TechnoLawyer: Email/Messaging/Telephony

Presenters: Carolyn Elefant and David Masters
Friday, March 14 at 8:30 am

A small firm or solo attorney could hardly ask for more. Before me, on the second day of what was already shaping up to be the most interesting TechShow in years, sat a pair of legends in solo practice — Carolyn Elefant and David Masters.

They needed no introduction to the standing-room-only crowd that had packed the Hilton meeting room that morning. Nor do they need an introduction to any of us who believe in the Internet as the great leveler. They were here to discuss how to make smart technology decisions as a small firm and solo practice lawyer. They wasted no time setting out the factors to consider:

• Cost
• Mobility
• Ease of Use
• Available Support
• Compatibility
• Security

With these in mind, technology decisions can be narrowed down to:

• Mac v. PC
• Laptops v. Desktops
• Multiple Monitors
• Multifunction Machines
• Handheld Computers
• Software
• Collaboration
• Adobe Acrobat
• Backup Strategies
• Communications Tools
• Email Tools

Mac v. PC

Proponents of the Mac will tell you they are more stable, virtually virus-proof, easy to use, intuitive, and have more third party applications being built for them all the time. PC people on the other hand point out that PC's have a lower overall operating cost, are slightly less expensive to acquire, have far more third party applications available, and simply represent the flagship of business computing. Since neither side has been proven 100% right or wrong yet, the speakers suggested an integration strategy. Since PCs and Macs can coexist on the same network, bi-curious practitioners should mix and match to determine which system works better for them.

[They can also co-exist in the same computer with virtualization software like Parallels and Fusion.]

Laptop v. Desktop

David was quite clear about his preference for a laptop, citing its inherent mobility, fewer moving parts to damage, synchronization with your home office, and the drop in price in recent years. Desktops on the other hand remain the champs when it comes to power, applications, and configuration options. In the end, all that extra RAM and ROM will secure the position of the desktop as ruler of the law office until laptops establish an insurmountable advantage or can't-do-without-it set of features (MacBook Air anyone?).

[While tablet PC's were not discussed, I'd bet money they will be on next year's agenda].

Note: When selecting a laptop, look for

• Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
• At least 1 GB of RAM
• At least 80 GB Hard Drive
• CD/RW-DVD capability
• At least a 14" screen

Multiple Monitors

Dual monitors were generally acknowledged to increase productivity and therefore ROI. In that regard the UltraMon utility was recommended by David. The point is to situate programs on the various screens (one or two per monitor) and reduce the number of clicks it takes to complete a task or switch between tasks. There was really no dispute from those present.

[Incidentally, the University of Utah just released a study finding that a 24 inch monitor is ideal for maximizing productivity. It did not study dual monitor use. See Ben Worthen, Bigger Computer Monitors = More Productivity, Wall Street Journal.]

Multifunction Machines

The topic of multifunction machines that print, scan, copy, and fax went without much fanfare. Who could object? In fact the very idea of a single-use machine seems archaic nowadays — although David expressed his wistfulness for some fine machines from his past. Added features to keep in mind include 2-sided printing and scanning, as well as faxing both in "hard copy" form and electronically (though electronic faxing is generally done from the desktop via software such as eFax and WinFax).

Handheld Computers

There was much to discuss here, with the debate centering on whether a PDA needs to be bundled with a phone and whether its true purpose is to unify communications, enhance mobility, un-tether users from the office, or act as a low-resolution laptop replacement. At this point an audience member asked whether anything inhabited the space in-between handhelds and laptops. Enter the sub-notebook. Another audience member had one to show. In the end the speakers ticked off a list of suitable units including:

• iPhone
• Palm Treo
• BlackBerry
• Sony
• Motorola Q

Software

Nowadays software is everywhere and nowhere. Lawyers can't work without good software, but often try to make their software do what it can't. Stick to the basics:

Word-Processing
The usual suspects here include Microsoft Word (2003, 2007, etc.) and of course Corel's sentimental favorite WordPerfect product. Less traditional but more interesting alternatives include OpenOffice (now NeoOffice) and Google Docs. There is an abundance of choice in this department.

