TechnoLawyer

Originally published in the November 26, 2014 issue of SmallLaw: Business travel involves significant downtime so you may as well lighten your load by scanning documents as you encounter them. In this issue of SmallLaw, lawyer and legal technology consultant Seth Rowland reviews Fujitsu's ScanSnap iX100 wireless mobile scanner. Seth tested the scanner with a Surface Pro, iPad, iPhone, and Android smartphone. He also threw a variety of documents at the ScanSnap iX100 to see what it can handle. Also, don't miss the SmallLaw Pick of the Week for six apps that can tame your email inbox.

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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 ensures that you won't miss anything published elsewhere by linking to helpful articles (and podcasts and videos) about solo practices and small law firms. The SmallLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to LitigationWorld: Our editorial team has selected and linked to 60 articles from the past two weeks worthy of your attention. Below you'll find a sample article from each section of today's issue, including our LitigationWorld Pick of the Week.

Litigation Crowdfunding Arrives

Kill Zombie Nouns and Other Editing Tips

The Best Monitor Viewing Angle in Court

The Best Supreme Court Predictor in the World

Congratulations to Robert Ambrogi of LawSites on winning our LitigationWorld Pick of the Week award: Review of DraftLaw for Formatting Briefs and Pleadings

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All practice areas evolve, but none faster than litigation. Written by successful litigators and other litigation experts, LitigationWorld provides you with practical tips related to electronic discovery, depositions, litigation strategy, litigation technology, and trial presentations. You'll also receive in-depth litigation product reviews as well as links to the most noteworthy articles in other online litigation publications so that you'll never miss anything. The LitigationWorld newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to SmallLaw: Our editorial team has selected and linked to 49 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 SmallLaw Pick of the Week.

General Counsel Speak Out

Banish These 15 Phrases

The Magic of Facebook Ads for Lawyers

Make Your Marketing More Persuasive

Congratulations to Andrew Cabasso of JurisPage Blog on winning our SmallLaw Pick of the Week award: The Completely Virtual Lawyer: Pipe Dream or Possible?

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Small law firm, big dreams. Written by successful small-firm founders, managing partners, administrators, and legal technology and practice management experts, SmallLaw provides practical advice on management, marketing, and technology issues in solo practices and small law firms. Additionally, SmallLaw features comprehensive reviews of legal products with accompanying TechnoScore ratings. SmallLaw also ensures that you won't miss anything published elsewhere by linking to helpful articles, podcasts, and videos about solo practices and small law firms. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to BigLaw: Our editorial team has assembled links to all the inside baseball announced by America's largest law firms during the past week in an easy-to-scan format. You'll also find must-read analysis, rankings, trends, etc. about large law firms.

This week's inside baseball sections link to:

88 press releases about lateral hires, mergers, internal promotions, and all other significant business news.

95 press releases about notable law firm and practice group accolades.

68 press releases about notable individual lawyer accolades.

Congratulations to Mike Ayotte of The Last Honest Lawyer on winning our BigLaw Pick of the Week award: A Case of Runaway Billing. Here's a sampling of of some other industry analysis from this issue:

Law Firm Darwinism in Morgan-Bigham Deal

Corcoran: Infighting on Compensation (Video)

Editor's Pick: Large Firms Needs to Trim the Fat

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BigLaw keeps you apprised of lateral hires, internal promotions, mergers, new offices, accolades, and other inside baseball at America's 300+ largest law firms by linking directly to their press releases. Thanks to a clever design, BigLaw takes just a few minutes to scan yet its comprehensiveness makes it the only source you need to stay on top of this self-reported news. Each issue of BigLaw also links to insightful articles, statistical reports, podcasts, and videos about large law firms published elsewhere as well as to our detailed product reviews with accompanying TechnoScore ratings. The BigLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. 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.

YOUR DIGITAL PAPER MATE

Handwritten notes remain a fixture of legal practice. They have largely remained insulated from the software world much like grocery stores. But it's only a matter of time until software eats every task and every industry. In the case of handwritten notes, software needs a hardware accomplice.

Equil Smartpen 2 … in One Sentence

Announced in September and shipping this month, Ludia's Equil Smartpen 2 is a Bluetooth ballpoint pen that captures your handwritten notes and illustrations in its corresponding apps.

The Killer Feature

An arms race exists between powered ink pens like the Equil Smartpen 2 used on paper and powered styli used directly on a tablet's screen. Previously, both required the presence of your tablet. Powered styli cannot escape this requirement.

However, the Equil Smartpen 2 stores your writing in its onboard memory. You need not have the Equil apps up and running (though you can). Instead, you just need the Smartpen, the Receiver clip, and any paper.

Other Notable Features

Equil Smartpen 2 sidesteps the need for special paper thanks to the aforementioned Receiver. Measuring 3 x 0.5 x 0.9 inches, the Receiver clips to the top of any notebook so that it can record what you write. The pen measures 5.9 x 0.5 inches, and runs for up to eight hours. Both items fit into the included charging case. A full charge takes two hours.

The Smartpen transmits your notes to your choice of Equil Note or Equil Sketch (both free). Equil Note runs on Mac, Windows, Android, and iOS. The app's handwriting recognition technology can convert your notes into editable and searchable text. Equil Note connects to iCloud, Dropbox, and Evernote. You can export notes in a variety of standard formats for use elsewhere.

