice information to smartphones, iPads and Android tablets.
• Litigation technology and forensics – we have a network of the top professionals to help with every aspect of trial practice automation and with forensic examinations.
• IT – yes, we’ve been hardcore geeks having been in the trenches since before some of our clients were born, starting in the DOS and Novell days through modern cloud structures and the bridging of the Mac and Windows gaps. We can help design hardware and network systems from 1-100 users and help our clients get the best pricing on right components, review local IT proposals to make sure they make sense and are fairly priced, manage projects literally anywhere in the world and even provide actual turnkey systems to our smaller clients – shipping them and ourselves to set them up if there is no competent local IT support available.

Why “DocuLaw” then? Because so much of what we help with is wrapped up in the understanding, streamlining and management of documents for our clients. Whether paper, electronic or both. Whether texts or Facebook postings. Whether blog posts or Tweets. They’re all documents and we help our clients find ways to build complete electronic case files so they can feel confident, when working a case or a project, that they’re seeing everything that a responsible legal professional should see before advising a client or taking a position on their behalf.

So . . . does that help? That’s what MicroLaw has been, continues to be, and will always be about.

Oh, and did I mention we do it incredibly affordably – so much so that many solo practitioners have been, and are our clients. If you have a practice or a business, we’ll find a way we can help you in a way you can afford, big or small, in the U.S. or around the world, in any time-zone. And be sure to look at our Spring into Spring MicroLaw CARES (Computer and Resource Evaluation & Study) discounts here.

Ready to chat about how we can help? Email me here.

Is it time to consider some archiving?

More and more of MicroLaw’s clients are moving to a cloud-based/off-site backup system as a secondary line of defense against data loss. Some of these systems, such as Dropbox, can serve as an excellent repository for your archived documents – making them accessible.   The subscription price is governed by the amount of data they store.

Most of our clients use the Worldox legal document/email manager. Worldox can be configured to archive your closed cases to a different drive or location (such as Dropbox folders) making it easy to exclude it from the data being backed up off-site (keeping your backup and related (and more important) restore process faster).  It is also nice to archive just to keep active data lean, mean and clean.

Contact me if you’d like to chat about how we can help you develop an archival strategy that keeps you connected to your older client data but not hampered by it.

Good question, and one we get asked a lot by our clients. For Office 2007 users, the issue is more one of compatibility with third party apps, especially for document assembly purposes, etc. Otherwise, there’s not a lot of compelling reason to move to Office 2010 (okay, optimized 64-bit versions pretty much SCREAM with enough RAM (i.e 6+ Gb) on Windows 7 64-bit systems – that could be enough of a reason).

This question comes up constantly on various listserves I frequent: “How/Why would I use Styles in Word?”

Seriously, that’s like asking “why would I breathe?” or “should I go to the bathroom when I wake up in the morning?” That basic, that fundamental. If you’re among the vast miserable majority NOT using Styles in Word to format your documents, you’re absolutely word processing the hardest possible way. In fact, as my Solosez pal and WordPerfect Wizard Mike Koenecke says “one can use Styles in WordPerfect every bit as effectively and comprehensively as in Word, if that is the way you prefer to work. There are character styles, paragraph styles, document styles aplenty. If you prefer that approach, there is no reason to “change font codes a paragraph at a time through a long document.” In fact, there is no reason to do that in WordPerfect at all.” Essentially a very polite version of “duh.”

So why don’t most Word users we encounter in our client’s offices use Styles? I think the answer has always been the same:

1. We were brought up in a WordPerfect world and never learned what styles were and didn’t need them. So there.
2. We taught ourselves Word. So, we learned how to do everything “unofficially.”

