TechnoLawyer

Coming March 15, 2007 to Answers to Questions: Steve Enfield advises the best current method for securing your wireless network, Paul Billings reviews the Sanyo ICR-B150 digital dictation recorder, Michael Shaikun reviews his IBM ThinkPad X41 laptop, Emil Chang enters the fray by sharing his experience switching from WordPerfect to Word, and David Bernier reviews PracticeMaster's ability to track telephone calls. 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 March 16, 2007 to Fat Friday: Barron Henley explains the dangers of relying on "date modified" in your document management system, Joe Hartley shares his top two legal technology innovations, Carroll Straus reviews Mozy for online backup (and shares what the company had to say about rival Carbonite), Peter Summerill discusses why the legal market could never be "friction free," and Chris Shows responds to Ross Kodner's renowned "Paper LESS" system. 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 the latest version of a popular litigation support solution, a Web conferencing service that works with Macs and PCs, and a Web-based contact manager. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Litigate. Integrate. And Disintegrate the Competition.
By Dennis Kennedy

Litigators today face a bewildering set of choices among hundreds of litigation software packages and electronic discovery tools. At the very least, you want programs that link to and work well with your other programs. Even better, you'd like to find a home base, starting point, or "dashboard" for all of your litigation work.

LexisNexis CaseMap has released the newest version of CaseMap, its popular case analysis tool. CaseMap 7 focuses on integration and clearly embraces the concept of a litigation dashboard.

Since its introduction, CaseMap has made it easy for litigators, paralegals, and even expert witnesses to organize, analyze and take control of their cases. Each new version has added new features attuned to the needs of litigation teams, and the new CaseMap 7 continues that tradition. Both new users and existing users will find much to recommend in CaseMap 7.

Not surprisingly, CaseMap 7 features tighter integration with LexisNexis' growing collection of litigation tools, especially LexisNexis Total Litigator. This particular integration enables you to work with the facts in your case in new, helpful ways.

For example, you can select a fact like a company name in CaseMap and send it to Total Litigator to find background information, similar cases, and relevant business intelligence about opposing counsel or the judge handling your case. Equally helpful, right-click a case citation to get a copy of the case or Shepardize it. For those who use CourtLink, CaseMap 7 makes it easy to work with pleadings and docket information. CaseMap 7 also offers an integrated menu that enables you to use other LexisNexis litigation tools.

CaseMap 7 doesn't just integrate with LexisNexis products. It has also taken its Adobe Acrobat integration even further. Enhancements in Adobe Acrobat 8 are compatible with CaseMap 7. For example, CaseMap's Acrobat PLUS plug-in facilitates the use of Acrobat 8's new  Bates Stamps tool.

Litigators can't get enough of Bates stamping so CaseMap 7 features improvements to its own PDF Bates stamping capabilities with a new set of power tools, including analysis, finding and filtering, and synchronization. The Bates Analyzer looks at your Bates numbers and checks for inconsistencies, duplicates, and anomalies. The Bates Find and Filter utility helps you find and view only the documents you need. The Bates End/Pages Synchronization tool can adjust your Bates numbers during the production process, keeping everything synchronized.

CaseMap's "Send to" feature has become a popular way to get information to and from other litigation programs. In CaseMap 7, this tool has become more powerful with a bulk send capability, complete with a wizard to help you define what you want to send.

You can download a free 30-day trial version of CaseMap 7.  Learn more about CaseMap 7.

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.

Given that I'm the publisher of TechnoLawyer, I probably shouldn't say this, but sometimes it seems like the same legal technology predictions make an appearance every year, but nothing really changes. In fact, you could probably whip out a predictions article from 2004, change the date to 2007, and republish it. Ha!

For example, legal technology prognosticators have long predicted that corporate counsel would demand that their outside counsel become more technologically adept. These soothsayers have also issued advisories about e-discovery.

