TechnoLawyer Blog: CLE/News/References

Coming today to BlawgWorld: Our editorial team has selected and linked to 167 articles from the past week worthy of your attention. Below you'll find a sample article from each section of today's issue, including our BlawgWorld Pick of the Week.

Bill Your Time Everywhere Your Practice Takes You

A Scanner at Home in Your Bag and in Your Office

The Mandatory CLE Question No One Wants to Ask

Law Firm Mobile Web Sites 101

Congratulations to Joe Kissell of Macworld on winning our BlawgWorld Pick of the Week award: How to Edit PowerPoint Documents on an iPad

Don't miss today's issue or any future issues of BlawgWorld.

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Our newsletters provide the most comprehensive coverage of legal technology, practice management, and law firm marketing, but not the only coverage. BlawgWorld enables you to stay on top of all the noteworthy articles (and podcasts) published online without having to hire a research assistant. Even when you're busy, you won't want to miss each issue's Pick of the Week. The BlawgWorld newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TL Answers contains these articles:

Thomas F. McDow, Why I Couldn't Switch Plus Using Word and WordPerfect Side by Side

Nathan Davis, Review: Metrofax

Fred Hopengarten, How I Name My Documents

Andrew Willinger, Tip: How to Backup and Sync Your Google Calendar

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How to Receive TL Answers
Do you believe in the wisdom of crowds? In TL Answers, TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers. This newsletter's popularity stems from the relevance of the questions and answers to virtually everyone in the legal profession. The TL Answers newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of Fat Friday contains these articles:

Neil Squillante, Review of Aereo as an Emergency Television Service

Scott Bassett, Review: TextAloud (Plus First Look at Speak It)

Lawrence Husick, Google Drive: Lawyers Beware

Steven Schwaber, Formatting Existing Documents: WordPerfect v. Word

Jonathan Warshay, How to Migrate Data From a Palm to a Modern Smartphone

Don't miss this issue — or any future issues.

How to Receive Fat Friday
Our most serendipitous offering, Fat Friday consists of unsolicited contributions by TechnoLawyer members. You'll no doubt enjoy it because of its mix of interesting topics and genuinely useful knowledge, including brutally honest product reviews and informative how-tos. The Fat Friday newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published in the March 16, 2012 issue of SmallLaw: The world's largest social network — email — got a slow start 40 years ago, but it's way ahead of Facebook and LinkedIn. If you want to contact someone you don't know, email is your best bet as it's much less intrusive than trying to "friend" the person. But what if you don't know that person's email address? In this issue of SmallLaw, email expert Neil Squillante explains his secret techniques for obtaining just about anyone's email address. Also, don't miss the SmallLaw Pick of the Week for a rundown of the pros and cons of the various law firm compensation systems.

How to Receive SmallLaw
Small firm, big dreams. Written by practicing lawyers who manage successful small firms and legal technology and practice management experts who have achieved rock star status, SmallLaw provides practical advice on management, marketing, and technology issues in small law firms, as well as comprehensive legal product reviews with accompanying TechnoScore ratings. SmallLaw also links to helpful articles in other publications about solo practices and small law firms. The SmallLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published in our free SmallLaw newsletter. Instead of reading SmallLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

Many authors stretch an idea best suited for an article into a book. In putting together our first ever SmallLaw Summer Reading List, we searched for quality books with more than an article's worth of helpful ideas and tips. Also, we asked each author to explain why their book is worth your valuable time. Thus, you'll find our recommended books and links as well as each author's response to our question. To ensure that our SmallLaw Summer Reading List has something for everyone in the solo and small firm world, it spans two issues of SmallLaw. Part 1 today features books on legal technology and law firm marketing. Also, don't miss the SmallLaw Pick of the Week (subscribers only) to read about an in-house lawyer accused of creating and hiring a fake law firm.

THE SMALLLAW 2012 SUMMER READING LIST PART 1: TECHNOLOGY AND MARKETING BOOKS WITH MORE THAN AN ARTICLE'S WORTH OF GOOD STUFF

Have you ever read a book and thought that the author could have made his points in an article? Books don't cost much money in the grand scheme of things. But they sure cost time. Publishing an article isn't considered as prestigious as publishing a book. Thus, many authors stretch an idea best suited for an article into a book.

