TechnoLawyer: Document Management

Coming December 8, 2006 to Fat Friday: Harold Burstyn discusses his law career and his experience with age discrimination, Nicholas Bettinger reviews his multiple monitor setup and two utilities that can make such an arrangement even slicker, Channing Strother discusses GPS in the car and the advantages/disadvantages of using your laptop, a portable device, or a built-in unit, Dean Birch explains why his firm's file naming convention does not include dates, and D. Paul Dalton discusses online data storage versus local media. Don't miss this issue.

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John Mavridis, Review: NetDocuments for Web-Based Document Management

TechnoLawyer wrote:
"If you contribute anything else, your Post will appear in our Fat Friday newsletter. Can't think of anything? How about reviewing a product you recently bought, sharing tips and techniques for widely-used products, responding to something you read in a TechnoLawyer newsletter or elsewhere, etc."

While a great deal has been written about document management systems, I have a legal consulting practice where I find that I often work from my clients' place of business. In this context, I have also worked at ensuring that I have a portable infrastructure and I prefer using Web-based infrastructure, primarily using Netsuite for time/expense/billing and accounting and Netdocuments for document management.

I first started to use NetDocuments when it was free service at the height of the dot-com boom. It was interesting then, but it has improved so greatly since then that it works very well, wherever I am. The fact that my documents are available, secure, backed-up and shareable is a big plus which allows me to have access to big-firm infrastructure with no hardware or support costs or network expenses. My more tech-savvy clients can use the net-binder services where I share documents on the fly, and for others who simply want an e-mail, it interfaces to Outlook very efficiently.

While there is always paper around, I use NetDocuments as my virtual filing cabinet, scanning documents and storing final versions.

While they do have some law firms on their system, they just struck some type of deal for LexisNexis and I would hope they get more users in our profession.

JOHN MAVRIDIS, LL.B., LL.M.
Legal Counsel/Avocat
NEWHOUSE STRATEGIC COUNSEL INC. | CONSEILS STRATGIQUES NEWHOUSE INC.

Legal and Business Consulting Services | Services-conseils juridiques et en affaires

Montreal, QC | CANADA 
www.newhousecounsel.com

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Coming December 1, 2006 to Fat Friday: Ed Detlie reviews Dymo Stamps online postage service, Thomas Daly explains why automating documents doesn't work for his complex practice, Steven Finell discusses the importance of dates in file names (and the best way to display them), Don Winston sings the praises of a recent TechnoFeature about document management software, and David Caracappa reviews CrypInfo for password management on your desktop and handheld device. 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 November 13, 2006 to TechnoFeature: When you hear the words "paperless office," do you think fact or fiction? If you have a more pessimistic view, you may want to listen up. In this article, legal technology expert Ross L. Kodner and attorney Dale W. Cottam discuss how optimizing your scanner's capabilities and using current document management software can free you from the mountains of paper and help institute a more efficient and productive workflow. Find out how Dale's firm implements Ross' Paper LESS methods — and how you can too.

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 November 16, 2006 to Answers to Questions:Wilson C. Muhlheim discusses how his firm successfully implemented a paperless workflow and the resulting benefits, Paul Bannon reviews the latest version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, Charles Tievsky reviews RemotelyAnywhere and compares it to other remote access tools, Fred Brock discusses the use of uninterrupted power supplies in law offices (plus we point you to 10 tips for a successful implementation), and Michael Mannes suggests a simple way to handle retainer fees in PCLaw. 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 27, 2006 to Fat Friday:  Mazyar Hedayat waxes poetic about the future of law and technology, Jeff Lisson responds to criticism of his "False Economy of DIY Technology" TechnoFeature, John Mavridis reviews NetDocuments for Web-based document management, Tim Hughes comments on Denise Howell's termination from Reed Smith, and Glenn Curran reviews Copernic Desktop Search (plus he points to a helpful desktop search handbook). 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 October 26, 2006 to Answers to Questions: Ann Byrne reviews the good, the bad, and the ugly of her firm's HP LaserJet 4345xs multifunction printer, Eugenie Rivers reviews Pathagoras for document assembly, and Julie Kiernan offers up a warning to those looking for the right desktop search tool. 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, 2006 to Fat Friday: Mark Lieb discusses how a firm's litigation support department should operate, John Dorst reviews Sonnet's PodFreq FM transmitter for the iPod, Douglas Simpson reviews his experience using Copernic Desktop Search over the past year, Thomas Shigo chimes in on the DIY v. hire a consultant debate, and Jeff Wyatt reviews the Brother HL-5250DN laser printer. 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.

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, lawyer and legal technology legend Dennis Kennedy covers a gadget that enables laptop users to reap the benefits of multiple monitors, a hot new smartphone guaranteed to make lawyers drool, and a document management system with a fresh approach. Don't miss the next issue.

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

You Can Never Have Two Many Monitors
By Dennis Kennedy
You decide to replace your desktop PC with a laptop. After all, laptops can do everything desktops can do, right? They can even burn DVDs nowadays. Soon, you start hearing about all these lawyers using two or three monitors. And then you learn the ugly truth — your laptop has just one video port. Ouch. Burned by technology yet again.

Matrox feels your pain and has created two products designed to bring you into the 21st century law office — DualHead2Go and TripleHead2Go. These two products enable you to respectively run two or three monitors from a single video port.

A black box measuring about the size of your hand, the DualHead2Go and TripleHead2Go do not contain graphics cards. Instead, they contain patent-pending circuitry that takes the memory of your existing graphics card and redistributes it among multiple monitors. Matrox claims that you will not see any distortion or scaling, which makes sense since no interpolation occurs — you're just using the actual memory in your laptop.

The DualHead2Go can drive two monitors at resolutions up to 1280x1024 pixels. The TripleHead2Go can drive three monitors at up to 1280x1024 pixels. If that's not enough, you can alternatively use the TripleHead2Go to drive two monitors at higher resolutions, including widescreen monitors.

The DualHead2Go and TripleHead2Go require a VGA output connector (easily achieved with a converter if your laptop has a DVI output), and works with Windows 2000/XP. The DualHead2Go sells for about $150 and the TripleHead2Go sells for about $300. Learn more about DualHead2Go and TripleHead2Go.

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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 5, 2006 to Answers to Questions: Paul Hager offers up some tips for using Timeslips remotely, David Blair discusses his experience as a long-time WordPerfect user forced to use Word, Larry Southerland reviews PaperPort for document management and a database program called Alpha Five, Celine Rivet suggests some printer purchasing tips (and so do we), and Nina Yablok reviews QuickBooks for small law firm accounting and billing. 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.