Cliches? Up until this year, maybe. But in 2007, these predictions might actually come to pass — according to a Law.com article entitled Legal Departments Tell Firms: Get on the Tech Train.

The article discusses the gaining momentum of electronic billing whereby law firms must buy and maintain a billing system that can deliver electronic invoices to their corporate clients in a standardized format.

The article also discusses the very real problem of managing email and other potentially discoverable electronic data.

These trends certainly exist. I met with both e-billing vendors and e-discovery vendors at LegalTech earlier this year. They're all growing like gangbusters.

But in the aggregate, do these trends represent a tsunami, a trickle, or something in between?

Please discuss your own adoption rate of e-billing, e-discovery, and other technologies as well as your thoughts on the legal profession as a whole.

(A tip of the blog to Dennis Kennedy for the article link.)

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.

My Thoughts on CLE TechnoEditorial touched a nerve!

I would like to thank everyone who responded both publicly and privately. Please keep it coming as I personally consider this issue important. CLE, like all information, should be portable.

Kathryn Bellman, Director of Continuing Legal Education at the Nebraska State Bar Association, writes: "A number of CLE providers are taking their CLE content and making it available for podcasting. Our link is through LegalSpan. I think lawyers are slowly beginning to make greater use of podcasts because of their convenience — download to your computer or listen on your iPod. But every new technology has a learning curve, and the learning curve is not always about the ease of use, but rather: How will I use it in my own practice?"

Barry B. Ansbacher, a real estate lawyer in Florida, writes: "Neil, you will be pleased to learn that the Florida Bar has just joined modernity. In a huge leap from cassette tapes actually, the Florida Bar now offers MP3 downloads of its sponsored CLE courses. Many of the courses should be eligible for MCLE credit in other jurisdictions. Now if they can move to allowing downloads of a la carte topics like ALI-ABA. Sometimes there is just one seminar topic of interest for a current case or such, and it would be great to be able to purchase just those materials and audio.  With MP3 the technology will accommodate more creative policies."

William D. Elliott, a tax and estate planning lawyer in Texas, writes: "The State Bar of Texas uses MP3 format for their CLE courses available for purchase. The quality is of the highest grade."

David A. Stewart of Jeffrey Long & Associates in Portland, Oregon writes: "FYI the American Association of Justice (AAJ formerly ATLA) distributes it's CLE's in MP3 format. AAJ covers a wide variety of subjects including some commercial litigation and intellectual property. Most of it is of course geared to personal injury, professional negligence, products liability, pharmaceutical, etc., but there is a lot of other stuff as well. In my experience, the caliber of their CLE programs is outstanding and keeping apprised of litigation trends and outcomes seems like a worthwhile CLE pursuit for lawyers of most any stripe."

Finally, David M. Heisler, Operations Counsel at GE Capital Solutions, writes: "Neil, my company's legal department just inked a subscription arrangement with Practicing Law Institute, and in perusing the site I noticed that they have no less than 742 downloadable CLE courses in MP3 format. Hopefully there might be something there that would both satisfy your CLE requirements and keep you awake — just click on "Downloadable MP3's" under "Recorded Programs" in the left-hand column on the main page, or go directly to www.pli.edu/product/mp3_viewall.asp and sort by title or interest area. This afternoon I noticed at least 20 downloadable MP3's covering Internet, computer and technology law."

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.

