TechnoLawyer

Coming today to BlawgWorld: Our editorial team has selected and linked to 104 articles from the past week worthy of your attention, including our Post of the Week. Here's a sample:

Dragon Dictate for Mac: A Speech Recognition Miracle?

The BlackBerry PlayBook Doesn't Exist

The Dark Side of Solo Practice

The Mobile Web: A New Legal Marketing Frontier

This issue also contains links to every article in the October 2010 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 TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers a new version of a popular accounting program (see article below), an Outlook backup utility, a Worksite add-on, a group text service, and an iPhone task manager. Don't miss the next issue.

Rock on Finance Geeks

Every year music geeks eagerly await the announcement of new iPods. Believe it or not, many people who manage the finances of law firms (perhaps yours) also eagerly await an annual product announcement — the new version of QuickBooks, the leading accounting software for small businesses, including many law firms. This annual moment has once again arrived. Does the new version have anything to get excited about?

QuickBooks 2011 … in One Sentence
Intuit's QuickBooks 2011 is an accounting program that comes in two versions — Pro and Premiere.

The Killer Feature
A long time ago, some genius realized that aviators, mariners, and drivers need to have an array of data positioned neatly in front of them. Hence, the invention of the dashboard. A few years ago, software companies started stealing this brilliant idea.

In QuickBooks 2011 you'll find a new Customer Snapshot that provides you with customer data such as purchase history, average days to pay, and unpaid balances. You can also quickly determine your best clients in terms of revenue and payment for those of you eager to apply the Pareto Principle to your practices.

Intuit also added a Collections Center so that you can stay on top of clients behind in their payments. You can send invoices and reminders directly from the Collections Center (and other areas of QuickBooks) using your Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo account.

Other Notable Features
Other new features in QuickBooks 2011 include batch invoicing, improved searching for accounts, reports, and invoices, a more streamlined transaction workflow, a date stamp for paid invoices, and a new field for storing the remittance address of your vendors.

QuickBooks Premiere has the same features as QuickBooks Pro, but also provides more reports and customization options. You can buy QuickBooks Premiere in a Professional Services version better suited to law firms with features such as time and expense tracking and the ability to create billing rates by client, employee, and service. Finally, QuickBooks Premiere now supports a growing collection of apps (add-ons) such as document management, online backup, and smartphone integration.

What Else Should You Know?
QuickBooks Pro sells for $229.95 (upgrades cost $199.95) whereas QuickBooks Premiere sells for $399.95 (upgrades cost $359.95). Both products require Windows. Intuit also released a new version of QuickBooks for Mac that we will cover separately. Learn more about QuickBooks 2011.

How to Receive TechnoLawyer NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The "In One Sentence" section describes each product in one sentence, and the "Killer Feature" section describes each product's most compelling feature. The TechnoLawyer NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of Answers to Questions contains these articles:

Steven J. Best, Review: PCLaw Under LexisNexis' Ownership

Robert Krakow, Review: eFax v. MyFax

Diedre Braverman, Review: Advologix for Cloud-Based Practice Management

Lewis Kinard, Review: CaseManagerPro for Case Management

Mark Romney, Tip: Another Source for Legal iPhone Apps

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

How to Receive Answers to Questions
Do you believe in the wisdom of crowds? In Answers to Questions, 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 Answers to Questions newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to TechnoFeature: Client X sends all its real estate work to your firm. That's a good start, but don't become complacent. You could lose that business to a more nimble competitor. Before that happens, try to obtain more business from Client X for your other practice areas. But how can you do so without coming across as tacky or tactless? in this TechnoFeature article, Rothman Gordon's Director of Marketing Anne Parys provides five tips for securing more business from existing clients while simultaneously protecting your existing business from being poached by competitors. If you manage a law firm with several practice areas, don't miss Anne's invaluable advice.

How to Receive TechnoFeature
Our flagship newsletter never disappoints thanks to its in-depth reporting by leading legal technology and practice management experts, many of whom have become "household names" in the legal profession. It's in TechnoFeature that you'll find our oft-quoted formal product reviews and accompanying TechnoScore ratings. The TechnoFeature newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to SmallLaw: How does a law firm grow 10-fold in just a few years? Dale Morgado at Feldman Fox & Morgado aims to find out. His aggressive growth model requires the firm's litigators to collaborate on case files with a few clicks from anywhere in the world. A year ago, Morgado realized that the firm's traditional practice management software would not further the firm's ambitious growth plans so Morgado replaced it with Themis Solutions' Clio, a Web-based (SaaS) practice management system. How well has Clio performed over the past year? Find out in today's issue of SmallLaw.

How to Receive SmallLaw
Small firm, big dreams. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, SmallLaw provides you with a mix of practical advice that you can use today, and insight about what it will take for small law firms like yours to thrive in the future. The SmallLaw 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 100 articles from the past week worthy of your attention, including our Post of the Week. Here's a sample:

Is the World Wide Web Too Much Like the Wild West? (PDF)

Review: Latham & Watkins Glossary of Financial Terms

A Guide for Lawyers Who Lust

A Report Card on Large Law Firm Blogs

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 on September 20, 2010 in our free SmallLaw newsletter.