So it’s time to break out of that cycle of document generation despair and get onboard with Styles in Word (and WordPerfect if you still use it). Styles are nothing more than a  way to apply a single smart “macro” (a concept familiar to the legion of WordPerfect-ingrained among us), that affects all the text in a document or a paragraph within a document. It couldn’t be simpler to use – you don’t even need to highlight and mark text as you used to do in WordPerfect in the “good old days.” Just be in the paragraph or document where you want to have the appearance changed and click the Style you wish to choose from your Word 2007 or 2010 Home ribbon Styles choices. Et voila! Multiple appearance changes applied in a single click.

You can create new Styles on the fly by formatting a block of text you wish to look like the Style you want to create. Then highlight the formatted text and right click, then select the option to create a QuickStyle from the highlighted text. Fill in the box that appears, naming your style, click to okay it and you now have a brand new Style you can reuse over and over. There are also ways to share these with other users.

AND, as we’ve advised clients for years (many of whom still don’t seem to listen, such is the power of old habits and their unwillingness to die in the face of logic and reason :-)), discuss the Styles you’d want to use as standards for document layout and appearance in your practice, create them, wipe out all the extraneous default Styles you’d never use (and which clutter the Styles “windowblind” in Word 2007/2010) and then actually use the abbreviated, streamlined “official” firm set you’ve created for body text, headings, pleadings, etc.

So it’s NOT mysterious. It’s NOT obtuse. It’s NOT byzantine. Styles are massive timesavers and professionalism boosters since all your firm’s documents will have the “official” look and feel, as opposed to a collection of inconsistent looking content that just screams (“we can’t get our act together!”).

Abe at MicroLaw, as some of you know, and others perhaps not, offers superb remote (and live when practical) Word 2007 and 2010 training for all MicroLaw clients – he has for years. Contact me here to find out about it – one hour of online training time can change your word processing life for the better forever. He can also show you how to create “firm styles” and make them available to all your users on your systems and networks. And if you mention the phrase “Obviously Styles” in your email, I’d be happy to give you a 15% courtesy professional services discount on any MicroLaw Word or MS Office training your practice decides to get (yes, we do Outlook, PowerPoint and Excel training for law practices as well). We’ve been training on MS Office for almost 20 years and have custom training reference materials that have gotten rave reviews from clients.

The other thing to think about is purely economic. How much time do you and your staff waste every single day formatting the hard way in Word? I’m guessing that if you’re relatively typical, the answer is TONS of time – and if you happen to be working on a flat fee or contingent fee billing arrangement, that wasted time manually formatting, unformatting, reformatting, all eats directly into your profit margin. On hourly matters, you’re probably still eating a ton of time that you just can’t bill for all the subsidization of your own inefficiency. For the sake of mathematical/fiscal argument, if you waste just 15 minutes a day of lawyer time at $200/hour monkeying around with the manual formatting of a Word document, that’s $50/day, $250/week, $1000/month and $12,000 per year of your otherwise billable and productive time. Not to mention the psychological toll of all the accumulated frustration and angst that flows from struggling with software.

As a reference, you could buy my techno.pal Ben Schorr’s latest ABA LPM book on Word here – I think it’s a must-have. And if you’re still a Word 2003 hanger-on, the Payne Consulting book on Word 2003 for Lawyers is now only $10 – a steal if you need it still.

If you prefer a more impersonal “show me fast” approach, here are some video links on how to use styles in Word 2007 and 2010 (I’m not showing you how to do this in Word 2003, for goodness sake – get CURRENT already, would  ’ya???):

• http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/video-apply-styles-in-word-2010-VA101820568.aspx
• http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1365077/word_2007_demo_adding_styles/
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-kb32j3-nY
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq_dr69xjTw
• http://blogs.office.com/b/office_casual/archive/2011/02/15/using-quick-styles-in-word.aspx http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-word/archive/2011/06/21/word-of-the-week-formatting-vs-styles.aspx
• http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/styles/applyastyle.html

Yep, the first consumer preview version of Windows 8 is now available for download. The usual cautions apply:

• Do this only on a non-production machine (i.e. one you’re not emotionally attached to)
• Be prepared to wipe out the machine when done, or have everything inadvertently wiped for you

In other words, use a spare machine! David Pogue talked about the Windows 8 preview in his NYT column on Leap Day here. It’s worth a read. So start to think “Start Tiles” on all devices (Microsoft hopes) instead of Start Menus (as a way to access often little-used programs). Will Microsoft’s approach to operating system unification through device agnosticism work? Too late to counter the IOS onslaught? They’re still a really big company with a lot of money to spend, and a lot of smart people. So I wouldn’t count them out.

