TechnoLawyer

Coming June 26, 2008 to Answers to Questions: Michael Schley reviews ISYS:desktop 8 compares it to free desktop search programs, Douglas Folk explains why you may not want to switch to Mac and he reviews Trend Micro OfficeScan, Wayne Grant reviews Topdeq's GO-2 desk, Phyllis Dubrow reviews PureText, and Harold Lloyd reviews Nuance products PaperPort, OmniPage, and Dragon NaturallySpeaking. 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 June 24, 2008 to TechnoFeature: The paperless trend has almost every law firm looking for the perfect scanner. Here to help, attorney Bryan Sims reviews the ScanFront 220P — a network scanner from Canon. Bryan describes the different features, explains how he tested it in his practice, and offers some buying advice for large and small firms. Could the ScanFront 220P take your firm from papermore to paperless? Read Bryan's review to find out.

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 June 27, 2008 to Fat Friday: Martin Dean responds to Ross Kodner's recent TechnoGuide Post about email confidentiality, Carol Bratt provides some line and page numbering tips for Word and has a few words about so-called power users who are anything but, Philip Franckel provides two Yellow Pages advertising tips, Dwight Corrin suggests three more rules for modern day email etiquette (and we join the debate with tips of our own), and Fredric Gruder draws from 30 years legal experience to offer insight into why general counsel don't hire small firms. 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.

Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers a document grouping application to expedite the early stages of discovery (see article below), a service that enables law firms to accept credit cards, and an online store that can digitize your old photos, film, records, video tapes, and more. Don't miss the next issue.

Group Therapy for Discovery Documents
By Peter R. Olson

Let's face it — having your most junior paralegal handle the first cut of documents in your cases is probably not a good idea. But who else higher up in your firm would volunteer for this critical but grueling chore? No one is the likely answer. You need someone like Mikey — that kid who hated everything except Life cereal or in your case document review. Good luck.

Instead of searching for someone who doesn't exist, Clustify from Hot Neuron can help you with this task. Clustify groups similar documents into groups or clusters, providing quick insight into the contents of each document set. These clusters enable you to make decisions one cluster at a time instead of one document at a time, streamlining the document review that you and your experienced personnel conduct after the initial cut.

Whether used in Clustify's own user interface or within your preferred document review platform, Clustify identifies document keywords and then groups documents by keyword sets. You can sort by specific keywords, phrases, or even long passages. Clustify labels a "representative document" for each cluster.

Clustify offers a number of review tools. For example, you can compare specific documents side-by-side with Clustify's document comparison tool. Clustify highlights the changes for you. Clustify also offers custom tagging to categorize documents as you review them. Apply a tag to a single document, all documents in a cluster, or all clusters containing a certain combination of keywords. You can tag hundreds of documents with a single mouse click and link documents to other documents. This automated categorization improves the quality of document review because you can assign related documents to a single reviewer instead of having reviewers skip from one topic to another.

Clustify supports most document formats you're likely to encounter, including PDF, Microsoft Office, WordPerfect and HTML. Clustify runs on Windows and Linux. Learn more about Clustify.

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.

Coming June 20, 2008 to Fat Friday: Charles Stokes explains why his law firm remains a Dell customer, Tom Trottier reviews the Treo 680 and lists his favorite Treo apps, Kerry Hubick shares a tip about about line numbering in Microsoft Word, Thomas RuBane reviews Apple's Spaces (and we debate the use of virtual desktops versus multiple monitors), and Mark Adams reviews pdfDocs Desktop, including concrete examples of how it can solve ten common problems. 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 June 19, 2008 to Answers to Questions: G. Blair McCune reviews Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred and Professional (and explains the difference between the two), Edward Zohn explains how he uses QuickBooks to handle trust accounts (without setting up a separate set of books), Peter Pike reviews OmniPage Pro for OCR and its Word/WordPerfect integration, Ed Walters shares his favorite way to copy and paste from Word to WordPerfect, and Brent Blanchard discusses legal research pricing and adhesion contracts. 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 June 17, 2008 to TechnoFeature: Billing is one of the most important tasks a lawyer performs — and perhaps the most tedious. Desktop software has made this activity easier, but does an even better solution exist? In this article, legal technology consultant Caren Schwartz reviews Bill4Time, a Web-based time-billing solution. With Bill4Time, lawyers can bill their time and expenses anywhere they can access the Internet. That's the promise, but how does it perform in practice? Read Caren's in-depth review to find out.

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.

Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers a video email service, and Outlook plug-in that makes your email messages more useful and easier to find (see article below), and a Web-based suite of tools to help you assess and improve the document review process. Don't miss the next issue.

Fall in Love With Email All Over Again
By Peter R. Olson

Email. You can't live without it, but living with it has become a challenge because email today doesn't look a whole lot different than email a decade ago. But you use it differently. And because it has become much more important, the volume of messages you need to process has ballooned. Time for an upgrade don't you think?

Xobni ("inbox" spelled backwards) is an Outlook plug-in that analyzes your email messages to supply you with the information you need. For example, Xobni offers "lightning fast search." Xobni begins to display results as you type and separates contacts, messages, and attachments. Xobni also groups your messages into threaded conversations — even if the subject of a related message has changed.

Xobni doesn't just search and group, however. It also transforms Outlook into a Facebook-like social network except with no setup required and no annoying email alerts informing you that a friend just ate a lightly-buttered English muffin.

Select a message and instantly see useful data such as past sent and received email involving that contact along with an email frequency ranking, and a time of day chart that tracks when the contact typically sends email. Xobni also provides a detailed view of all past document exchanges for each contact. You can even discover shared friends.

Tired of copying and pasting information from email signatures? Xobni extracts telephone numbers from messages and automatically displays them for each contact. With one click you can add phone numbers to your address book. Xobni also facilitates the scheduling of meetings. One click creates an email message listing your available times based on your Outlook calendar. You can of course edit the message before sending it out.

Xobni currently works with Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007. The company plans to integrate Xobni with other email clients in the future. For now, Xobni is free. Learn more about Xobni.

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.

In an excellent article entitled The Power of Google Link Juice, venture capital legend Fed Wilson writes:

"I've thought about moving my blog from this lousy URL (avc.blogs.com) to something better. But I can never get past the google juice issue."

In other words, thanks to years of quality inbound links, Google thinks so highly of Fred's blog that his articles often appear on Google's first page when people search for keywords in those articles. If he changes his domain name, much of his Google link juice will evaporate.

What's the Lesson?

Carefully choose your domain name for your firm's Web site and blog(s). They should reside at the same domain name (which does not mean they must reside on the same Web server).

What Are the Consequences of Ignoring This Lesson?

Let's look at an all-too-common example.

A law firm launches a Web site at www.myfirm.com. Great. The site attracts links to its lawyer biographies, articles, etc. Great. A few years later, the firm decides to launch one or more blogs. Great.

But then the firm runs off the rails by placing its blog at a different domain name when instead the firm should use a subdomain of its existing domain name (e.g., asbestos.myfirm.com).

The upshot is that the blog will not benefit from any of the firm's existing Google link juice. The blog will have to start from square one.

Why Do Law Firms Make This Mistake?

Many law firms don't appreciate Google's dominance and how much power it wields. And so they wind up falling prey to one of three lines of faulty thinking.

1. Too Complex or Expensive

Some firms host their blog using a free service such as Blogger on the mistaken belief that it's difficult or expensive to host their blog at their existing domain name.

Blogger and other free services don't allow you to use your own domain name, but plenty of modestly-priced services do and the process is not difficult. You simply create a CNAME in the DNS settings of your domain name, and then domain map this CNAME using the tools provided by your blog hosting service.

Notwithstanding all that jargon, it will take you 10 minutes — 9 minutes to read the instructions and 1 minute to do the work. TypePad has the best explanation I've seen.

2. The Blog Beta Test

Some firms host their blogs at a different domain name because they're unsure about blogging and don't want the content on their main site. These firms should not bother blogging. You can't get a little bit pregnant after all.

3. Vanity URLs

Some firms want their blog at a vanity URL such as asbestoslawyers.com instead of at their firm's domain name. I understand the appeal of a memorable domain name, but from a search engine optimization perspective you then have to worry about juicing multiple domain names rather than one.

If you insist on going this route, at least envelope your blog in the same design template as your main site. This way, visitors can somewhat seamlessly go from your blog to your main site and back again. The URL will change, but people may not notice.

If you haven't built much equity around your current domain name and your site is small, you could move it to the more memorable URL that you now prefer for your imminent blog and use HTTP 301 redirects to preserve whatever Google juice you had.

Coincidentally, lexBlog CEO Kevin O'Keefe offers similar advice today about vanity domain names, including some tips on how to secure one, but he does not discuss the benefits of sticking with your established domain name (assuming you have one).