It's lunchtime again here at SmallLaw. My goal for today is to help you prevent an unsuccessful outcome when taking a prospective client or referral source to lunch. The topic is personal hygiene. Personal what? Before you assume that this column does not apply to you — stop! Recognize that you might be the last person to know that something about you is off — way off — especially if you have surrounded yourself with people who won't tell you the truth.

It's imperative that you know whether you're making a hygiene faux pas. We all form judgments. If something looks wrong, smells wrong, etc., it distracts us from absorbing further information. We simply stop. That's a natural reaction. Thus, when your referral source notices something amiss at lunch with you, he or she might be too polite to mention the problem, but you can be absolutely certain your source has stopped listening and isn't going to refer business to you.

It's easy to make a hygiene mistake. We can all remember someone making one of the mistakes I've outlined below. Not only do we remember the mistake, but it's what we most remember about that person. You can check some of these issues yourself, but some will require the assistance of a trusted advisor. You'll want to skip consulting anyone who has adjusted to you (your spouse) as well as those financially dependent on you (your assistant). Find someone you can rely on who will tell you the truth — maybe your sibling or your law partner (both are usually willing to say something mean to you).

The Top Eight Personal Hygiene Mistakes

1. Hair in all the wrong places. Don't have hair growing out of places it shouldn't. Trim your eyebrows, ear hair, and nose hair. Do it yourself or pay someone to take care of it for you (your hair stylist).


2. Stench. Don't stink. Use deodorant. Wear cologne or perfume if necessary. If you have an evening outing, go home and shower beforehand so you'll be fresh.


3. Bad breath. Brush your teeth, try breath mints, and see your dentist or doctor if the problem persists. No one wants to tell you about your breath, and no one will. There is no question that your smelly breath will cost you business. It's just the way the world works.


4. Smoking. Don't smoke. If you need to smoke, do it outside of the presence of referral sources. Avoid smoker's breath. Make sure your clothes don't reek of smoke. Smoking is at its lowest levels among highly educated, affluent people. It's not an appealing habit.


5. Bad hair every day. Get rid of the dated haircut. If you're sporting the comb-over, it's time to leave the 1970s behind. If you're sporting the same haircut you had in college, it's time for a refresh. Get a decent haircut. It's hard to miss a bad haircut, and people make judgments about you when you've got it wrong.


6. Smeared, gaudy makeup. Get your makeup right. If you're going to wear makeup — and there's no requirement that you must — get it right. Misapplication of makeup is worse than no makeup at all. I'm certainly no expert on makeup, but I'm told that it's fairly easy to receive instruction on proper application of these products in the cosmetics department of many stores.


7. Oily, greasy hair. Wash your hair daily. Don't waste that nice haircut by failing to shampoo away the dirt. Keep your hair clean and shiny. You might be cleaning your hair properly but using a product that doesn't work for you. Consult your haircare professional.


8. Creepy fingernails. Keep your fingernails trimmed and clean. Weekly trimming of your nails is essential. Don't let them get too long, and don't chew on them to manage their length.

These hygiene mistakes are not trivial issues. Prospective clients and referral sources understand them much better than the legal mumbo-jumbo you're spewing about. Get your personal appearance under control, and you're going to find it much easier to get the business you seek. Get them wrong — even one of them — and you're wasting your time at lunch.

Written by Lee Rosen of Divorce Discourse.

How to Receive SmallLaw
Small firm, big dreams. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, SmallLaw provides you with a mix of practical advice that you can use today, and insight about what it will take for small law firms like yours to thrive in the future. The SmallLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published on September 20, 2010 in our free BigLaw newsletter.

Speak and your words appear on screen. What more could a busy lawyer want? Speech recognition is a mature technology that routinely produces astonishing results. So why haven't more large law firms adopted it?

Many lawyers misunderstand Dragon NaturallySpeaking (Dragon), the best-known speech recognition software (available for both Mac OS X and Windows). Dragon doesn't turn lawyers into secretaries. You don't use it to generate finished work product. Nothing beats an experienced assistant for formatting and polishing the first draft of a dictated document. Also, if you assemble documents based upon pre-existing clauses, consider document assembly software instead of speech recognition software.

However, nothing beats Dragon for quickly generating first drafts of unique documents. Your staff can format the document to meet firm style guidelines, and then return it for further review. The more expensive editions of the Dragon line enable you to send your assistant your dictation as both voice and text files. I haven't experimented with this feature, but it should help large firms incorporate Dragon into their workflow.

Lawyers as Typists Is a Red Herring

Once upon a time, lawyers would consider it a waste of their billable time to sit in front of a typewriter or even a computer. Nowadays, many lawyers not only type, but can do so at high speeds. For this reason, many large firms have eschewed speech recognition software. But Dragon can prove more efficient at certain tasks even among the speediest typists at your firm.