I’m trying to figure out the best way to play with the Windows 8 Preview. One of our home systems is an HP all-in-one-touchscreen which would seem to be the ideal platform to experiment. So . . . I’ll need to partition it so I can run the preview in its own virtual machine I guess. Should be fun (and I don’t know the last time I thought that about any Microsoft product – perhaps since my Flight Simulator days . . . ).

While we wait patiently for the official release of Worldox GX3 with its improved handling of “My Workspaces” and folder tree among other things, I thought I would give you a quick heads up about a feature that’s been around a while, but that could easily go ignored.

MicroLaw is a huge proponent of Paper LESS law offices, as most of you have known for year. We’ve deployed hundreds (maybe thousands) of Fujitsu ScanSnap scanners in our clients’ firms to facilitate their iterations of the Paper LESS Office process.  Worldox can now integrate directly with the Fujitsu ScanSnap Manager software. This allows users to scan and then quickly profile and save the resulting PDF to Worldox without have to view it first.  Initially I thought “who’d want to do this?”  Why wouldn’t you want the scanned paper to pop up in Acrobat as a PDF, decide what you want to name it, then do a File | Save As to save it to a Worldox matter/project file. But it *IS* a time saver and some people might prefer this.

If you’d like to save some time too, let me know and I’ll help you get set up to take advantage of this feature. Contact me here to ask about how I can remote into your system and help you setup the “ScanSnap-Direct-to-Worldox” link.

Also, when MicroLaw clients (or anyone else with Worldox for that matter)  receive their Worldox GX3 upgrades (and you’ll get it if you’re on the Worldox maintenance plan), it’s definitely different enough that it’s important for us to connect to talk about the new features, perform the major version upgrade correctly for you and then train to take best advantage of the new features. After all, what’s the point of having new features that could be really useful for your practice if you don’t know how to use them?

This isn’t something I’ve done before, but I thought, what the heck? What am I talking about? I’m going to be doing an online CLE program called:

“Increasing Cloudiness in Your Practice: The Hard-Core Reality of Legal Cloud Computing – Tips, Tricks, Cost Comparisons, Practical and Ethical Concerns”

In other words, a blunt assessment of cloud computing for your practice. We’ll explore all the forms cloud computing takes including SaaS, self-hosted, third-party hosted and specialized cloud apps and storage. We’ll look at the realistic pluses and minuses of cloud computing to see if it fits your practice situation. We’ll explore the functional and ethical issues that swirl around the cloud concept. We’ll explore being partially in the cloud with services like online document stores and Microsoft Exchange Server hosting. We’ll explore the state of ethics rules/opinions on legal cloud computing and also what to do in the 48 states that have no such ethical guidance. In other words, a hard-hitting, plain-English language view of cloud computing for your practice today.

While no CLE credit is being specifically applied for, you can always apply in your own state and we’ll issue a certificate of attendance that you’ll receive via email after the session. This program was approved by Colorado CLE already and also by the ABA for multiple states so getting credit shouldn’t be a problem for most of you in your own jurisdictions. The program will run 75-90 minutes depending on the number of participant questions.

