TechnoLawyer

Coming October 16, 2006 to IP Memes: Steve, Doug, and Matt cover the following memes: Apple's patent applications, the implications of a recent Court opinion on the "motivation to combine" test in patent law, the immortalization of a famous patent attorney, and some interesting statistics regarding US businesses and their many, many lawsuits.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Mondays, IP Memes is a biweekly newsletter that explores emerging technology-related intellectual property issues — or "memes" as we call them. 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 gadget that enables laptop users to reap the benefits of multiple monitors, a hot new smartphone guaranteed to make lawyers drool, and a document management system with a fresh approach. Don't miss the next issue.

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

You Can Never Have Two Many Monitors
By Dennis Kennedy
You decide to replace your desktop PC with a laptop. After all, laptops can do everything desktops can do, right? They can even burn DVDs nowadays. Soon, you start hearing about all these lawyers using two or three monitors. And then you learn the ugly truth — your laptop has just one video port. Ouch. Burned by technology yet again.

Matrox feels your pain and has created two products designed to bring you into the 21st century law office — DualHead2Go and TripleHead2Go. These two products enable you to respectively run two or three monitors from a single video port.

A black box measuring about the size of your hand, the DualHead2Go and TripleHead2Go do not contain graphics cards. Instead, they contain patent-pending circuitry that takes the memory of your existing graphics card and redistributes it among multiple monitors. Matrox claims that you will not see any distortion or scaling, which makes sense since no interpolation occurs — you're just using the actual memory in your laptop.

The DualHead2Go can drive two monitors at resolutions up to 1280x1024 pixels. The TripleHead2Go can drive three monitors at up to 1280x1024 pixels. If that's not enough, you can alternatively use the TripleHead2Go to drive two monitors at higher resolutions, including widescreen monitors.

The DualHead2Go and TripleHead2Go require a VGA output connector (easily achieved with a converter if your laptop has a DVI output), and works with Windows 2000/XP. The DualHead2Go sells for about $150 and the TripleHead2Go sells for about $300. Learn more about DualHead2Go and TripleHead2Go.

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.

TechnoLawyer member Dana Yaffee writes:
"I bought PCLaw to go with Amicus Attorney and think it is more sophisticated than what is necessary for a solo practitioner. I have been looking for something less complex and the consensus from colleagues is that Quickbooks integrates pretty well with most of the case management software programs. Many bookkeepers are familiar with Quickbooks and Timeslips, if you are planning to farm out your billing activities."

Kent L. Davis responded:
"I agree with TechnoLawyer member Dana Yaffee regarding the depth of features available in PCLaw may be disadvantageous to some firms. I also wish to confirm that QuickBooks Pro and QuickBooks Premier do an adequate job of time and billing and accounting functions.... Unfortunately, some tasks, such as trust accounting and client cost allocation are a bit awkward and require some expertise to configure the "QuickBooks" way to make everything work...."

Stephen P. Wing wrote:
"I am a long time user of PCLaw, but I recently had an opportunity to load and try out the network version of QuickBooks Enterprise. Although I have serious complaints about the immutable and non-modifiable accounting rules built into PCLaw, I still find it much easier to use and more functional than QuickBooks...."

I have used both programs at two different firms within the past two years. I agree with earlier posts — unless you are an expert in QuickBooks (which I quickly became) and know how to run customized reports, the escrow feature was very difficult to use.  Reports on attorney time and profits were also difficult to run without including attorney initials in the client's name, and many times I still ran many reports with my good old calculator.

My current firm uses PCLaw only for bookkeeping and billing, and it has made the process much simpler.  I can assign attorneys to files and run reports on hours and/or disbursements without customizing a report.  I can make a payment from the escrow account to the general account in a few simple mouse clicks.  What used to be very difficult, has become much easier using PCLaw.

I must also say that I did like QuickBooks Payroll Service very much, but I cannot compare that to PCLaw as this firm uses a payroll service. QuickBooks updated tax charts in a timely fashion and I was able to run many reports on employee hours and salaries (again, by maniuplating the customized reports).

Cathy Furlani
Law Offices of Steinberg & Symer, LLP

[Publisher's Note: Learn more about PCLaw and QuickBooks. — Sara Skiff]

About Fat Friday
Posts like the one above appear exclusively in Fat Friday, 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. You can subscribe here.