Digital Dictation
Again, the standards were trotted out here including Dragon NaturallySpeaking and (surprise!) outsourcing in India or even near-sourcing in the U.S. by using a digital dictation and transcription service.

[Last year at TechShow, a company called QuickSek had a booth. This company transcribes overnight or even the same day — you can dictate by phone. No booth this year.]

Practice Management
Amicus Attorney, Time Matters, PracticeMaster, and ProLaw were mentioned by the speakers; and although Outlook 2007 appears to be creeping into the space traditionally occupied by such products, it was specifically not recommended as a practice management solution. The speakers were clear on that.

Time and Billing
In this category Timeslips, Tabs3, and PCLaw were the favorites.

[Again, Outlook was not mentioned although the Journal feature includes a timer. Also missing was new market entrant Bill4Time, a Web application.]

Collaboration

The speakers mixed things up a bit here, beginning with the more traditional concept of the Extranet and proceeding to the more exotic offerings from BaseCamp, Zoho, Google Apps, and the wonderful world of Wikis. It's no coincidence that the ABA just published an entire book on this subject. For the audience at this event however, there was no need to go into any great detail. Any of the suggested solutions was adequate for the needs of a small firm or sole-practitioner.

Adobe Acrobat

David Masters wrote the book on Adobe Acrobat for lawyers. No, really; he wrote The Lawyer's Guide to Adobe Acrobat, now in its second edition. So it was no surprise that David considers Acrobat to be the most efficient document format in the market, as well as the standard for e-filing and scanning. He recommended using a sheet-fed, flatbed scanner for best results.

Backup Strategies

Already the source of much confusion and fear, backing up is essential. With that in mind both Carolyn and David suggested:

• Daily backup is essential — develop the discipline.
• Make sure you're catching relevant files in each backup.
• Make sure you can restore reliably using this system.
• Backup off-site as well as on-site.

Communications Tools

Sure, voice over IP (VoIP) is less expensive than using traditional telephone lines and cell towers, but is it time for a small-firm or sole-practitioner to take the plunge? According to these speakers yes — the time has come. In addition, users now have an unprecedented choice of Internet-based calling, messaging, and communication options including:

• Free Conference Call
• Grand Central

Email Tools

As the price of email technology and storage has plummeted the small-firm and solo attorney has been deluged with the same range of choices as a big-firm practitioner: desk-based, Web-based, POP3, IMAP, Exchange, etc. The point is to use the safest alternative and always get a good spam filtering system.

Conclusion

At the end of presentation the audience gave the speakers a well-deserved ovation. Also, I'm guessing they left better off than they arrived. I know I did. Unfortunately however, I had to be in court by mid-day so this was the end of day two of TechShow for me. Still, if I had to pick only one session to attend this was it.

Read more firsthand reports from ABA TechShow 2008.

About TechnoLawyer Trade Show Reports
Even in today's wired world, trade shows continue to play an important role. But not everyone can attend trade shows. Hence, our trade show reports, which bring trade shows to you. You can find our trade show reports here in TechnoLawyer Blog, and also in TechnoGuide, a free newsletter that also contains exclusive content. Learn more about TechnoGuide.

Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers an email archiving and disaster recovery solution (see article below), a turnkey hardware/software paperless office system that works with any scanner or MFP, and a new 46 inch plasma TV for movie buffs and gamers alike. Don't miss the next issue.

Hold Everything
By Neil J. Squillante

Have you ever rummaged through a shoe box of old photos trying to decide which ones to have scanned and which ones to discard only to realize making case by case decisions is incredibly slow and inefficient? Chance are you'll just send the entire shoe box off for scanning.