How About a Tasty Test?

Given that we're discussing "juice," it just so happens that I recently perfected a recipe after 4 years of tests. This fairly popular dish in the Northeast surprisingly pulls up only 1,570 listings on Google when the search terms appear in quotes and 35,500 without quotes.

Even though TechnoLawyer Blog doesn't usually cover food, it has considerable Google link juice. Therefore, I think there's a good chance Google will list my recipe on its first page. No tricks here. Just quality content written well.

Here's my recipe.

Here's the Google search with quotes.

Here's the Google search without quotes.

Check these Google searches on Thursday or Friday to see how the recipe is performing now and you'll see my recipe listed on the first page. Remember, people at this very minute are searching Google for keywords of great interest to you and your firm. Make sure they find you.

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.

In fifth grade I often threw out the lunch my mother prepared for me, snuck out of school, and bought a chicken parmigiana hero at the pizzeria across the street. Truancy has its virtues.

Nowadays, if you gave me that hero I would throw it out.

An Italian-American Classic Reborn for the Whole Foods Generation

The chicken parmigiana (some call it chicken parmesan) hero exemplifies one of America's greatest talents — take something unhealthy (chicken milanese) and make it even more unhealthy — but tastier too!

This Italian American classic tastes better at home than out because what matters most is ingredient quality, not technique. Most pizzerias use cheap ingredients, and the number of higher end Italian restaurants that serve chicken parmigiana in a hero or even plated without the bread grows smaller with each passing year.

But fear not. After four years of testing, I've finally perfected this dish. Tony Soprano would approve.

Below you'll find my recipe. One warning — this sandwich has an insane number of calories — 1,100 (about the same as two Big Macs or a pint of ice cream).

Ingredients For Chicken Parmigiana Hero

Chicken Breast Cutlets (about 6 ounces per hero)
Home preparation means you can buy quality chicken and cut out any fat and veins. I stopped eating these heroes in pizzerias because I would inevitably bite into something unpleasant.

Buffalo Mozzarella in Water
Again, no pizzeria uses high-quality mozzarella. Most grocery stores sell buffalo mozzarella nowadays.

Sclafani Pizza Sauce
Herein lies the not-so-secret secret to great chicken parmigiana. You need a thick puree sauce. Just as you don't want sauce rolling off your pizza, you don't want it rolling off your chicken. Pasta sauce won't cut it. You need pizza sauce. That's why pizzerias use their pizza sauce for these sandwiches. The best I've found is Sclafani. Though not technically pizza sauce, Vincent's Original Sauce works in a pinch.

Progresso Italian Bread Crumbs

Eggs
You need about 1 egg for every 12 ounces of chicken cutlets.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Grated Pecorino Romano Cheese (optional)
Despite its name, don't use parmigiano-reggiano. It'll overwhelm the other ingredients.

Seedless Italian Hero Roll
About 9 inches in length, you might have a difficult time finding these rolls if you don't live near an Italian community. That's okay because you really can't go wrong with any Italian bread with a soft or medium texture. French bread and snootier Italian breads such as ciabatta won't work because they're too brittle for a second trip into an oven. You want old school Italian bread for this hero.

Preparation of Chicken Parmigiana Hero

After trimming away the fat and veins, pound the cutlets very thin. Sprinkle some salt onto the chicken. Whisk the eggs. Dunk each cutlet in the eggs and coat both sides well with the bread crumbs.

Add enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan and heat it up. Fry the chicken cutlets on both sides until golden brown. Set aside on a paper towel.

Dice 2-3 ounces of mozzarella per hero. Set aside.

Heat up some pizza sauce in the microwave. Set aside.

Preheat the broiler to about 500 degrees.

Slice the hero roll lengthwise and place it open-faced in a broiler pan.

Depending on their size, place 1, 1.5, or 2 chicken cutlets in the bottom half of the hero roll. You want just one layer of chicken so trim the cutlets if necessary to make them fit.

Spread the sauce on top of the chicken and also on the inside of the top half of the hero roll to prevent it from burning. If you wish, sprinkle some grated romano cheese on top of the chicken. Place the diced mozzarella on top of the chicken. It'll spread as it melts so leave some gaps.

Place the hero under the broiler and watch it carefully. Adjust the flame as needed. The bread should crisp just as the cheese develops a few golden streaks. Remove the hero from the broiler.

Slice the hero in half or in thirds and enjoy it with an ice cold lager or pilsner or an orange soda. Buon appetito!