To combat this problem and compile our first ever summer reading list for you and other SmallLaw subscribers, we conducted research to find books with more than an article's worth of material. We also tried to find relatively concise books so that you could read more than one. And we asked each author to answer this question:

"The obstacle books face is not their cost but the investment of time they require. What will those who work in small law firms learn from your book that they cannot learn from an article or some other shorter resource?"

Thus, our SmallLaw 2012 Summer Reading List contains not only quality books, but each author's answer to our question.

If you read any of these books, please reply to this issue of SmallLaw to post a review, which we'll publish in Fat Friday.

Tom Mighell, iPad Apps in One Hour for Lawyers (2012)

The great thing about a "One Hour" book is that the investment of time to read it is not great. You can get up to speed on a topic over your lunch break.

While many articles out there discuss the best iPad apps, you're unlikely to find as much helpful information in one place about iPad apps specifically vetted for lawyers. The book presents a curated collection of apps lawyers are most likely to find useful in the areas of productivity, document creation and editing, and news and research — plus utilities for your iPad, and travel resources.

With more than 200,000 apps currently available for the iPad, it's hard for busy lawyers to cut through all the noise and focus on the apps that matter — but with iPad in One Hour for Lawyers, the work is already done for you.

iPad/iPhone Version ($17.99)

Print Version ($34.95; $19.95 for ABA LPM Members)

David Sparks, Paperless (2012)

Paperless offers a holistic approach to transitioning your law practice to a paperless workflow, explaning the nuances of capturing paper (and digital) records, and processing, naming, and storing the files. The book also explains the best strategies for backing up and accessing your digital documents using an iPad.

Paperless stretches the definition of the word "book." In addition to over 26,000 words, it features 32 screencasts and four movies. That is over an 90 minutes of video. The book not only tells you about the best paperless workflow but also shows you.

Having written two books for a major publisher in the past, Paperless really is something new entirely. You'll need an iPad to view the book in the preferred iBooks Author format. You can also purchase it as a PDF file with the videos in a separate folder.

iPad Version ($4.99)

PDF Version ($4.99)

Jan Berinstein, Formatting Legal Documents With Microsoft Word 2010: Tips and Tricks for Working With Pleadings, Contracts, Mailings, and Other Complex Documents (2d Edition 2012)

Obviously, any book contains much more information than a single article. But technical books aren't necessarily "linear," so individuals can learn a tremendous amount without having to read the entire book from cover to cover.

My Word 2010 book, for example, consists of dozens of tutorials that can stand on their own. Readers can jump directly to a specific lesson to master one feature of the program that they find challenging. The modular nature of the lessons is especially useful for members of a firm who are at different skill levels or who need to learn disparate aspects of Word. For example, a secretary might want to brush up on creating and generating a Table of Contents and a Table of Authorities, whereas an attorney may want to look up how to format indented quotes or how to ensure that the text aligns with pleading line numbers.

Another benefit of the book is that it includes a number of "sidebars" that provide helpful how-to and troubleshooting tips. Incidentally, all of the tutorials and tips in the book derive from my real-world experience as a legal word processor.

Print Version ($41.95)

Ben M. Schorr, the Lawyer's Guide to Microsoft Outlook 2010 (2012)

The reality is that there are a lot of resources out there for Microsoft Outlook, including my monthly column here in SmallLaw. Microsoft itself provides hundreds of thousands of pages of content, including videos, about Outlook. I maintain a site myself that has a lot of articles on Outlook. Google lists more than 22 million pages for Microsoft Outlook.

The Lawyer's Guide to Microsoft Outlook 2010 saves you time and effort by collecting nearly all of the Outlook information an attorney needs in one place, and in a format written specifically for attorneys. You can spend hours searching for your answer and wondering which source to trust, or you can save a lot of time and effort by just flipping through one book written just for you.

iPad/iPhone Version ($32.99)

Print Version ($69.95; $41.95 for ABA LPM Members)

Gerry Oginski, Secrets of Lawyer Video Marketing in the Age of YouTube (2012)

The answer is simple. You'll learn tips, strategies, and tactics that will take your video marketing far and beyond the videos of 99% of other lawyers.

The book contains key strategies that you can apply not only to your video marketing, but also to every aspect of your online and offline marketing. In essence, you can multi-purpose these powerful techniques.