Coming March 9, 2007 to Fat Friday: Wells Anderson reviews Time Matters as a lawyer's hub, Christel Burris shares her experience dealing with Dell, Suzanne Turner reviews Deskloops, Mazyar Hedayat discusses Acrobat 8 and legal software upgrades in general, and Shaunna Mireau discusses online legal research and its impact on law firm libraries. 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 March 8, 2007 to Answers to Questions: Diane Sherman reviews two Internet fax services (and why she uses one for incoming and one for outgoing faxes), Martin Dean discusses a new ISO standard PDF format called PDF/A, and why it's important for law firms to know about, Jason Havens shares his thoughts on enterprise search tools from Google and Microsoft, Sandor Boxer reviews his Philips 9350 Pocket Memo digital recorder, and Marc Martin explains how to make electronic Bates stamping easier. 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 March 6, 2007 to TechnoFeature: Many legal professionals have been using Word Processor Tables as document indexes to manage their litigation documents. Although simple in form, the word processor index is very limited. If you fall into this category, you may want to consider a litigation support software package. In this article, veteran consultant Timothy Piganelli, along with co-author Cindy MacBean, discusses why you should consider dropping your index in favor of a more powerful tool.

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.

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, lawyer and legal technology legend Dennis Kennedy covers a calendar synchronization program, a new case management program with built-in Google mashups, and an e-discovery project management solution. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Take Your Calendar Everywhere You Go
By Dennis Kennedy

We recently reported on ClearSync 1, an application that enables you to create multiple calendars (personal, work, kids, etc.) and keep them synchronized across multiple programs (including Outlook) and devices (including Treos and other Palm smartphones).

Hot on the heels of that version, the company has released ClearSync 2, which contains improvements and new features. ClearSync 2 features both online and desktop applications so you can easily create, maintain, and share calendars and contact lists among the various groups to which you belong even when you do not have Internet access. You can even give members of your group the right to edit entries for you.

ClearSync 2 provides six important new features.

First, Automatic Synchronization updates calendars and contacts when you and those with whom you share calendars are connected to the Internet or at scheduled intervals. In other words, you no longer need to manually synchronize or worry about someone else making a change and forgetting to synchronize.

Second, you can now search across the calendars and contacts of everyone in a group (e.g., your department, your entire firm, your family, etc.).

Third, you now have the ability to share your calendar with with Mac and Linux users, and can even import iCal files. iCal has become a calendar standard of sorts online.

Fourth, when you set up repetitive events (such as a weekly meeting), you can create exceptions for holidays, etc. when that event will not take place.

Fifth, you can quickly create calendar events and then drag and drop them to any date — even on a different calendar.

Lastly, ClearSync 2 now features automatic software updates, which more and more computer users have come to expect thanks to the success of Windows Update.

ClearSync 2 comes in three versions: free with a limited feature set (calendar only, no synchronization), Silver (includes everything except wireless synchronizing, encryption, and telephone support), and Gold. Silver sells for $19,95/year and Gold sells for $59.95/year). You can try ClearSync 2 for free for 30 days. Learn more about ClearSync 2.

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.

With so many forms of marketing available, you would think law firms would shun video since it's the most difficult to pull off. But YouTube's enormous audience lures more and more law firms every day since uploading a video doesn't cost anything.

Today, I bring you two law firm marketing videos. One features Michael Lynch at Levin Papantonio Thomas Mitchell Echsner & Proctor discussing food poisoning, and the other features Greg Schlender of the Schlender Law Firm discussing estate planning.

To its credit, Levin Papantonio has produced a slick TV magazine-style video in which Michael Lynch interviews an expert on food poisoning (no doubt the firm uses this expert in its cases). During the interview, you're treated to music, graphics, B-roll, and even a news crawl along the bottom of the screen. Michael is a natural with a smooth delivery (the expert less so, but she knows her stuff). Great job!

By contrast, the Schlender Law Firm's video features Greg Schlender sitting in front of a camera at his desk. The camera angle never changes, and Greg often looks at his notes. This is a shame because the Schlender Law Firm has branded its approach to estate planning, referring to its method as the "Family Fortress." This creative touch deserves a creative video to match.

While video is challenging to pull off successfully, it's not expensive thanks to desktop video editing software, royalty-free photos, videos, and music, and lots of film school grads seeking work. Do it right or don't bother.

Watch Food Poisoning — A National Epidemic? (click here if you can't see the video below).

Watch The Family Fortress (click here if you can't see the video below).

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.