Email archiving is similar. While most email archiving solutions encourage you to develop policies as to what to keep and what to discard, Forensic and Compliance System takes a different approach with its Cryoserver email archiving appliance — keep everything.

As a result, the company claims that Cryoserver is the only solution that has a complete record of all your email and attachments, including metadata. And because Cryoserver consists of a software-hardware combination, the company further claims that your data is collected in a forensically-sound and tamper-proof manner. The need for a litigation hold doesn't exist in a Cryoserver world because you're always holding everything.

When you first install Cryoserver, it can transparently offload email from Microsoft Exchange servers. Because of the volume of data Cryoserver stores, it provides robust tools for finding what you need in seconds for eDiscovery purposes or simply because you mistakenly deleted a message. You can access Cryoserver through your email program or a Web browser, both of which offer a familiar interface to reduce the learning curve.

Cryoserver offers protection against disasters through it's replication technology, which requires one or more Cryoserver appliances in other locations. Also, Cryoserver can scale from just a handful of email accounts at a small firm to more than one hundred thousand accounts at large corporations. Learn more about Cryoserver.

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Presenters: Adriana Linares and Catherine Sanders Reach
Thursday, March 13 at 4:15 pm

Every year the LPM Section includes a series of "roundtable" sessions designed for attendees to share real-world experiences with colleagues. However, these roundtable sessions are presided over by speakers with a great deal of experience.

This session featured uber-trainer and TechShow board member Adriana Linares of LawTech Partners and Catherine Sanders Reach of the ABA's Legal Technology Resource Center, both of whom shared their insights on one of the most ubiquitous and vexing of all office applications — Outlook.

The discussion/lecture covered Outlook 2003 and 2007 based on a 50/50 show of hands from the audience — meaning presumably that nobody in the audience used an older version than that, or was willing to fess up if they did. In any case I was lucky to be seated up-front because it was a packed house with the speakers and the audience engaged in a rapid-fire exchange. The allotted hour hardly seemed adequate for the number of useful tidbits flying from the speakers or the many questions lobbed from those in attendance. I've tried to capture the highlights of the discussion by topic for the benefit of our readers. Enjoy.

Searching

The principal difference between Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 when it comes to searching is that the latter has search built-in, while the former uses the anemic search utility that comes bundled with Windows. Outlook 2007 even highlights search terms automatically and with a simple right-click can accommodate some of the most common searches such as "related messages" and messages from a particular sender or conversation thread. Popular add-ons for searching in Outlook include:

• Google Desktop
• Copernic Desktop
• X1
• LookOut (Outlook 2003 only)

Another useful practice is to save and re-use effective search strings and put the results into a particular folder, such as "Today's Mail," "Messages from Mom," etc. Using pre-written searches in conjunction with follow up flags, deadlines, tasks, and labels (aka 'tags' by name, event, etc.) will provide the most effective search results.

Backup

When backing up items related to you look for your particular .pst file. You can download a Personal Folder Backup tool at the Outlook Web site that automatically backs up your .pst's. Yet another backup technique involves creating a shortcut to your .pst folders (once you find them 7 levels deep in the file hierarchy) and periodically backing up to that location. The resulting backup folder can be password protected for security and saved to a CD for permanency. The speakers suggest keeping all personal information in such folders, including not just email but calendar items, contacts, tasks, etc. so that you can restore your identity in the event of corruption, destruction, damage, etc.

Archiving

Yet another way to use .pst files is to archive and remove all messages, calendar items, tasks, and contacts related to a closed case. The speakers pointed out that archived files should be saved as searchable PDF documents rather than in native format to ensure longevity. One advantage of using PDF in such situations is that it preserves the attachments as well their host email messages. But be sure to keep it uniform — for example, Outlook 2003 saves archived items as PDF files while Outlook 2007 saves them as more complete (but space-intensive) PDF packages.

