TechnoLawyer: Business Productivity/Word Processing

Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers a secure online storage service (see below), software that can digitize your paper forms and send the data into your legacy applications, and a practice management program for Mac users. Don't miss the next issue.

Three Steps to a Paperless Office
By Taeho Lim

You can never be too thin. That's a lie. Just ask Esther Canadas. You can never be too rich. That's also a lie if you don't want fame along with your fortune. You can never have enough storage or too little paper. Bingo!

File123's eponymous online service promises the most elusive of all technology promises — the paperless law office. As its name implies, File123 boils the storage process down to three steps: transfer digital files from your computer via upload or email, scan, or fax your paper documents, and then organize and back up your vault contents.

The functionality of File123 revolves around its searchable, sortable, sendable, and secure online file repository. To search for the file you need, enter a keyword and File123 looks for that term(s) and lists the relevant files. Add more files via fax, scan, email, or Web browser, or just drop them into File123's network drive application. When you need to share files, choose what you want to send and either email your recipients an attachment or a link that leads to a secure download page on the Web.

File123 also features a "Dashboard" from which you can add files, review recent account activity, and manage your folders. You add, delete, and reorganize folders just as you would on your Mac or PC — just drag and drop files and folders. Finally, File123 features 256-bit browser security to ensure that no one but you can access your storage vault.

A File123 account gives you 1 GB of free storage. Upgrading to a 10 GB account costs $4.95/month. Other plans exist for those who need even more storage since, after all, you can never get enough. No word on an unlimited plan though. Learn more about File123.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Wednesdays, TechnoLawyer NewsWire is a weekly newsletter that enables you to learn about new technology products and services of interest to legal professionals. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Coming October 18, 2007 to Answers to Questions: Neil Packard discusses the task of selecting an eDiscovery vendor, Pamela Coleman provides detailed instructions for annotating PDF files with Acrobat, Sandra Adams shares her insight on choosing a practice management solution, LexisNexis Product Manager Alan Tuback responds to a recent question about the link between PCLaw and Time Matters, and Peter Bender reviews the accounting capabilities of Amicus Small Firm. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published Thursdays, Answers to Questions is a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Coming October 20, 2007 to Fat Friday: Matt Baker reviews BlackBerry Desktop and Windows Mobile with ActiveSync (his firm didn't just compare these competing mobile solutions on paper, but used both in the field), Simon Laurent discusses the details of his firm's paperless workflow, John Feeney responds to a recent TechnoFeature article on successful legal blogging (plus adds a few comments about trolls, the online variety), James Atkins reviews LogMeIn for remote access while traveling, and Martin Dean unveils the easiest word processing program to learn on the job. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Fridays, Fat Friday is a weekly newsletter that features a grab bag full of genuinely useful product reviews and tips on a wide variety of topics. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

BlawgWorld enables you to explore and discover legal blogs (blawgs) without spinning your wheels. It features the best essays of the year from 77 of the most influential blawgs.

TechnoLawyer Problem/Solution Guide uses a question/answer format to help you find solutions to problems commonly encountered by law firms. It contains 185 solutions organized into 58 topics.

Thanks to the eBook's inspired design, you're never more than three clicks away from what you want to read. BlawgWorld 2007-08 with TechnoLawyer Problem/Solution Guide has received glowing reviews from many publications. For example, LLRX writes:

"The substance of both books is exceptional, while the eBook format is innovative and inviting.... [The eBook] was designed to open in just about any PDF viewer and it worked very well in my various tests.... The best part of the entire eBook is that it is free."

Download Your Free Copy Now
BlawgWorld 2007-08 with TechnoLawyer Problem/Solution Guide is truly free — no registration hassles.

So please download your copy now (PDF file).

And then enter our sweepstakes.

Coming October 5, 2007 to Fat Friday: Anita Evans provides some Styles tips for Microsoft Word, Ben Schorr reviews Treo 700WX with Windows Mobile 5, Roy Greenberg explains how he sends email to a client who doesn't use email, "Mr. Paper LESS Office" Ross Kodner discusses his love affair with paper and why that's not at odds with his teachings, and Ronald Cappuccio uses a clever analogy to describe Dell's upselling tactics (but our publisher chimes in with his own analogy). Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Fridays, Fat Friday is a weekly newsletter that features a grab bag full of genuinely useful product reviews and tips on a wide variety of topics. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Coming September 28, 2007 to Fat Friday: Steven Schwaber implores general counsel to hire more small law firms, Mazyar Hedayat shares his thoughts on the new lawyer-rating Web site Avvo, Anna Marie Sossong reviews the Cirque Touchpad, Philip Franckel describes his document naming system, and Joyce Kawahata explains why her firm uses both WordPerfect and Microsoft Word. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Fridays, Fat Friday is a weekly newsletter that features a grab bag full of genuinely useful product reviews and tips on a wide variety of topics. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Coming September 27, 2007 to Answers to Questions: Gerard Stubbert reviews his Sony Vaios as well as his son's HP Compaq Tablet PC, Peter Bender reviews Amicus Small Firm, Michael Dowden provides three helpful tips for more secure WiFi in a law firm, Corey Rich explains how to use Acrobat 8 Professional with transcripts, and Cynthia Zook explains how to fix a WordPerfect X3 bug when comparing documents. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published Thursdays, Answers to Questions is a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers an online expense report service, stylish software for accounting, case management, and time-billing, and a business process integration tool that can communicate with just about any legacy system a law firm might have. Don't miss the next issue.

