TechnoLawyer Blog

Today's issue of Fat Friday contains these articles:

John Upton, Review: Jaybird Freedom Bluetooth Earphones

Barron Henley, Review: Acrobat V. OmniPage For OCR

Bobby Abrams, Review: LastPass V. RoboForm

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:

Eamon Wall, Let's Not Forget Android's Advantage In The GPS Navigation World

Stephen Seldin, The Truth About The Scansnap S1500 Series Plus PDF Software

William Henderson, A Conundrum: Flat Fees For Litigation

Question Of The Week: Please Share Your Top Technology Tip

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 TL NewsWire covers a transcript review app for the iPad (see article below), a scanning service, a new mobile scanner, and two new electronic discovery applications. Don't miss the next issue.

Transcript Review Meets the iPad

As a young litigator, I used a Mac program called Ready for Trial to review deposition transcripts and generate reports of key testimony. Once when I presented a report to a senior associate to append to our brief, he rejected it because it looked "too slick." Now long forgotten, Ready for Trial was ahead of its time and on the wrong platform. Enter Apple's revenge, otherwise known as the iPad, which already outsells Macs and will likely outsell all PCs before the end of this decade. While most legal vendors have only dipped a toe in the iPad waters, one legal vendor focuses solely on the iPad, including its newest app for transcripts.

TranscriptPad … in One Sentence
Released earlier this month, Lit Software's TranscriptPad is an iPad app for managing and reviewing transcripts.

The Killer Feature
Transcript review seems straightforward, but somewhere along the way transcript software became increasingly complex and expensive. TranscriptPad seeks to reverse this trend, and disrupt the marketplace in the process.

TranscriptPad costs $49.99. That's it. This one-time price includes new versions and support. The company already has a track record in this regard. Last year, Lit Software released TrialPad for exhibiting documents. Version 2.0 added more sophisticated trial presentation features at no charge to those who bought version 1.0.

"Lawyers want to mark up multiple depositions on a train, plane, or their favorite easy chair without juggling highlighters, tape flags, and post-it notes," Lit Software CEO Ian O'Flaherty told us. "They don't want to create accounts, register their documents, host them on someone else's server, or pay for upgrades or per-seat subscriptions every month or year. We designed TranscriptPad to meet their needs."

Other Notable Features
You can import transcripts in TXT format into TranscriptPad via Dropbox, email attachment, or iTunes sync. TranscriptPad also supports exhibits in PDF format.

Once you load transcripts, you can organize them by client/matter, and of course review them. You can choose between manually flipping through transcript pages or having TranscriptPad automatically scroll (you can adjust the speed). A scroll bar along the side works like a scrubber, enabling you to navigate to a specific page and line of testimony.

You can also search through a single deposition, all depositions for a witness, or all depositions for a case. TranscriptPad's tools include the ability to flag and designate key testimony, and create and assign color-coded issues.

What Else Should You Know?
After reviewing transcripts, you can generate reports (e.g., designated testimony pertaining to an issue) in PDF or TXT format, and print or email them to yourself and colleagues. TranscriptPad works on the original iPad and iPad 2. Learn more about TranscriptPad.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to BlawgWorld: Our editorial team has selected and linked to 99 articles from the past week worthy of your attention, including our Post of the Week. Here's a sample:

Document Management Tips

Apple's Disguised Docking Station for Laptops

Alternative Fees 101: Oxycodone Cannot Replace Billable Hour

RFP Attorney: A New Client Development Platform

This issue also contains links to every article in the January/February 2012 issue of Law Technology News. Don't miss this issue or future issues.

How to Receive BlawgWorld
Our newsletters provide the most comprehensive coverage of legal technology, practice management, and law firm marketing, but not the only coverage. To stay on top of all the noteworthy articles published in blogs and other online publications you could either hire a research assistant or simply subscribe to BlawgWorld. The BlawgWorld newsletter has received rave reviews and is free. 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.

Today's issue of TL Answers 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 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 TL Answers contains these articles:

Philip Franckel, Review Of Andrea ANC-700 USB Headset Plus Dragon Professional Tips

Edward Figlarz, Review: NView For Managing Multiple Monitors

Theodore Borrego, Our Law Firm's Advice About Moving From Windows XP To 7

Nancy Mertzel, Review: MessageSave As An Alternative To SimplyFile

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

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 TL NewsWire covers a program that tracks the time you spend in client-related email (see article below), a site that enables you to compare smartphones, a new online practice management and document assembly application, and an iOS app with a legal dictionary, settlement calculator and other such tools for lawyers. Don't miss the next issue.

Automatically Track Time Spent on Client-Related Email

Late last year, Business Insider, a publication that breathlessly covers startup companies and new technologies, admitted that the world is not changing that fast. The article noted that every minute people post 695,000 Facebook status updates (impressive), but send 168 million email messages (off the charts). Among lawyers, the numbers are likely even more skewed in email's favor. Because lawyers spend so much time in email, that's where they lose the most billable time. Did you spend 25 minutes or 35 minutes replying to your client? Most lawyers are honest so they under-guesstimate, but accuracy is not a crime. The new version of a popular time tracking program can help.

Chrometa 2012 … in One Sentence
Chrometa 2012 automatically captures and categorizes the time you spend working on your computer plus it can track offline time too.

The Killer Feature
Previous versions of Chrometa would tell you how much time you spent in Outlook or in Gmail throughout the day, enabling you to capture all that time. But it didn't list the time per message so if you read 25 work-related email messages, and sent 10 you'd have to look back at your messages and apportion the time among them -- a fair amount of work.