• When: Friday, November 11, 2011 at 9AM CST.
• Where: Online via webconference and voiceconference – information provided to all pre-registrants (we’re using the wonderful Join.me system)
• Cost: Free (how’s that for a deal??)
• Registration: Easy – just click here and include the phrase “Cloud CLE with Ross” in the subject line. Include your name, full contact information including email address – you’ll receive a confirmation email with connection instructions by November 8th
• Techie Stuff: connect with Windows and Mac systems, and also with iPads and Android tablets – instructions provided in your registration confirmation email

Registration is limited to the first 200 respondents – so don’t wait! This CLE was a big hit for the Colorado Bar and at the ABA National Solo & Small Firm Conference within the last two weeks – rave reviews from attendees including:

“Best CLE I’ve attended in 27 years of coming to these – thanks for coming back to Colorado to help explain cloud computing to us!”

“Finally, someone who honestly explained what cloud computing is and what it really costs – it’s about time.”

“I took one tip from a CLE Ross did for us two years ago and that tip helped my firm generate $21,000 more fee revenue last year! A pretty good return on my CLE dollars!”

—————————————

Looking forward t0 this folks – feel free to pass thing along. Who couldn’t benefit from plain talk about cloud computing for their practice? It’s a confusing area with many sound-alike options, real ethical and security issues and mind-boggling cost variations. But there’s also real benefit for some firms – the bottom-line is that you need to understand the options so you can make the right cloud choices for your practice. Don’t wait – register now!

The late Spring, early Summer CLE schedule is BUSY! I’m on the road in May and June as follows and hope to see some of you around the country.

Upcoming legal tech and law practice management CLEs include:

• 2011 Mississippi Bar Technology Seminar: “Using Technology to Help Good Lawyers Survive Bad Times,” Wednesday, May 25, 2011 at the  MS Sports Hall of Fame Conference Center, 1152 Lakeland Dr.|Jackson, MS 39216. I’ll be delivering six CLE sessions covering a broad range of legal tech topics – come and watch to see if I’ll somehow avoid losing my voice by the end of the day! My old friend Ronnie Morton is chairing the program – I always have a great time visiting MS and look forward to seeing lots of old friends in Jackson next week. Here’s a link to the program description. And Alabama lawyers – why not consider stopping in too?
• 2011 Missouri Bar Solo & Small Firm Conference – Thursday June 9-11th at the Tan-Tar-A Resort in Osage Beach, MO. It’s been three years since I’ve been to this granddaddy of all solo and small firm conferences and I can’t wait to see old friends Linda Oligschlaeger, David Ransin, Dennis Kennedy and all the regular MO Bar SASFC crowd! Full conference info is here: http://www.sasfconference.org/.
• 2011 Rhode Island Bar Annual Meeting - Thursday June 16-17th in Providence. I’ve had the great pleasure of working with Nancy Healey and Peter LaCouture on this program for the last few years – the Rhodey crowds are terrific and I hope to see clients and friends there before heading to Boston for a couple of games at Fenway against our own Milwaukee Brewers. Full conference information is here: https://www.ribar.com/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsId=100.
• 2011 Iowa Bar Annual Meeting - back to my old undergrad stomping grounds on June 23rd in Des Moines for several programs. Looking forward to the city where I spent four great years many moons ago! Full info is here: https://m360.iabar.net/event.aspx?eventID=28618.

Again, I hope to see some of you on the road in May and June! Lots of great legal technology and law practice management CLE!

Alan Cohen has a great article on the current state of legal SharePoint usage on Law.com here.  He talks about how SharePoint is really starting to gel for more and more practices as an integrational toolset – serving as a common interface for back-end financial systems, interconnecting Outlook data and document management / practice management systems. He talks about Shook Hardy and Littler Mendelson and their SharePoint applications. The bottom line is that SharePoint is still finding a place in the legal world and for now, it seems mostly in larger practices that have the IT resources to do the development necessary to make the back-end connections.

However, with that said, Abe Liebsch at MicroLaw is working on SharePoint applications for MicroLaw’s smaller clients. Now if I can just get him to write me a few paragraphs about what he’s been up to and what he’s developed for our clients, I’ll get it posted here and we can all learn from it (and how MicroLaw can help in this developing area). Lots of promise for SharePoint as it continues to be defined. And certainly, read Alan’s helpful article.