Below you'll find one of the three articles from today's edition:

Control Your Practice in Style
By Taeho Lim

Once upon a time no one seemed to care about user interface design. Then Apple released a music player with a breakthrough interface. Software companies changed their tune and focused their energy on simple, elegant interfaces. World peace ensued. Life was good. The end.

Of course, the story doesn't really end like that. Lots of bad software design still exists. But some software companies have embraced interface design as a competitive advantage. One such company is ESI Software, which recently released ESILAW 2007 (pronounced "easy law") — "time, billing, accounting, and client control software for law firms."

One of the most notable new features is not a feature per se, but a "Follow Me" help system that guides you through the functions of the program. Also new is the "QuickStart Navigator," which helps you set up the software. After setting up ESILAW, you'll find the "ESILAW Navigator," which takes you to any function in the program with one click. You can also create your own toolbar for even faster access to the functions you use the most.

If you bill your time, you can use ESILAW 2007's Timetracker to keep track of it for you. It features time codes, timers, an integrated spell checker, and more. You can also email your time entries when on the road and import your time from other programs such as Amicus Attorney. ESILAW 2007 also supports task-based billing, including UTBMS codes.

As a full-fledged accounting program, ESILAW 2007 contains many features you would expect such as check writing, accounts payable, accounts receivable, etc., and a few you might not such as expense tracking and cost recovery. In addition to entering expenses such as travel, you can also automatically capture equipment costs from virtually any cost recovery system, including Equitrac, PrintAudit, and Copitrak.

As you would expect, ESILAW 2007 enables you to generate many reports, including work-in-progress and collection realization. You can generate all your bills from a single screen. If you don't finish in one session, ESILAW 2007 will save your place so you can return later.

What the company calls "client control," you probably refer to as case or practice management. In this regard, ESI significantly beefed up its calendar in ESILAW 2007. At a glance, you can see your appointments and tasks. You can also create time entries from calendar items. Sharing calendars across your firm doesn't require any additional software.

Like many programs, ESILAW 2007 integrates with Outlook so that you can associate email with clients and matters. But ESILAW 2007 takes this integration one step further with an option to add Quickfile4Outlook, an Outlook add-on that enables you to file incoming and outgoing email into client/matter folders. Quickfile4Outlook can also archive and print email by matter.

ESILAW 2007 is compatible with Windows Vista as well as Windows 2000 and Windows XP. It sells for $249 by itself or $348 if bundled with Quickfile4Outlook. Learn more about ESILAW 2007.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Wednesdays, TechnoLawyer NewsWire is a weekly newsletter that briefly discusses and provides links to three hot new technology products and services of interest to legal professionals. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. You can subscribe here.

Coming September 18, 2007 to TechnoFeature: Document Comparison. Document Security. Years ago, these terms didn't exist. However, today if you don't have a solution for these issues, you're likely collaborating on documents inefficiently and needlessly exposing some secrets. In this article, document assembly expert Marc Lauritsen takes a look at the latest version of Workshare Professional and its place in the bustling ecosystem of document technologies. Before you save one more Word document or create one more PDF file, read Marc's review to see if Workshare Professional 5 could benefit your firm. As an added bonus, Workshare weighs in on Marc's review.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Tuesdays, TechnoFeature is a weekly newsletter that contains in-depth articles written by leading legal technology and practice management experts. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Coming September 20, 2007 to Answers to Questions: Kurt Schoettler discusses the Windows XP versus Vista issue, Andrea Cannavina reviews Express Scribe and Winscribe, Alvin Thomas explains the ins and outs of buying Tabs3 from a reseller, Martin Dean explains how to convert PDF files to Word format and add text to PDF files, and Cynthia Zook shares her low-tech password management solution. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published Thursdays, Answers to Questions is a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.