Sorting

A truly useful alternative to searching for items is to sort them to a reliable location in the first place. That's where the use of Outlook Rules comes in. Adriana Linares suggests using Rules retroactively as well to gather all like messages, contacts, calendar items, and tasks in a single place. But before you set up a gaggle of rules that could actually counter-act one another, consider this handy scenario proposed by Adriana Linares:

• Add a "To" field in your Inbox to identify items sent directly to you by name as opposed to those sent to a group of which you are a member, a discussion forum, your company, etc.

• Further categorize messages by color-coding or sorting, with only the ones sent directly to you visible up-front (or identified in an eye-catching color).

Simple but effective. Likewise, consider this tip for viewing multiple or like calendar items on the same page: hold down the Control key and select multiple items or dates with your mouse to display your schedule for all of those items on a single page (which you can print, or save as a custom calendar view).

Contacts

To take advantage of the built-in contact relationship management (CRM) feature in Outlook, drag all the items (calendar, task, etc.) related to that contact into their "notes" panel. While it is tempting to including documents related to a contact in this easy-to-use drag-and-drop area, the speakers strongly counsel against it. Once you've done this you can keep related items connected going forward by using the "related contact" field.

To speed the process further hold down Alt K and put in portion of a contact's name — Outlook finds the rest and fills it in for you. After that you can spread your own contact information by including vCards in your email messages and downloading vCard attachments from those with whom you communicate. Once a contact has been included in your system the process of connecting them to the right items and staying connected begins all over again.

Outlook as Case Management System

On this topic the ABA will soon publish a series by Ben Shore. Until then the question remains whether Outlook can be used as a kind of case-management system. According to the speakers: short answer is "no ... but" and long answer is "yes ... if." Got that?

Case Management Systems with two-way Outlook integration:

• Amicus Attorney
• Tabs 3
• ProLaw
• Time Matters

Third party plug-ins that almost make Outlook into a Case Management System:

• Anagram
• LinkedIn Toolbar
• Hiddenbcc
• SpeedFiler
• QuickFile 4Outlook - Lawyer's Edition
• GTD Plug-In for Outlook
• Payne Metadata Assistant
• Xobni (currently in beta, look for coverage in TechnoLawyer NewsWire when released)

[I myself suggest Agendus and 4Team.]

Finally, oh ye of little faith behold: Outlook now synchronizes with Google Calendar! Hallelujah! Also worth noting in this department is Plaxo, which has attempted to become your universal online calendar, contact manager, and social networking hub — and yes, it synchronizes with Outlook, Google, MSN, AOL, and the rest of the Internet alphabet soup.

Read more firsthand reports from ABA TechShow 2008.

About TechnoLawyer Trade Show Reports
Even in today's wired world, trade shows continue to play an important role. But not everyone can attend trade shows. Hence, our trade show reports, which bring trade shows to you. You can find our trade show reports here in TechnoLawyer Blog, and also in TechnoGuide, a free newsletter that also contains exclusive content. Learn more about TechnoGuide.

Presenters: Brett Burney and Dominic Jaar
Saturday, March 15 at 8:30 am

It turns out I already knew one of the speakers at this seminar. Dominic Jaar works at Bell Canada and has been a correspondent of mine on FaceBook for a while.

Brett Burney started us off with a joke and led seamlessly into Dominic's first demonstration: sending a presentation to the projector wirelessly via his BlackBerry. That was met with a well-earned round of applause, and was a great way to demonstrate what this session was all about — remote control, mobile style.