To anyone near Hartford or who wants to view the live webcast online, the Connecticut Bar Foundation is putting on its annual Law Practice Management and Technology symposium tomorrow all day at the UCONN law school in William Starr Hall. The official name of the seminar is: “Connecticut Bar Foundation: James W. Cooper Fellows Law & Technology Symposium – Flash Forward or Lost: How Technology is Changing the Practice of Law, and What’s Next?”

One of the volunteers helping the program, Dan Schwartz has a post about it on his blog with a link to the program info here. I also posted about it last month as part of a series of CLEs I’ve been asked to do.

Here’s a link to a Word doc with full program details. If you can’t make the live program (starts at 830AM, registration onsite open at 745AM), the entire conference is being streamed live – go here to login tomorrow.

I’ll be doing a program at 11AM called: ““It’s Complicated: Technology for Non-Techies and How Technology is Changing the Practice of Law” – I’ll be introduced by our own Susan Carter Liebel of Solo Practice University fame. In addition, well-known speakers Kevin O’Keefe (from Lexblog) and Bob Ambroggi (from LawSites) are on the faculty – both are terrific speakers.

Hope to see some of you there – or if you follow along online, let me know!

Special thanks in advance to sponsors, Tabs 3 / PracticeMaster (www.tabs3.com) and Worldox GX2 (www.worldox.com) for their support of the event and for decades of support of the legal technology market in general!

Okay, time to head to the airport for what I understand is 80+ degree weather in Hartford today (yikes!)

Courtesy of Law Technology News on 2/1/10, my article on netbooks, as follows:

Netbooks — those diminutive minicomputers that you’re seeing in airports and coffee shops — have more power than you might expect. Your first instinct may be that a netbook might be a handy way to work when you’re stuck in coach with limited elbow room; or when you want a better way to check e-mail before you go to bed than trying to read a Word doc on your BlackBerry.

In other words, you might expect a netbook to be a part-time adjunct to a full-size laptop or desktop system.

But many netbook owners are finding that “occasional” has become “most of the time.” Netbooks can feel just as responsive as the bulkier, more costly full-size laptops. This raises the inevitable question: “Is there any reason I can’t use a netbook as my primary computer system?”

MATURING
One thing is certain: Netbooks certainly are maturing. A new generation of Intel netbook processors, the N450 “Pine Trail” series, was launched in December. The additional processing power of this main brain versus its predecessor Intel N270 chip opens up a range of desktop-replacement abilities that previously skirted the edge of practicality.

Most new netbooks follow the current standard of a 10″ display, a weight of about three pounds, and at least six hours of battery run time. Netbooks are also in operating system transition, from Microsoft’s Windows XP Home to Windows 7 Starter Edition.

The fundamental question when considering a netbook as your primary PC is processing capability: “Can I run all the programs I need to manage my practice, simultaneously, at a reasonable speed?”

For most of us, this includes at least four programs:
1. A word processor, likely a recent vintage of Word.
2. E-mail , with Outlook or Outlook Web Access the probable candidate.
3. Browser (e.g., Internet Explorer, Google’s Chrome, Mozilla’s Firefox, or Apple’s Safari).
4. A practice/document management application.

MY EXPERIENCE
My own experience, with Lenovo’s S10 and Samsung’s NC20 (both upgraded, inexpensively, to 2 GB RAM), has been very positive when running five programs. The netbooks are often my primary workhorse systems, with my trusty Lenovo Thinkpad T61 full-size laptop relegated to my laptop bag.

Lenovo’s S10/S12 models cost about $300 to $450 respectively, with the 10-inch and 12-inch displays being the distinctive difference. The S12 model incorporates a top-notch keyboard. Some models have larger hard drives, up to 250 or even 320 GB.

COMPONENTS
The following components can turn any modern netbook into a fully-functioning stationary (and mobile) workstation for a lawyer:

• Docking device to connect the netbook to other devices — such as an LCD display, printers, keyboards, wired high speed internet, etc.