For example, learn how to convert a viewer into a caller. Find out why quality counts and why your viewer's thoughts are much more important than yours.

Being a great attorney means knowing not just what to do, but importantly, what not to do. This book helps you understand exactly what you should never do when creating online videos to market your law firm. Video is the key to connecting with prospective clients. Learn why and how to use those opportunities to your advantage.

Kindle Version ($12.56)

Print Version ($13.22)

Read Part 2

Read The SmallLaw 2012 Summer Reading List Part 2 now.

How to Receive SmallLaw
Small firm, big dreams. Written by practicing lawyers who manage successful small firms and legal technology and practice management experts who have achieved rock star status, this newsletter provides practical advice on management, marketing, and technology issues in small law firms, as well as comprehensive legal product reviews with accompanying TechnoScore ratings. The SmallLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of Fat Friday contains these articles:

Cynthia Zook, Tips For Migrating From DOCS Open To Worldox GX2

John Peters, How To Add Hidden Searchable Terms To Documents

Colm Carberry, Review: Olympus Digital Recorders (Two Little-Known Features)

Jennifer Stiller, Review: MaxEmail For Fax-to-Email Plus Number Porting

Don't miss this issue — or any future issues.

How to Receive Fat Friday
Our most serendipitous offering, Fat Friday consists of unsolicited contributions by TechnoLawyer members. You'll no doubt enjoy it because of its mix of interesting topics and genuinely useful knowledge, including brutally honest product reviews and informative how-tos. The Fat Friday newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published on August 9, 2011 in our free BigLaw newsletter. Instead of reading BigLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

If you were one of the brave few law firms to make the transition to Office 2007 at some point in the last four years, you'll find that the move to Office 2010 is an easy one. In fact, your users will probably welcome the return of the File Menu, and the many small improvements to the Ribbon — especially its customizability. Let's face it — the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) is nice, but it's just not the same as the visually-accessible Ribbon.

But if your law firm still uses Office 2003 or an earlier version still, you'll need to take the training aspect of the new Office suite very seriously. Is it harder to use? Worse or scarier than previous versions in some way? Well, no. Office 2010 offers a much better interface. And once you acclimate, you'll never want to go back.

But if you don't manage user expectations, your rollout may not go smoothly to say the least. You could have a full-scale staff revolt on your hands and many long nights in the office.

So how can you increase the odds of a successful upgrade? Follow the three steps discussed in this issue of BigLaw, and you'll come out on the other side of the rollout feeling better than you can ever remember after such an intimidating change management challenge.

Step 1: Promote the Benefits Early

Six months before the rollout starts …

Market the rollout. Provide an early warning. Give everyone time to adjust to the idea, and to accept that it's coming. No pre-learning at the early stages (and let's be honest: you won't be organized enough yet at this point to provide it anyway). Just some marketing and some positive bullets to put a good spin on the upgrade from the get-go: "faster", "more efficient," "greater compatibility with clients," etc.

Step 2: Pre-Learning

Start the pre-learning process about 30 to 60 days before users receive their upgraded systems.

Buy professional materials. Don't try to pull it together yourself. Could you? Even if you have sufficient bench depth at your firm to create the media, collateral, manuals and reference guides, why bother when you can buy products like Traveling Coaches' Office 2010 Rollout Kit at a very reasonable price (based upon the number of employees at your firm)?

Traveling Coaches' Rollout Kit includes the following materials:

• Detailed learning plans for staff, attorneys, paralegals.

• Videos that announce the coming of Office 2010 (essentially commercials).

• An interactive flash application that reveals the top productivity gains in Office 2010.

• Pre-learning lessons (for your intranet). Short and on-point interactive "how tos."

• Training materials (sample documents, training guides, quick reference cards, etc.).

• Floor support aids.

You can also supplement these materials as you see fit with some of the free content that Microsoft provides to help you with the transition. For example:

• Interactive "Then and Now" Guides. (I used to insert a footer in Excel 2003 by going to View/Header/Footer. Where is that now?)

• The "Menu to Ribbon" reference guides.

• Office Migration Guides

The key takeaway here is that you didn't spend any time preparing and assembling these materials. Someone else did it for you. And whether you elect to engage outside trainers or use internal trainers, these materials are still hugely helpful to wrapping your brain around what is involved in the effort, how to structure it, and exactly how to execute on the training aspects of the rollout.

