TechnoLawyer

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, lawyer and legal technology legend Dennis Kennedy covers an FRCP-ready email archiving tool, a personalized news site that learns what you like, and a free suite of online services, including email at your own domain name. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Vault into Email Bliss
By Dennis Kennedy
Email is essential, but the way we now use it serves as a textbook example of the law of unintended consequences. Its growing volume has produced a number of pain points. For example, how do you manage all your messages? How do you archive and search old messages? How do you handle bulging PST files? Do you find yourself deleting messages and attachments because you've reached the storage quota for your inbox? And what about email in discovery?

Symantec's Enterprise Vault 7.0 aims to solve these problems by providing and archiving tool for managing organizational data, including email, instant messages, and other content. Enterprise Vault's intelligent classification engines help you bring order to the growing chaos with a suite of helpful tools. As a result, you gain better control of data in a simpler manner with reduced storage costs.

Enterprise Vault offers a variety of useful tools. Automated management tools help you avoid annoying mailbox storage and size limitations. You can better manage PST files, expedite backups, and improve disaster recovery with centralized email management, and improve your ability to archive data. Archiving features enable you to store and retrieve email and other data in ways that meet your compliance and electronic discovery requirements. Archiving files may reduce your local storage requirements by 50 to 75%.

These tools automate the archiving of data in a number of useful ways, including content-based archiving. You might use the fifty predefined rules, pop-up menus to require users to select among pre-defined categories, or work in connection with your content or document management system. As a result, you can manage data based on your unique retention, deletion and compliance policies based on content, not just by senders and receivers. As you would expect, administrators have a lot of granular control over application of policies to individual users.

Enterprise Vault 7.0, the newest version, also offers a module for electronic discovery needs called the Discovery Accelerator, designed to help you with the new amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The Discovery Accelerator has three components to help you with predisclosure meetings, legal holds, and native file presentation. Users of Symantec's Information Foundation 2007 will appreciate the integration of Enterprise Vault with this security tool to help manage enterprise information policies.

Enterprise Vault 7.0 integrates with Microsoft's latest applications, including Exchange Server 2007 and Windows Rights Management Services, and enable you to search encrypted email and view email natively without using Exchange. Enterprise Vault also handles data from a wide range of content management and other commonly-used document management systems.

Enterprise Vault starts at about $40 per user license per year for 25 users. Learn more about Enterprise Vault 7.0.

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 February 13, 2007 to TechnoFeature: With Valentine's Day just around the corner, what better time to get your relationship with technology in tip-top shape? In this article, legal technology therapist and trainer Adriana Linares discusses the interesting parallels between romantic relationships and technology commitments, and offers up five important tips for ensuring that at least the tech side of your life stays on track. You don't need to woo a new printer with dinner and a movie — though you may need Adriana's words of wisdom to get you through the install. Learn how to discover your inner-romantech.

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 February 16, 2007 to Fat Friday: Dave Markowitz reviews his experience using a Brother HL-2070N printer with multiple operating systems, Enrico Schaefer explains how taking his practice paperless boosted his profits, Susan Billeaud offers up several etiquette tips for using a cell phone in public, Gregory Landry issues a call to arms for public interest lawyers, and James Walsh shares how a recent TechnoLawyer NewsWire article helped him join the world of multiple monitors. 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 February 15, 2007 to Answers to Questions: Carolyn Thornlow, a legal tech consultant, reviews Tabs3 versus QuickBooks for legal time-billing, Thomas Caffrey explains how to use Time Matters to track client referrals, Craig Bayer gives three reasons why he recommends Word to his clients over WordPerfect, Charles T. Lester, Jr. shares his experience getting Acrobat 7 to work with several scanners, and Brant Gluth reviews a utility for encrypting files on your hard drive and in email. 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.

Every year, the law students at the University of Alberta put on a variety show called Law Show that "take a humorous look at the law school experience and the legal profession in general."

One group of students created a parody of the Nelly Furtado hit song, Promiscuous. Titled "Promiscuous Firm," the parody likens the law firm recruiting process to dating complete with head games and being unceremoniously dumped. The students don't just sing, but also perform an elaborate choreography. Nicely done!

Thanks to YouTube, what once would have had a parochial audience is now available for the entire legal profession to enjoy. Take a look (click here if you don'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.

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, lawyer and legal technology legend Dennis Kennedy covers an online file sharing and backup service, a new cost recovery tool for legal research, and an online task manager. Don't miss the next issue.

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

No Problem, It's On My Other Drive
By Dennis Kennedy
The world has moved from file-storing to file-sharing. Even novice computer users have files on several computers, hard drives, USB drives, and, increasingly, online storage sites. Accessing, moving, and managing all of our files can become quite a chore. Plus we often want to send files too large for email inboxes. And let's not forget the importance of backing up all our files. What's a busy lawyer to do?

MyOtherDrive.com offers a suite of online file storage and sharing tools. It's a online storage site with a familiar Explorer-style interface, and a set of useful tools. If you have access to the Internet, you will have access to your files. Best of all, especially for lawyers, you can control who accesses your files — from the public to specific individuals.