With that, the panel launched into the meat of the presentation: an assessment of what was out there for the road warrior. The discussion focused on the most popular and powerful hand-held multi-task devices:

• BlackBerry
• Treo (and Palm)
• iPhone

BlackBerry

According to Dominic Jaar the Blackberry is the "default phone" for mobile lawyers. Device manufacturer Research in Motion (RIM) provides a number of ways in which users can make BlackBerry their own and enhance productivity including:

1. Customizing the look and feel.

2. Customizing the ring tones.

3. Full suite of built-in options.

4. Gaggle of 3rd party applications.

BlackBerry presentation tools such as the one demonstrated by Dominic include:

• BBScreenStream (real-time stream and record)
• Jl_Cmder (wiping out sensitive information)

Joining a user community can also enhance and extend the BlackBerry experience. Some of Dominic's favorites include:

• PinStack
• CrackBerry
• BlackBerry Cool
• Berry Review

If you're going mobile then you've got to use digital dictation. Regardless of the system you choose the idea is to record and send wirelessly. Dominic uses a combination of RDM Plus, VR+, and Dragon NaturallySpeaking to dictate and send documents directly to his desktop for later editing or right to his secretary/assistant for real-time productivity.

Speaking of documents, BlackBerry does not use the Microsoft Office suite. Instead RIM has prompted a number of third party vendors like e-Office whose products allow you to create and even edit documents on the fly. You can send the output wirelessly to a Bluetooth enabled printer or fax machine.

In fact honest-to-goodness mobile lawyering requires Bluetooth in abundance: from phones and ear pieces to printers and computers. This means that you can skip the bulk by using peripherals wherever you are as long as you have plenty of onboard storage (such as a 2 GB memory stick) or are "tethering" — that is, constantly connected to a virtual private network (VPN) at the office. But the real advantage to tethering is when you start with an unlimited data plan then use your BlackBerry as a modem to interact with the VPN and its members. For now tethering is a large-firm technique but as costs come down its use will continue to grow.

When it comes to saving money and making the BlackBerry (or any mobile solution) affordable, it's hard to beat solutions that use voice over IP (VOIP) to replace toll-calls with calls via fixed-fee data plans (often at a fraction of regular cell service).  Such applications include:

• Iskoot (best — as it uses Skype)
• Jajah
• Eqo
• Raketu

BlackBerry's email capabilities are legendary, but dealing with voluminous mail is another story. To cleanly and painlessly review reams of email (or just check your messages from a week ago), Dominic recommended:

• SmartView
• Empower

Google is Here and BlackBerry May Never Be the Same

While its suite of lightweight applications is ideal for the BlackBerry, Google was long rumored to be coming out with its own mobile "phone." That is, until it turned out that rumors of the gPhone had been greatly exaggerated and the real deal turned out to be "Android," Google's mobile platform designed to allow innovative small companies to create applications (much like RIM has done with BlackBerry itself).

Compare Apple's proprietary iPhone and its recent release of its software development kit (SDK) to developers to Google's commitment to open standards. Despite the cachet of the iPhone, Google and RIM may take the day — consider Google's current mobile platform — maps, mail, documents, calendar, RSS reader, the so-called Google Mobile Updater (really an all-in-one update), mobile search, and more.

Palm

Palm has been around the longest and is responsible for the beloved Treo line of smartphones such as:

• Treo 680
• Palm Centro [highly recommended]

One interesting note about Palm-enabled devices is that they can connect to the Internet without having to rely on WiFi by using applications such as those offered by June Networks. Both of these give you a choice of Sprint/Verizon or AT&T and, like all devices running the Palm operating system (OS), integrate with Palm Desktop as well as Outlook.

Of course Palm Desktop has become a bit of a dinosaur. It was the company's attempt to create a proprietary personal information manager (PIM) but was virtually abandoned in the shadow of Outlook. Just as well though, since it turns out that the ability to send and receive email is what really drives the popularity of mobile handsets and operating systems (hence BlackBerry's reign). In short, PIM RIP.

As for documents on Palm, users appear to be more interested in viewing them than composing them. The speaker's choice in this department was "Documents to Go" from DataViz, which opens all Microsoft Office documents including Office 2007 documents, as well as PDFs.