For example, Toshiba’s $149 Dynadock U USB or Wireless U models allow up to three video displays via a single USB connection to any netbook.

Budget about $175 to $200 for a 22-inch LCD display, and another $100 for a wireless keyboard/mouse kit.

• An external USB hard drive for data backup (potentially partitioned to allow additional storage space when docked in the office).

There are very attractively-priced 1 TB drives, such as Western Digital’s My Book Essential series, available for as little as $90.

At least three drives are preferable for an alternating media-based backup scheme. Use data backup software, such as Acronis’s TrueImage Home 2010 for daily backups (about $60).

• Power Protection : Use electrical protection, for your docked home/office setup — as well as a portable surge protector for your laptop bag. Never, ever plug in without it.

For the office, brands such as APC, Tripplite and Belkin offer multiple outlet surge strips for less than $30. Tripplite’s Traveler is a $20 two-outlet, compact portable surge protector that is intended for mobile systems.

• Portable scanners can turn physical paper into PDFs when connected to your netbook via the office port replicator. These can be powered via your netbook’s USB port. Fujitsu’s ScanSnap S300 tips the scales at three pounds with a cost of about $255.

LOW COST
This complete setup, sans only your program software and requisite system maintenance utilities (e.g., an anti-malware suite and anti-metadata tools), can cost as little as $1,200. This buys a system ready to dock at your desk and easily portable when you hit the road.

Personal preferences vary; our colleague Donna Payne, in a recent Test Drive column, finds netbooks still a bit clunky for her needs. But unless your legal computing needs require more than four or five simultaneously running applications, you just might find that a netbook can be a very cost-effective, very portable, very dockable alternative to a full-size laptop or desktop system.

Here are a few tips to help you select the netbook that is best-suited for your particular mobile law practice approach, with the least dent to your technology budget:

1. How big are your fingers? All netbooks are not created equal — it’s important to choose a netbook that is comfortable. Face it, if you’re an ex-high school linebacker with fingers as big as a bassoon, the only keyboards that might have a chance of working for you would be the larger 12-inch models. The 10-inch versions, with more compact keyboards, will frustrate you.

But if you have the thin, agile fingers of a pianist, a 10-inch netbook may hit the note. Before ordering a netbook online (no matter what brand), find one of similar proportions at a local retailer and try out the keyboard.

2. How good are your eyes? Those of us on the far side of 40 may struggle and squint at the smaller screens on 10-inch units. The extra two inches of screen real estate offered by larger netbooks might make all the difference. As above, scout out netbooks to be sure you’re visually comfortable with the displays and the size of the characters.

3. To tablet or not? Netbook-sized tablets are just becoming available. As with traditionaltablets such as theLenovo Thinkpad X series, and various Hewlett Packard and Fujitsu models, these netbooks have touch-sensitive screens that accept stylus input. This means you can jot handwritten notes and fill-in on-screen forms, and use tablet-friendly software tools such as Microsoft’s OneNote.

Netbook tablets include Lenovo’s newly announced Ideapad S10-3t with a 10-inch tablet display and Asus’ EEE T91-MT model with an 8.9-inch tablet display.

4. Where to buy? We all want to spend as little as possible — the economy makes it mandatory to be as frugal as possible.

Online options include Pricegrabber.com, C|Net’s Shopper.com and Google Product Search (google.com/products) to track down the best possible pricing for your netbook — as well as related accessories.

One example is pre-release pricing on the new Lenovo Netbook Tablet, the S10-3t. It is listed as $549 on the Lenovo website — but only $499 from Amazon.com.

Aside from Amazon, with a wide range of netbooks available, other netbook-heavy web merchants include NewEgg.com and Provantage.com — both with a solid reputation for service and responsiveness, in addition to routinely lowest-in-category pricing.

Happy shopping!

Many of you know that I spend a lot of time working with MicroLaw clients and their document, email and practice management systems – it’s what I do. I’d like to talk about an aspect of the popular Worldox document management system that makes it easier for the unitiated to understand.