Coming October 10, 2006 to TechnoFeature: Apple's iPod has taken the world by storm. Everywhere you look, you see people wearing the signature white earbuds. But amidst this storm, Apple has inspired ever greater competition from other companies that have come up with new uses for their media players in hope of taking some of Apple's market share. In this article, trial consultant David Mykel explores several portable media players (including the iPod) and how you can put them to use as a litigation support tool when you gear up for your next trial. In short, David will show you how a portable media player can become a litigator's best friend.

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 October 13, 2006 to Fat Friday: Arthur Rieman discusses the good and bad of PowerPoint presentations, Craig Bayer responds to another member's scathing assessment of the legal software industry, Randy Gold reviews his experience with Dell customer service, and John Kennedy reviews a search application called Wilbur. 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 October 12, 2006 to Answers to Questions: Rhett Franklin reviews the Konica Minolta Bizhub C250 and C450, Carol Bratt offers up detailed instructions for customizing the shortcut menu in Word, and Harry Steinmetz reviews Legal Billing from Chaos Software for the basic needs of a solo practitioner. 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.

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, lawyer and legal technology legend Dennis Kennedy covers three sweet suites — an e-discovery suite designed to expedite the review process, an e-mail archiving suite for securely storing and searching your e-mail, and a suite of online services to help you manage your firm's Web site. Don't miss the next issue.

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

The Truth Is in Here
By Dennis Kennedy
The new amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have lawyers working feverishly to assemble their electronic discovery tool kits. Many have found an overwhelming number of different electronic discovery tools and that electronic discovery involves much more than just searching.

MetaLINCS claims to integrate the core electronic discovery tool sets of search and document review with extensive guided analysis, giving those involved in electronic discovery a powerful, efficient, and complete approach to today's electronic discovery projects. The software addresses multiple phases of the electronic discovery process, from data acquisition to production.

MetaLINCS uses its patent-pending search algorithms to move you beyond plain old search with a unique set of visual tools. These tools combine leading capabilities of social network analysis, thread analysis, related concepts, and dynamic directory. You can sort results by topics, threads, people, and concepts.

In addition to advanced search, MetaLINCS offers you a collaborative platform on which your team can review documents efficiently and less expensively. You can prioritize review, highlight high value data, de-duplicate documents, review and flag key documents, and generate useful statistics on the process.

MetaLINCS also guides users through the review process with a set of visual automated analysis features. You might find relevant information before manual review starts or spot key communications and other patterns, helping you make better strategic decisions.

Because you can organize content by topic, conversation, timeframes and other categories, you can review discovery materials more efficiently, reduce mistakes, and manage workflow by matching materials with reviewers who have the appropriate experience and expertise.

You can use MetaLINCS either as a stand-alone Windows application or through a Web interface. The Web interface uses AJAX technology, which powers much of today's Web 2.0 applications. This technology makes Web applications behave like more like a desktop application. Learn more about MetaLINCS.

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 may claim to be a PowerPoint know-it-all. Perhaps you know how to create a slide. But do you know how to insert a video file into a slide or instantly blank the screen during a presentation? In this article, veteran trial presentation consultant Timothy Piganelli shares his top ten favorite little-known features of PowerPoint. Do you need specialized software for your next trial presentation? — read on to find out why Tim doesn't think so.

William Shilling, What Makes a Happy Lawyer

TechnoLawyer publisher Neil Squillante asks:
"Why are so many lawyers unhappy? What qualities, personal and otherwise, tend to distinguish happy lawyers from unhappy lawyers?"

I think the happy lawyers are the ones that can do an excellent job of lawyering, and also do an excellent job of leaving work at the end of each day and having a great, non-lawyer life. Perspective and the ability to put one's own family before a client on a Saturday morning when your seven year old wants to go shoot off model rockets. It's all about choices; the happy lawyers choose to have a life outside their legal careers.

William R. Shilling
Attorney
Macon County Department of Social Services
Franklin, NC

About Fat Friday
Posts like the one above appear exclusively in Fat Friday, 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. You can subscribe here.

Coming October 2, 2006 to IP Memes: Steve, Doug, and Matt cover the following memes: the implications of public patent review, the recent brouhaha over a secret hand signal in college football, Stephen Colbert's take on Wikipedia, and a USPTO fee reminder.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Mondays, IP Memes is a biweekly newsletter that explores emerging technology-related intellectual property issues — or "memes" as we call them. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.