When it comes to email, for large firms, the name of the game is not pull but push. That is, lawyers whose home offices need to send them information want to have the right documents and messages pushed out to them (such as by means of a Microsoft Exchange client). Small-firm and solo attorneys however, generally pull messages, documents, and other information from a server using a POP3 or IMAP format.  In any case, applications of note in this department include

• SnapperMail
• ChatterEmail ["pull" clients — check server]
• VersaMail by GoodLink ["push" clients — constant sync]

iPhone

Short on time, the speakers blew through this part of the presentation and had precious little to say about the iPhone as a business tool in any event, pointing out that use of Apple in the business context remained an open question. They did list the following pros and cons:

Negatives

• Cannot add memory.
• Cannot replace battery easily.
• Lack of business applications.
• Lack of third party partners.
• Must use iTunes.
• Must use AT&T.
• ATT's Internet access ("Edge") sucks.
• No copy/paste.
• No to-do list.

Positives

This section intentionally left blank ... well okay, it's really cool.

The consensus was that having an iPhone was a blast, but using it for business was a chore. Maybe the next-generation iPhone will get it right.

Download Dominic's presentation (ppt).

Read more firsthand reports from ABA TechShow 2008.

About TechnoLawyer Trade Show Reports
Even in today's wired world, trade shows continue to play an important role. But not everyone can attend trade shows. Hence, our trade show reports, which bring trade shows to you. You can find our trade show reports here in TechnoLawyer Blog, and also in TechnoGuide, a free newsletter that also contains exclusive content. Learn more about TechnoGuide.

Coming March 18, 2008 to TechnoFeature: With all the talk about Web 2.0, email remains the neglected black sheep of the Internet — with regard to venture capital. In all other respects, it remains the once and future killer app. Like the Web, email technology has evolved, and so has our usage. BlackBerry anyone? So the time has come for new rules! In this insightful article, litigators David J. Goldstone and Robert Frederickson III revisit the rules of email etiquette we all learned at the turn of the century, and assess which ones have stood the test of time and which ones require some rethinking. If you you have anything to add, go ahead and reply-to-all.

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Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers software that manages medical records and calculates damages, email archiving technology with eDiscovery capabilities (see article below), and an online resource for lawyers, paralegals, and others who handle the compliance work of corporations. Don't miss the next issue.

The Ultimate Email Cocktail
By Neil J. Squillante

You and your colleagues receive thousands of email messages every day, many of them confidential and potentially important in a future lawsuit. An email exchange to schedule a luncheon may seem innocuous except the date of the luncheon might help impeach a witness. And all those lengthy do-not-compete agreements with multiple comments speak for themselves — especially in front of a jury. Do you have a handle on all this email?

Mimosa Systems' Mimosa NearPoint for Microsoft Exchange offers an email archiving system that combines immediate message archiving, eDiscovery, disaster recovery, and storage management in a single software package.

Using NearPoint's capture method, "Continuous Application Shadowing," you can continuously store Exchange data, including email, folders, calendars and contacts, and backup to a NearPoint archive. Once captured, NearPoint's search functions allow for easy retrieval through keyword and time period searches.

NearPoint captures email through transaction logs. As a result, it does not interfere with or slow down your Exchange server. NearPoint is also scalable. It can archive thousands of mailboxes.

NearPoint expands its usefulness through five optional add-ons: NearPoint eDiscovery, NearPoint Custodian Collector, NearPoint Disaster Recovery, NearPoint PST Archiving, and NearPoint Content Monitoring.

The eDiscovery option provides an application for yourself and workgroups to use to search and produce email from the NearPoint archive. Email discovery that in the past took you days or weeks to compile takes mere minutes by leveraging NearPoint. As an adjunct, the Custodian Collector enables you to zero in on the documents of the key players in a dispute and preserve them in a forensically sound manner. You can search and retrieve files from laptops, desktops, file servers, etc.