What Else Should You Know?

The Smartpen is pressure sensitive, and supports gestures for controlling functions in the apps. Adding to its portability, the Smartpen uses standard ballpoint cartridges that you can buy in an office supplies store. Equil Smartpen 2 costs $169.99. Learn more about Equil Smartpen 2.

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Today's issue of Fat Friday contains these articles:

Patrick Lanius, Review: TrialPad 4 in a Medical Malpractice Trial (Defense)

John Mueller, Tip: How to Secure PDF Documents for E-Filing

Tom Trottier, 4K Monitors Have Arrived

Question of the Week: What 2014 Purchases Do You Recommend?

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

TRANSCRIPT REVIEW FOR THE IPAD FAN

Preparing reports of relevant deposition testimony used to involve copying and pasting into a word processing document and wrestling with the formatting (this was barbaric enough so let's not even mention paper and highlighters). Dedicated desktop software brought some sanity to this process. However, transcript review is perhaps the most portable task in litigation. Laptops have never worked well on a lap, and have long since ceded the crown as the most portable type of computer.

TranscriptPad 2 … in One Sentence

Launched this week, Lit Software's TranscriptPad 2 is a significant update to the popular iPad app for reviewing transcripts and creating reports.

The Killer Feature

The new version of TranscriptPad is optimized for iOS 8 and runs natively on both 32-bit and 64-bit chips. This means that it'll run fast on older iPads and even faster on 64-bit iPads — namely, the iPad Air, Air 2, mini 2, and mini 3.

Lit Software also redesigned the user experience and user interface. For example, a new tap and hold gesture enables you to more quickly open, rename, duplicate, and delete case folders. You can jump to any page in a transcript by dragging a slider or tapping the page/line indicator and typing a page number.

"Thanks to the power and portability of TranscriptPad 2, reading, highlighting, and creating reports occurs in a fraction of the time desktop software takes," Lit Software Founder and CEO Ian O'Flaherty told us. "No more cutting and pasting or right clicking. No more bouncing back and forth between PC, laptop, and iPad. TranscriptPad 2 combines the convenience of paper with the power of mobile software."

Other Notable Features

The company also overhauled the annotation tools. You'll find a new workflow for editing flags (split, join, and delete), and improved tools for assigning issue codes. You can also highlight and underline testimony. TranscriptPad now places blue dots next to the page/line number to indicate flags that contain notes. Designated page/line numbers appear in bold. The new cases screen features customizable case colors.

After you finish reviewing one or more transcripts, you'll find more export options for the reports you create. You can email reports in PDF, Excel, and TXT formats, or upload them to Box, Dropbox, Transporter, or a WebDAV-compatible file server. You can also print reports directly from your iPad. Importing transcripts supports all the same services, including the ability to use multiple services and navigate among them (useful as a backup or if a client wants to use their preferred cloud service).

What Else Should You Know?

Depositions need not look boring. TranscriptPad 2 has more typeface options, all which preserve the original pagination and layout. Also, 72 possible combinations of folder colors, and icons now exist. An integrated tutorial helps you get up and running (an interactive iBook is in the works). TranscriptPad 2 costs $89.99 (it's a free upgrade for existing users). Learn more about TranscriptPad 2.

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.

Today's issue of TL Answers contains these articles:

Christian Onsager, Review: Surface Pro 3

Katherine Zelko, Tip: The Email Archival Tool Right Under Your Nose

Steve Buchwalter, Review: Copernic Desktop Search

Ben Schorr, Tip: Add an Unnumbered Paragraph Between Numbered Paragraphs in Word

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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.

Coming today to BigLaw: Our editorial team has assembled links to all the inside baseball announced by America's largest law firms during the past week in an easy-to-scan format. You'll also find must-read analysis, rankings, trends, etc. about large law firms.

This week's inside baseball sections link to:

72 press releases about lateral hires, mergers, internal promotions, and all other significant business news.

70 press releases about notable law firm and practice group accolades.

50 press releases about notable individual lawyer accolades.

Congratulations to Pam Woldow of At the Intersection on winning our BigLaw Pick of the Week award: Do You You Want to Become the Managing Partner?. Here's a sampling of of some other industry analysis from this issue:

2014 Chief Legal Officer Survey

The Legal One Percent

Two Class Partnership Culture (Video)

How to Receive BigLaw
BigLaw keeps you apprised of lateral hires, internal promotions, mergers, new offices, accolades, and other inside baseball at America's 300+ largest law firms by linking directly to their press releases. Thanks to a clever design, BigLaw takes just a few minutes to scan yet its comprehensiveness makes it the only source you need to stay on top of this self-reported news. Each issue of BigLaw also links to insightful articles, statistical reports, podcasts, and videos about large law firms published elsewhere as well as to our detailed product reviews with accompanying TechnoScore ratings. The BigLaw 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 52 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.

The Case for Practice Management Software

A Lawyer Reviews Microsoft Word for iPhone

The Best iOS 8 Features Large and Small

Brett Burney on ABA TECHSHOW 2015 (Podcast)

Congratulations to Derek Walter of Macworld on winning our BlawgWorld Pick of the Week award: The Best Eight Alternative Email Apps for iOS

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