For example, email responses usually require a few short sentences. Dragon contains specific time-saving commands for Microsoft Outlook. You can trigger most Outlook functions by speaking the command (i.e., say "Send" instead of clicking the "Send" button). You can easily create your own commands, so that saying "Sign Email" inserts the firm's name, contact information, and any disclosure notices. Set up one command to insert multiple addresses into your email when you regularly contact the same groups.

Speech recognition software is also the best way to take notes of your telephone conversations. Purchase a headset that enables you to press a button to choose between answering your phone and dictation. In my own practice, Amicus Attorney dials my client and opens a message slip for conversation notes. Most practice management programs offer a similar function. If my client places me on hold during the conversation, or at conversation's end, I dictate file notes. Notes tend to be longer and ultimately more useful when dictated.

Remember that speech recognition includes number recognition. You can switch Dragon to "numbers mode," which tells the program to recognize all speech as numbers. Few lawyers have the typing skills to input numbers into spreadsheets as accurately as Dragon.

Many other programs require minimal input without review or revision: databases, document management systems, litigation support software, etc. No one dictates this information to staff for transcription. These programs are all well-suited to Dragon.

Consider Hiring a Pro to Help Your Lawyers Become Pros

If you want to test Dragon for law firm use, set up a fair trial. As with any powerful software, hire a consultant. The software is not analogous to common programs and benefits from subtle fine-tuning. Dictation results without proper set up are amazing, but the gold standard of near-100% accuracy requires a consultant's guidance. A consultant can help you remove such dictation stumbling blocks as recognition of client names and addresses. Dragon can learn this material by reviewing your email and documents, but it's best to let your consultant implement this feature.

Every large firm relies on email, a concept unknown to most of them 20 years ago. Speech recognition software is poised to make similar inroads into daily practice.

How to Receive BigLaw
Many large firms have good reputations for their work and bad reputations as places to work. Why? Answering this question requires digging up some dirt, but we do with the best of intentions. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, BigLaw analyzes the business practices, marketing strategies, and technologies used by the country's biggest law firms in an effort to unearth best and worst practices. The BigLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of Answers to Questions contains these articles:

Jonathan Warshay, Review: Callcentric VoIP Fax Service

Craig Yaris, Tip: How to Sync Your BlackBerry With Outlook

Salvatore Zurzolo, Tip: Where to Find Legal iPhone Apps (Hint, You Don't Have to Go Far)

Marc Lauritsen, Review: Switching From Netscape to Thunderbird

John Crossan, Review: MaxEmail; Fax to Email Patent Issue

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

How to Receive Answers to Questions
Do you believe in the wisdom of crowds? In Answers to Questions, 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 Answers to Questions newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers a new verdict and settlement research service (see article below), the world's first tabletphone, an automated discovery document review tool, an an iPhone calendar app. Don't miss the next issue.

Set the Right Course for Your Cases Before They Begin

You might be able to find your high-school sweetheart using a free search engine, but you're unlikely to find much in the way of settlements and verdicts from cases similar to yours. Such invaluable information enables you to advise your client in the earliest stages of litigation — press the pedal to the metal, slam on the brakes, or maintain cruise control. Studies show that early case assessment results in more favorable outcomes in 76 percent of cases and reduces litigation costs in 50 percent of cases, on average, yet a whopping 64 percent of litigators report they don't conduct such research.

LexisNexis Verdict & Settlement Analyzer … in One Sentence
LexisNexis Verdict & Settlement Analyzer enables you to research the history of past settlements and verdicts in cases similar to yours.

The Killer Feature
Rather than just list settlements and verdicts, LexisNexis Verdict & Settlement Analyzer displays information using interactive charts and graphs. This visual representation of information better enables you to figure out how best to proceed with a case. It also saves you time because you can quickly zero in on the most relevant data such as recent settlements and verdicts in your jurisdiction.

"Verdict & Settlement Analyzer enables litigators to review the range of possible case outcomes in just seconds, delivering trusted answers drawn from the largest available online collection of verdict and settlement documents," Bob Romeo, senior vice president and managing director of LexisNexis' Research and Litigation Solutions, told us.

Other Notable Features
You use Verdict & Settlement Analyzer by entering case facts and selecting filters such as amount awarded, jurisdiction, method of resolution, and timeframe. You can change the variables to graphically see how they change the results. At any point, you can produce a professional report in PDF format to show and discuss with your client.

You can drill down and change variables as often as you want at no extra charge. LexisNexis automatically saves your search results for 24 hours.

What Else Should You Know?
Verdict & Settlement Analyzer requires a lexis.com account. LexisNexis charges $125 to generate a report, which includes access to the charts and graphs, unlimited filtering capabilities to help narrow search results, and access to the underlying list of documents. Depending on your subscription, additional charges may apply. Learn more about LexisNexis Verdict & Settlement Analyzer.

How to Receive TechnoLawyer NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The "In One Sentence" section describes each product in one sentence, and the "Killer Feature" section describes each product's most compelling feature. The TechnoLawyer NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.