The Disaster Recovery option enables you to restore Exchange data to a standby Exchange Server, including the restarting of Exchange services and the remapping of mailboxes in an Active Directory Server. One click is all it takes to initiate a complete Exchange recovery. The NearPoint PST Archiving option centrally manages all PST data in an email archive.

NearPoint runs on Windows Server 2003 or later and Microsoft SQL Server 2000 SP3 or later. You'll also need three to five times your total Exchange storage. Learn more about Mimosa NearPoint for Microsoft Exchange.

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.

Earlier this year I peered into my crystal ball, conjured up Johnny Carson's Carnac, and set forth five legal technology predictions for 2008. I also pointed to the predictions of others, but conspicuously missing was the Dick Clark of such predictions — Dennis Kennedy.

The wait is over! Dennis has unleashed his must-read 2008 predictions on LLRX in an article entitled, Eight Legal Technology Trends for 2008 — Good Times, Bad Times or Hard Times in Legal Tech?

Please read the article and reply with your thoughts. For the most part, I agree with predictions 1-3 and 5-8, but couldn't disagree more with Dennis on number 4: The Death Throes for Email?

Ouch, Dennis. That's my home turf!

Dennis begins:

"We're all buried by email. If you have a BlackBerry, you're buried all day wherever you are at and you feel like you can never get away."

This idea that people are buried by email is a myth largely propagated by companies that sell email alternatives. We're all addicted to email, not overwhelmed by it. Maybe an addiction isn't healthy, but it sure is fun. Those of us who can't help checking our email one last time before bed or before the plane takes off or [insert guilty email pleasure here] must find it enjoyable on some level or else why bother?

As it turns out, email is extremely well-suited to human beings. Recent research has shown that people don't multitask well. Email breaks up our world into bite-sized chunks. When you're inside an email message, you tend to focus on just that message. The world around you disappears for a minute. That's healthy.

I think people tend to use the words "email" and "overwhelmed" together because email often creates "tasks." So it's not the email that's overwhelming, it's the tasks they contain. People who feel overwhelmed by tasks may need a better task management system or an administrative assistant or both.

Regarding CrackBerrys and their ilk, Dennis has stated on several occasions that he does not use one. The people I know who use these devices (myself included) like being connected to our email all the time because we can process it when we have nothing better to do (or don't like what we're doing) but don't have access to a computer. We feel lost and out of touch when we don't have these devices with us.

Dennis continues:

"At the same time, some studies indicate that 80-90% of Internet email is spam, and a large fraction of internal email is not much better than spam."

As I've noted many times, the volume of spam sent is irrelevant. All that matters is what you actually receive.

If you currently use an ISP for your email, switch to Google Apps Premier Edition. No one has a better spam filter than Google. If you maintain your own Exchange or other mail server, check out Postini, which is owned by Google.

As for internal mail, your colleagues want to keep you in the loop for reasons both good and bad. If you switch to an email alternative, these messages will simply take a different form. Etiquette training is the answer here, not technology.

Dennis adds:

"You increasingly hear people saying that "email is broken."  The real difficulty with email is that we are asking email to do far more than what was intended for. Email is for sending, well, email messages. We use it for everything — from a document management system to a collaboration platform."

That's what we thought three years ago so we started using Basecamp, a Web-based project management system. Basecamp features its own messaging system that keeps conversations in threads. In fact, we used Basecamp with Dennis when he wrote TechnoLawyer NewsWire.

But Basecamp failed.

By and large, our clients and contributors found the messaging system less convenient than email. When someone sends a message, you receive an email alert. You then have to click a link in the alert to respond in your browser. Rightly so, people just wanted to reply in their email program.

You might think a little extra work is worth the reward — threaded discussions. Nope, as I recently discovered first-hand. We produced our eBook using Basecamp. As a result, none of the messages associated with our eBook exist where I want them — in my email program and in my searchable email archive.

