Originally published on July 27, 2009 in our free SmallLaw newsletter.
Small firms do not have to be at a technological disadvantage compared to their multinational brethren. Those proprietary systems and bloated methodologies can actually hinder an individual attorney's productivity. Flexibility is the key to appropriately leveraging technology for a more efficient and enjoyable practice. Below I have laid out five legal technology hacks to level the playing field.1. Texter: Save Time With Text Substitution
Texter is a free text substitution application that will save you countless keystrokes by substituting user-defined abbreviations for commonly typed blocks of text.
Once downloaded and installed, Texter resides in your system tray and integrates with any program that accepts text input (virtually any program). You'll find this tool helpful if you find yourself writing the same phrases over and over again such as salutations, addresses, canned email responses, and form letters.
For example, each time I write a form letter, I type "addy" at the beginning of the letter and my entire name and address will be substituted in its place. To begin a commonly long salutation, I type "sal."
2. Mindmeister: Conduct Legal Research and Case Planning
Mind mapping software helps you to brainstorm by appealing to both the left (colors, images, creative) and right (text, analytical) sides of the brain. Doing so facilitates better data retention, more efficient note taking, and an aesthetically pleasing graph easy for others to follow.
Mindmeister is my favorite online mindmapping application, as it enables simultaneous collaboration in real-time, creation of mind-maps via email, PDF conversion, and online storage for ubiquitous access with a Web browser. Premium accounts cost $4/month per user and add features such as unlimited mindmaps, SSL encryption, and offline editing, to name just a few. The number of viable uses is limited only by your imagination.
3. Acronis True Image: Create Clones of Your Primary PC
Few technology mishaps will chill you to the core like a complete system failure of your primary office computer. We all know the benefits of backing up important data at regular intervals. However, even though all your documents and data may be backed up, your entire operating system must still be reinstalled.
It doesn't matter if the OS is Windows XP, Vista or Microsoft's latest baby, Windows 7, reinstalling and configuring the operating system to match your pre-crash specifications can take hours. Hours that you could otherwise bill.
What's the solution? Create a clone of your entire hard drive. Acronis True Image is a Windows based disk imaging utility that will create an exact replica of your PC's current state as it was before the crash. Restoration takes minutes as opposed to hours.
4. Backup Your Google Docs With GDocBackup
Many small firm and solo attorneys use Google Documents, Google's online word processor, for collaborative document drafting.
Even though Google stores your created documents indefinitely, I like to keep a copy on a local hard drive for safekeeping. You can always download or copy and paste the Docs straight to your desktop, but that's tedious.
Fortunately, GDocBackup exists — a simple utility that enables you to quickly and easily download your entire directory of Google Documents straight to a local hard drive.
GDocBackup even gives you the option to backup and download all the files in PDF format — perfect for attorneys following fellow SmallLaw columnist's Ross Kodner's famous "Paper LESS" law office.
5. MobileTM: Access Time Matters Data on Your Smartphone
The iPhone is quickly becoming the smartphone of choice for small firm attorneys. No one can deny that it is a magnificent piece of hardware, but it does have one shortcoming — the inability to sync with Time Matters. The same is true of other smartphones. They are limited to information that Outlook can understand plus the data is not accessible in real-time unless you use a Blackberry Enterprise Server or Microsoft Exchange Server.
Enter OTB Consulting's MobileTM, covered last year in TechnoLawyer NewsWire but worth noting again. A Time Matters add-on, MobileTM provides real-time data access to your Time Matters information through your smartphone's browser without the need for an Exchange Server.
Smartphone users who previously could only access To-Do's, Events, and Contacts can access Billing Records, Notes, and Client Matters. The icing on the cake is the ability to see all records associated with a contact or client matter, a feat not capable with Time Matter's integrated syncing technology. The software is a bit costly at $400 per year for a single user and $100 extra for each additional user. Also, you can only "read," not "write" data (it's one way).
Written by Will Geer of JDhacker.
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