Chrometa 2012 now shows you the time spent per message, identifying each message by subject line, to/from/cc fields, and if applicable even the email folder name.

Chrometa 2012 achieves this feat via two free plugins for Microsoft Outlook and Gmail respectively. The Outlook plugin works with Outlook 2007 and 2010, while the Gmail plugin works with Google's Chrome browser on Mac and Windows.

"Our new Chrometa plugins for Microsoft Outlook and Gmail close the loop on email," Chrometa CEO Brett Owens told us. "Once you install our email plugins, you'll never lose another minute of billable email time or waste time reconstructing that billable time."

Other Notable Features
Chrometa 2012 captures time on Macs and PCs. It notices when you stop using your computer such as for a phone call and can ask you about it so you can also track offline time. You access and manage your captured time using a web browser.

Chrometa 2012 can automatically categorize the time it captures. For example, now that Chrometa can capture time spent per email message, you can create a rule for each client or even matter. Then Chrometa will place all email time per client or per matter into that category. The rules work for all the time Chrometa captures (e.g., time spent in Word documents). When you log into your Chrometa account, you can convert all the time captured in a category into time entries with one click.

Also new in Chrometa 2012 is the ability to create bills (invoices). In other words, Chrometa can now serve as your billing program, not just your time capture program. You can send bills directly from Chrometa via email or export them into DOC, PDF, or XLS formats.

If you already use a billing system, Chrometa offers a growing number of integrations, including Clio, FreshBooks, QuickBooks, PCLaw, and Timeslips. You can also export Chrometa time entries and import them into virtually any billing system.

What Else Should You Know?
You can choose from three versions of Chrometa (all single user) or from two versions of Chrometa for Teams (for multiple users). Pricing for Chrometa starts at $19 per month, whereas pricing for Chrometa for Teams starts at the same price per user per month. Learn more about Chrometa 2012.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to BlawgWorld: Our editorial team has selected and linked to 105 articles from the past week worthy of your attention, including our Post of the Week. Here's a sample:

Legal Forms for the Price of a Song on iTunes?

The Most Tech-Friendly Airports and Airlines

Female Lawyers Make Their Own Tracks to Success

Law Firm SEO Is Not An Advertising Strategy

Don't miss this issue or future issues.

How to Receive BlawgWorld
Our newsletters provide the most comprehensive coverage of legal technology, practice management, and law firm marketing, but not the only coverage. To stay on top of all the noteworthy articles published in blogs and other online publications you could either hire a research assistant or simply subscribe to BlawgWorld. The BlawgWorld newsletter has received rave reviews and is free. Please subscribe now.

Originally published in our free TL NewsWire newsletter. Instead of reading TL NewsWire here, sign up now to receive future issues via email.

Prevent Inadvertent Disclosures and Other Email Mishaps

The early days of the web favored large firms. Tim Berners Lee gave the world HTML, and Marc Andreessen the web browser. But if you wanted a client portal — then known as an extranet — for secure communications and document sharing you had two expensive choices: build it yourself or use overpriced turnkey solutions. As a result, small law firms and even most large law firms still use plain old email for client communications. Now, email is fine for newsletters like TL NewsWire, but it's not ideal for confidential attorney-client communications or exchanging large files. Fortunately, even sole practitioners can now afford a client portal.

Privacy Data Systems All-in-One Privacy Suite … in One Sentence
Privacy Data Systems All-in-One Privacy Suite (PDS Professional) is web communications service that enables law firms to securely exchange messages and large files with clients.

The Killer Feature
Under immense pressure, many bar associations have given their blessing to email for client communications. So you need not worry about being disbarred if you misaddress an email message, just fired and maybe sued — with perhaps negative reviews on Avvo, Google Places, Yelp, and elsewhere too. Not good. A lesser problem but still a problem occurs when you correctly send an email message but it ends up unread in your client's spam folder.

PDS Professional eliminates email mishaps. For example, if you misaddress an email message, the unintended recipient won't be able to read it because they won't have the access code. When you correctly send a message, PDS Professional provides "immediate and irrefutable" proof of delivery.

"Lawyers and their clients need to communicate quickly, and share documents with each other, but standard email systems are not secure enough to maintain privacy," Privacy Data Systems Vice President of Operations Ray Blackburn told us. "We have put together an affordable suite of privacy tools that combines security with the ease-of-use of email."

Other Notable Features
PDS Professional provides your firm with a Secure Inbox — an encrypted web page branded with your logo — that you can provide to your clients. As a result, unlike other services, your clients need not register to send you secure messages and documents. Likewise, they don't need an account or any plugins to receive messages and documents from you.

PDS Professional includes a number of bank-grade security features, including view-only documents, watermarked documents, electronic signatures, rights management settings, message recall, and biometric authentication.

For example, the eSignature technology enables your clients to sign documents electronically using a process approved by the ESIGN Act. Rights management enables you to impose controls on messages such as preventing printing, downloading, forwarding, etc. With Message Recall, you can prevent delivery of a message you have already sent. If your client has already read the message, you can prevent it from being opened again.

What Else Should You Know?
In addition to all this security, PDS Professional enables you to send large files. Each licensee receives 2 GB of storage space, which you can increase if needed. PDS Professional works in all modern web browsers. It costs either $14.50 per month, or $145 per year. You can try it for free. Learn more about PDS Professional.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.