Instead, they're in Basecamp, walled off — a prison we're escaping this month as we migrate to Google Apps Premier. You see, Google got it right. Don't force a new messaging system on people. Let them use email. But give them document collaboration (Google Docs and Spreadsheets) and a dashboard with file sharing (Google Sites).

Lots of other companies get it too. Witness the explosion of email archiving solutions. Whether regulated or not, most companies nowadays want the ability to store and search their email.

Dennis writes further:

"People are gradually finding that RSS feeds, news readers, instant messaging, phone calls, and even face-to-face meetings are often better and more appropriate than email for certain types of communication."

That's certainly true, but none of these replace email, except perhaps instant messaging for those under the age of 25. But instant messaging doesn't scale even if you have two or three monitors.

Dennis continues:

"Some even suggest that the trend toward social networking platforms, like Facebook, is in some part due to the failures of email."

A prediction of my own and a wager to boot: I'll bet good money that email will outlast all Web-based social networks, especially those that eschew email. Instead, look for the opposite — better email clients that acknowledge what we've known all along — email is the ultimate social network.

Dennis adds:

"Email has also become unreliable as spam filters and overloaded inboxes make it difficult to be certain that email messages are actually delivered and received."

See my discussion above about Google and Postini.

Dennis concludes:

"The trend to watch is the movement away from email into appropriate tools for the task at hand. Two trillion instant messages were sent in 2007. Firms with policies against instant messaging will find that their clients will insist on the use of it. It has become difficult to send large files by email at a time when it has become essential to send large files. Watch for use of online services for the transfer of large files to grow. Almost every communication alternative to email can be expected to grow in 2008. Email will not die as a tool for lawyers, but 2008 will demonstrate how rickety and sickly the email system has become."

While training people to use the right tool for the job is critical, email's power will continue to grow because people use it when they want to create a searchable record of something noteworthy. No other technology can match email in this regard, especially with all the investment in archiving and storage (Google Apps Premier, at the low end of the enterprise spectrum, now provides 26GB of storage for each email account). Expect to see smarter email clients, even more storage, and better ways to search and mine our growing email collections.

Email isn't in its death throes. It's just molting.

Thoughts on this or Dennis' other predictions? Please reply!

About TechnoEditorials
A TechnoEditorial is the vehicle through which we opine and provide tips of interest to managing partners, law firm administrators, and others in the legal profession. TechnoEditorials appear first in TechnoGuide, and later here in TechnoLawyer Blog. TechnoGuide, which is free, also contains exclusive content. You can subscribe here.

Coming March 6, 2008 to Answers to Questions: Tim Hughes reviews QuickFile4Outlook - Lawyer's Edition, Lisa Cadungug shares her experience with both Word and WordPerfect in a law office setting (plus we unearth an interesting snippet on this endless debate from a 1997 TechnoLawyer message), Forum Administrator Tom Rowe clarifies some issues regarding the online CIC Solutions Forum for LexisNexis Practice Management products (and we extend a welcome to Questions that don't fit there), David Herdman offers a simple solution for using two computers with one monitor, and Diane Hopkins reviews her new iMac after switching from a Windows PC. Don't miss this issue.

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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 February 29, 2008 to Fat Friday: Harry Steinmetz attempts to bring a reality check to the thread on biglaw associate salaries, Kurt Schoettler discusses using "leet speak" when creating strong passwords, Harold Burstyn tells us how he really feels about Microsoft Word (and a past CM's Note), John Rigby reviews Dragon NaturallySpeaking, and Grant Griffiths reviews the iPhone (which might soon get pushy if you catch our drift). 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 February 22, 2008 to Fat Friday: David Long contributes a comparative review of the BlackBerry 8800 and Treo 680, Carol Seelig provides a few more suggestions for improving the current state of CLE, Peter McInroy reminisces about CaseSoft co-founder Greg Krehel, Laurence Eastham discusses the long history of fake product reviews, and Dean Birch explains how to open WordPerfect files in Microsoft Word 2002 and 2003. 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.