Worldox can be setup to emulate the familiar physical file cabinets from my past and yours – from my days many years ago as a Law Firm Administrator and a litigation paralegal.  Each “file cabinet” has a drawer for each of my clients. Each drawer houses the individual cases or brown expandable folders (red-ropes) for the client whose drawer we’re looking in. Each brown expandable file is neatly organized with manila folders containing like items, i.e. correspondence, pleadings, memo, research notes. It’s a concept every single one of us born before 1990 absolutely understands, right?

Worldox can be set up to do this in exactly the same manner. It does this with all with Profiles (Cabinets), Client/Matter Tables (Drawers and Folders) and Libraries (think “electronic manila folders”).  Not all Worldox users take advantage of the libraries in Worldox, but I personally like them – and Ross actually LOVES them (you should see his face light up when he talked about his beloved “Electronic Manila Folders” when he gets into one of his Paper LESS Office pulpit speeches!) This is especially true when a folder contains a lot of documents, PDFs and emails.  Organizing these items so that I can quickly segregate correspondence when that’s all I want to see is really a time saver. So if you’re a Worldox user not using Libraries (Electronic Manila Folders), we need to talk!

If you are a Worldox library fan like me, it can be helpful to establish a standard set for each profile group (or in plain English, for each “file cabinet”).   Here’s how to do it:

• First, put a text file in the profile’s root Windows folder – so if your client documents are in s:\cases – put it there.  Don’t sweat the contents of the text file.  It doesn’t matter.
• Browse the Worldox tree to that root directory, then go to List > Libraries.
• Add your standard electronic manila folders here such as Correspondence, Pleadings, Discovery Docs, Research, Notes, Agreements, etc.
• Your standard libraries list will now automatically appear for all your newly opened cases in that profile (File Cabinet).

This is just another way that Worldox can facilitate consistency in document savings and retrieval in your office. And for your MicroLaw Paper LESS Office, Worldox is the reasonably-priced “digital glue” that holds the process together – and especially in helping organize that mess of emails we all have in Outlook. You can find me at reneekodner@microlaw.com for more information about this idea and about how our clients use and rely on programs like Worldox.

The debate between “partial” Document Management Systems and “complete” Document Management Systems has been heating up lately as my clients look for the easiest way to store, share and access documents.  I am on the fence, but only because of economics.  If you already use a practice management application like TimeMatters, Amicus and Practice Master, you own a DMS.

Time Matters actually has a very nice DMS built in to it.  It is a great example of the “partial” approach.  From within Word, or WordPerfect, you simply click a button to “Save to Time Matters”, fill out a little information about the document and there you go.  You can access that document from within Time Matters in the future and you can find it using Windows Explorer quiet easily.  Problem is:  If users don’t use that “Save to Time Matters” button, they can bypass the Time Matters integration and save documents willy-nilly on their hard drives, network drives, thumb drives . . . many places where only they will be able to possibly locate them in the future.

Worldox, on the other hand, is an example of the “complete” approach.  It is envoked by the applications you all ready use — automatically.  Click save in Word and the Worldox profile screen appears prompting you to fill in the appropriate information for the document and forcing you to save it in a predesignated location.   Documents are saved in the same manner and location each time/every time.  Problem is:  Worldox is not inexpensive.
In a perfect world everyone would click the “Save to Time Matters” button in Word and fill out the document form.  It would be cheaper.  It would work great.  But the world isn’t perfect and people will take shortcuts.  Documents will be lost or saved where they don’t belong with an open DMS.  So maybe I’m not on the fence after all.  Pay the $465 per seat for Worldox and stick your tongue out at the imperfections of life.