Step 3: Training

Start the actual training itself as close to the time of your users receiving their upgraded systems as possible. Ideally, arrange the training to occur while their system is being upgraded/swapped out.

A lot goes into determining exactly how much training you need for Office 2010. Are you also upgrading any non-Microsoft products at the time? How many "power users" do you have? What third-party applications do you use and how do they integrate with Office 2010? Etc.

If you needed a wild but sophisticated guess as to how much training each user will require for Office 2010, I would suggest that you plan on about three hours of training per user for a basic level of introductory training when coming from an Office suite of 2003 or earlier (or from alternative suites such as WordPerfect).

If you've purchased the Rollout Kit mentioned above, by the way, the included learning plans contain a minute-by-minute breakdown of the training topics broken down in a very granular manner. If you're going to train this material with in-house staff, Traveling Coaches ensures that you can customize its training guide to coincide with the topic selections your firm identifies in the learning plan(s). For large firms with permanent staff dedicated to systems training, the Rollout Kit is really all you'll need to feel confident about the challenge in front of you. And more important perhaps than even your team's confidence, the included materials will make a lasting impression on your user base.

Conclusion

Why build it yourself when somebody has already done the heavy lifting? There are many freely or cheaply available resources out there that can help you achieve success with your Office 2010 rollout. And not only will they save your technology team from excess sweat and tears, but many of these resources are top notch, and will ensure that your Office 2010 rollout is a smashing success.

Written by Matthew Berg, Director of IT at Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, P.C..

How to Receive BigLaw
Many large firms have good reputations for their work and bad reputations as places to work. Why? Answering this question requires digging up some dirt, but we do with the best of intentions. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, BigLaw analyzes the business practices, marketing strategies, and technologies used by the country's biggest law firms in an effort to unearth best and worst practices. The BigLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published on June 28, 2011 in our free SmallLaw newsletter. Instead of reading SmallLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

You've got a problem. A big problem. Literally. Large law firms differ from small law firms in one important way — money. They've got it. We don't. They can invest hundreds of thousands into ad campaigns. How nice. For those of us in the trenches, taking grenades from every high school booster ad campaign or restaurant menu designer, advertising is a little less glamorous. Sure we'd love a billboard on every corner and a thirty second spot during primetime, but the Benjamins just ain't there! So what's a small fish to do in a big pond? Quit looking at our small size as a weakness, and recognize our strengths instead! Here's how.

Use Your Non-Billable Time Productively

One area where the lack of size matters is overhead. A small firm could run indefinitely on a large firm's monthly operating budget. Large firms are particularly vulnerable here as they've grown so accustomed to branding campaigns, gourmet cafeterias, and other such amenities for so long that they can't imagine practicing without them. They should at least cut the crappachino machine. But they won't. Their loss, your gain.

Time is on our side. While silent phones are disheartening, realize that because the large firm across town is responding to client emergencies around the clock they don't have time to learn new tricks like how to optimize their Web site for Google, or how to institute a paperless office. They'll just pay the next SEO shark lying in wait for a sucker to swim by — and not get much value for the big bucks they spend.

With your down time, you've made your way through Stephan Spencer, Rand Fishkin, and Jessie Stricchiola's The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization and learned about backlinks, content management systems, keyword-laden URLs, title tags, and more. With the money you saved by going paperless you now have enough scratch to get your Web site up and running. While the large firm lawyer across town just spilled his non-soy low-fat double-caramel latte on his monogrammed custom shirt while reviewing his slam-dunk marketing bill, you just took first place for "Seattle personal injury lawyer" on Google ninja style!

How Technology Created a New Frontier for Small Firms

Technology enabled small law firms to evolve from the primordial soup of big city boutique and small town general practice firms into the next big thing in our industry — more variety than even Darwin could imagine, including virtual practices. (Our ailing economy and the abysmal job prospects for law school graduates have also helped usher in this new era.)

Ten years ago the sole practitioner was revered as a sad little being that either couldn't play nice with the other children or didn't have the grades to get a job in a boutique or large firm. Back then if you wanted to go solo it helped to have a rich relative, preferably deceased. It took money. In my dad's day an electric typewriter was high-tech and the price tag reflected it. A small firm had to weigh the benefits of technology versus its cost.