MyOtherDrive.com began as a photo-sharing site, and offers a full set of photo-sharing tools. However, it handles all types of files — documents, PDFs, audio, and video. Simply join the service and upload your files. The site's viewers also let you preview files without downloading them.

MyOtherDrive.com sets itself apart from similar services in the ways you specify who can access your files. You can make files fully public or accessible only by you for backup purposes. You can share with specific individuals or groups, such as family, friends, colleagues, or clients. As you invite people to access your files, MyOtherDrive.com helps you build a "social network" with other members of MyOtherDrive.com. You can email hyperlinks to non-members so they can access your files.

The free version gives you 5GB of storage and 10GB/month of bandwidth. The "Pro" versions offer unlimited bandwidth and from 25GB to 200GB of storage at annual costs ranging from $19.99 to $99.99. Learn more about MyOtherDrive.

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.

You don't have time to track 100 business and technology magazines and blogs. We do. Below you'll find our latest discoveries.

With E-Filing the File-Size Matters

Creating a Transparent Signature Stamp

Top Ten in [Legal] Tech

Cisco General Counsel on State of Technology in the Law

West's Tech Talk 2007 Predictions with Dennis Kennedy

West's Technology Forecast for 2007 and New York Legal Tech with Monica Bay

(A tip of the blog to Wired GC and You Will Be Forever for leading me to two of the above Posts.)

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.

I'd like to thank the 150 or so of you who made our BlawgWorld 2007 Pre/Launch Party a smash success on January 28th. Photos and much more coming soon.

I find trade shows interesting because no two people have the same experience. It's kind of like a microcosm of life itself — thousands of people congregating in the same place, but each person leaving with a unique set of experiences.

Take me for example. On Monday, I had 11 meetings and attended a party. On Tuesday, I had 13 meetings and attended two parties.

The purpose of these meetings by and large was to learn about hot new products to cover in our TechnoLawyer NewsWire newsletter. We already know about our clients' 2007 product plans so I mostly met with non-clients. You'll read about many of these cool products soon (provided you subscribe to TechnoLawyer NewsWire).

Of the parties, I attended, two were hosted by clients of ours — Attenex held a jam-packed cocktail reception at the Hilton, and LexisNexis held a jam-packed late night soiree at 44 in Ian Schrager's funky Royalton Hotel. The other party I attended was hosted by SmartCase at David Burke and Donatella, an upscale restaurant.

So, who threw the best party? We did of course! Actually, all the parties had a good mix of people and their own special touches that made them memorable. Our party had the most elaborate visuals thanks to a 16 minute looping video we created (no sound). Attenex had a signature drink — the Attenex-tini, and so did we — the BlawgWorld Lemonade. SmartCase had the best champagne and the fanciest food, including an amazing hors d'oeuvres served in an eggshell. We had the most food (no one left our party hungry). LexisNexis had the biggest crowd and best music. I'm sure I missed many other LegalTech parties that were equally memorable.

Why all the fuss about the parties? Because that's where some of the most interesting conversations and discoveries take place, especially after a few rounds of drinks. For example, at one of the parties, I met some people from Nexidia, a company whose technology enables lawyers to search voicemail for keywords.

So the next time you attend a trade show, don't waste your evenings in your hotel room watching TV. Instead, head out to the parties and catch up on sleep when you return home. Dancing is completely optional.

One last point. LegalTech has become a victim of its own success. It has outgrown the Hilton (sorry Paris). Not only do you have to visit three different floors to see all the exhibits (a broken escalator forced everyone to burn a few extra calories), but there is precious little space for off-floor meetings with major accounts and the press.

I'd like to see LegalTech move to a venue with all exhibitors on the same floor and much larger booths that have closed interiors for private meetings. Easier said than done since New York City lacks such a venue (it doesn't have any mega-hotels and its Jacob Javits convention center is in the middle of nowhere). So here's a suggestion — hold just one LegalTech show per year for 5 days — and do it in Las Vegas, which is much warmer than New York this time of year.

How was LegalTech for you? Please share your experience.

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 February 6, 2007 to TechnoFeature: E-Discovery and Electronically Stored Information (ESI) are at the top of many attorney's list of important topics they need to learn about — so consider this TechnoFeature E-Discovery 101. In this article, attorney and legal technology enthusiast Bruce Olson provides his top ten E-Discovery caveats, with corresponding suggestions for dealing with the identified concerns. Bruce's suggestions deal with common issues most attorneys will encounter when dealing with E-Discovery and how to avoid the major pitfalls.  If you've been wary of diving into the intricacies of E-Discovery — here's your life preserver.

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 February 9, 2007 to Fat Friday: Barron Henley gives the lowdown on how to buy Dell computers for use in a law firm, John Starkweather shares how a $100 million Powerball victory would change his personal injury practice (and who he'd really like to pursue), Tim Donovan discusses why he thinks PowerPoint can serve as an effective presentation tool, Susan Billeaud discusses a $30 tool that streamlines her billing process, and Ken Laska reflects on a recent legal video that we exposed. 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.