Along with an occasional disk defragmentation, deletion of unneeded programs and a dusting off of your monitor, consider deleting your temporary internet files once in a while.  If the temporary internet files folder gets too large, not only can it bog down your PC, it can also make it impossible to download other information off the net.  While you are doing all this maintenance, you may as well make sure your Windows operating system is fully patched.  If your PC doesn’t automatically check for updates on its own, open Internet Explorer > Go to Tools > Windows Updates > Click Express and let Microsoft review your software.  It will return a list of updates for you or your administrator to install.  It’s usually a good idea to stay current.

Greetings!

Packers lost again. Worse – the Bears won big time. Those of you who know me well won’t be surprised that I’ve been surly this week. Anyway, it’s October and that means the Milwaukee Bar Association’s Wisconsin Solo, Small Firm & Technology Conference is knocking at our door. Join us on November 16 and 17 for this well-attended, information-packed convention. I’m sure you’ll find something that will trip your CLE or technology trigger.

Time Matters, Etc.

Okay, I’m fully versed now on Time Matters version 8 and am ready to get you upgraded and trained on its new features. I’m sure you will be happy with the enhancements. Remember that Billing Matters has been handed a nice bundle of modifications to make your billing lives easier as well. In the Time Matters vein, Abe Liebsch, has developed a nice report package for those of you who run the Enterprise (or SQL) version of Time Matters. Give honest Abe a call and he’d be happy to demo it for you.

That brings me to speed. Time Matters Professional too slow for you? Let’s get you upgraded to the Enterprise version. If your firm can swing the cost, it’s an upgrade you won’t be disappointed in. The Enterprise version simply more stable and faster . . .

Need for Speed?

Faster? Can we make Tabs3 faster? Yes! Consider upgrading your Tabs3 to the Client Server Version. Software Technology, Inc. recently did some testing and has advised unequivocally that you will save time when running reports and updating statements. (Of course every network is different so how much time YOU actually save may be a little different). If you get bogged down during the billing or month-end processes, let’s talk. The Tabs3 CSV version comes with a 60 day money back guaranty.
So that’s it for today. Stay warm, safe and happy. We’ll talk again soon.

Techno.Update Contact Information
email: reneekodner@microlaw.com
phone: 414-540-9433
web: http://www.microlaw.com Join our mailing list!

Greetings!

It’s September and the days are growing shorter. The Packers stink, but at least it stopped raining!

Yes, It’s September and that means a new version of Time Matters! Time Matters 8 has been announced and Tabs 14 continues to ship. This will be a busy and productive Fall.

What’s New? – TIME MATTERS 8!

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Of course, while in Orlando I happened to drive past a local CompUSA and, being born without a sense of impulse control, I had to stop . . . just to “look.” While methodically casing every aisle seeking out the not-yet-owned gadgetry that I might not be able to live without, I had a genuine “experience.” It felt like what pilgrims probably feel when visiting Lourdes – it was that level of significance . . .

It happened in the last of three laptop aisles. While zooming past an otherwise entirely non-descript row of Acer laptops, I got to the last model at the end of the 40 foot section and stopped dead in my tracks, jaw sagging to the floor (which, as anyone knows me knows, is an extremely rare occurrence at CompUSA). What revelation unfolded before my eyes? Simply the largest, most powerful “laptop” I have ever seen. Ever.

Much bigger than the 12 hp riding model, pull-start equipped HP Pavilion I bought out of sheer lack of impulse control in a Cleveland Best Buy in late ’03. MUCH bigger. MUCH, MUCH, MUCH bigger. It was Acer’s Aspire 9805. This is the Graf Zeppelin of laptops. The King Kong of portable technology. The Spruce Goose of semi-mobility and like that epic Hughesian vision of air travel, any legal road warrior attempting to tote this colossal heap of metal and plastic shouldn’t expect to ever gain much altitude. Truly, pictures on the web couldn’t possibly do it justice. It is worth planning an expedition to a local purveyor of PC hardware just to see it in person. Perhaps to have your picture taken next to it to
record the experience for posterity. Kind of like traveling to see the World’s Largest Frying Pan. Or the World’s Largest Rubber Band Ball. It’s that impressive of a tourist attraction.

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