Today, cost and technology rarely come at odds (except perhaps for those just out of law school). The new cost-benefit analysis focuses on technology versus productivity with a little cost sprinkled on top. For example, if you want to go paperless, buy a scanner for $450ish. Couple your new scanner with Dropbox, or any of the other myriad cloud services, and you've just gone paperless. Now a box of paper will last months rather than days. You will consume ink or toner only for printing court exhibits. Your filing cabinets hit eBay, and you stop sending a monthly check to that offsite storage provider.

Technology also empowers your marketing as intimated above. Before the advent of WordPress you had to understand Web development code such as ASP.Net or PHP if you wanted to create and maintain more than a brochure site. It was tough to learn and expensive to outsource. We were at the mercy of Web designers.

But now that you can register a domain for $10 per year, find great hosting options for under $100 per year, and run WordPress using a professionally-designed theme (I use Headway Themes) to make your site pop, you've got no excuse whatsoever to ignore the trend in our profession.

And what is that trend? That potential clients use Google for everything. Studies show that most folks will search for something before they ask the person sitting next to them. These people are searching for doctors, electricians, and yes even lawyers. And they're looking for answers, not your curriculum vitae. Lawyers publishing articles answering these questions are killing their competition.

What's in My Small Firm Toolbox?

I run a paperless office with a scanner and Dropbox. I ditched the fax machine in favor of an online fax-to-email service. $10 a month. I run www.clarkstewartlaw.com using WordPress (free) hosted by Bluehost ($80/year) so I don't have to learn code.

As I discussed extensively in my last SmallLaw column, I use an iPad 2 to remain paperless while in court and for many other mobile tasks. I use Fastcase (free on iPad or iPhone) for legal research, and Google Calendar and Gmail. And thanks to a very gracious offer during a current family hardship I'm having my calls answered by a virtual receptionist via Ruby Receptionist to lighten my load.

I learned how to do all this by reading SmallLaw and TechnoLawyer's other newsletters (I was a fan before I became a columnist) as well legal blogs like iPhone J.D. and Legal Practice Pro. I joined every legal email listserver I could find such as the ABA's Solosez. I also joined my state's criminal defense lawyers group. I now have access to legal marketing, mentoring, and beneficial technology for nothing more than my time!

In short, if you are willing to learn, technology can elevate your practice, enabling you to offer incredible value, once only available from large firms, to your clients at a fraction of the cost, thus beating the big boys at their own game. When that large firm across town shuts its doors, you can buy its crappachino machine at a discount.

Written by Gadsden, Alabama lawyer Clark Stewart.

How to Receive SmallLaw
Small firm, big dreams. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, SmallLaw provides you with a mix of practical advice that you can use today, and insight about what it will take for small law firms like yours to thrive in the future. The SmallLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of Fat Friday contains these articles:

Andrew Weltchek, Why I Bought An IPad 2 Instead Of A Laptop Plus My Favorite Apps

Steven Schwaber, Windows 7 Rebuttal: The Redmond Emperor Has No Clothes

Joseph Marquette, Why Annual Maintenance Plans Are No Longer Optional

Leslie Shear, The Benefits Of Reading Literature In Law School

Don't miss this issue — or any future issues.

How to Receive Fat Friday
Our most serendipitous offering, Fat Friday consists of unsolicited contributions by TechnoLawyer members. You'll no doubt enjoy it because of its mix of interesting topics and genuinely useful knowledge, including brutally honest product reviews and informative how-tos. The Fat Friday newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of Fat Friday contains these articles:

Harry Steinmetz, Review: An IPad In A Criminal Defense Practice

Gerard Haubrich, Reviews Of Flipboard And Zite On The IPad

Theo Rand, Is Electronic Discovery Highly Technical? No. Here's Why.

Thomas F. McDow, What's Missing From The Legal Internet

Mark Raby, Review: WordPerfect IFilter For Searching WPD Files

Don't miss this issue — or any future issues.

How to Receive Fat Friday
Our most serendipitous offering, Fat Friday consists of unsolicited contributions by TechnoLawyer members. You'll no doubt enjoy it because of its mix of interesting topics and genuinely useful knowledge, including brutally honest product reviews and informative how-tos. The Fat Friday newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.