TechnoLawyer

On February 11, 2002 in this newsletter, I wrote: "Despite the years of competition, the case management market still has many players. But last year, West Group acquired ProLaw and Lexis-Nexis allied itself with Time Matters. Will further consolidation occur? Will we ever see a roll-up or merger involving a case management solution and an accounting or time-billing solution?"

Since then, LexisNexis has acquired Time Matters and PCLaw, and more recently CaseSoft and Dataflight. Thomson-West, Wolters Kluwer, and other companies have also made strategic acquisitions.

What does it all mean? Veteran technology reporter John K. Waters attempts to answer this question in his Law.com article, LexisNexis Mergers: Toward a Microsoftesque Monoculture?

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.

Picture this — you're the product manager of Samsung's new Q1 ultra-mobile tablet PC. You're feeling pretty good. After all, the Q1 does everything a laptop can do in a smaller form factor.

But then CNET UK has to go and spoil your day by publishing a 10 page (!) head-to-head review comparing the Q1 to the Apple Newton MessagePad 2000, which was released in 1997. Even worse, CNET crowns Newton the winner, especially regarding battery life, reliability, and price! Kudos to CNET UK for a truly fun read.

From the article: "It was always going to be a tough fight as the Samsung Q1 punches well above the Newton's weight," said Chris. "But the Newton has 12 times the battery life of the Q1, so ended up winning the fight with sheer stamina.  Add to this the Q1's inflated price and it's a no-brainer. They may be ten years apart, but the Newton still wipes the floor with the Origami project."

Read the article.

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 August 10, 2006 to Answers to Questions: William Kellermann discusses why there's more to metadata than meets the eye, Caren Schwartz offers advice for those looking to sync the new Treo 700 with Time Matters, D. Paul Dalton reviews his experience using LogMeIn for remotely troubleshooting computers, Andrew Simpson suggests a Google Desktop utility for searching image-only PDFs, and Shawn McKee reviews his Amicus Attorney-Outlook integration. 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 August 11, 2006 to Fat Friday: William Lloyd explains why, for him, multiple monitors increases productivity, Gregory Miller reviews PinHawk Law on the Blogs NewzDigest, Jim Sewell discusses his firm's paperless workflow, Paul Lepine explains how to change a Word file's creation date and discusses a helpful file management feature in Word 2003 absent from earlier versions, and Celia Abbott reviews Easy Bates. In addition, this issue features links to 4 additional Posts in the TechnoLawyer Archive. 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 August 8, 2006 to TechnoFeature: Does the word "budget" make you want to run for the hills? Sure, creating a budget can seem overwhelming and scary — but so can not meeting financial goals. In this article, CPA and law firm specialist Richard Puzo outlines the basics of budgeting for a law practice. Rick will show you how to assess your firm's needs and create an adaptable financial plan that will yield big results. He almost makes it seem ... easy.

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 network appliance that makes short work of electronic discovery tasks, an online service that enables you to create multimedia presentations, and a handheld document scanner. Don't miss the next issue.

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

E-Discovery for the Rest of Us
By Dennis Kennedy
Electronic discovery can seem like a daunting world of software, services, and outside vendors, all combined with arcane technology issues. But what if you just want to work with a limited amount of e-mail and other electronic data?

Cricket Legal Technologies' Cricket Box may hold the answer. The Cricket Box is a dedicated electronic discovery appliance designed for law firms and litigation support consultants. It gives you a dedicated, turn-key solution with no software to install or configure. Just turn it on, follow the on-screen wizards, and start working.

A simple interface enables you to handle most of the standard tasks in today's world of electronic discovery. Just drag and drop your documents, and then use Cricket Box to filter, de-duplicate, and bates stamp your documents before exporting them to other litigation tools. Cricket Box can handle images, text, and metadata in many file formats.

The company claims that Cricket Box is easy to operate and can be used without IT support. It features a variety of powerful search and other electronic discovery tools. You can run Boolean, fuzzy, stem and other searches often used in electronic discovery.

Cricket Box uses a SQL Server database, which means it's fast. It can pull data from just about any source, including CD-ROM, DVD, flash memory, hard drives, etc. If you run into password-protected files, Cricket Box can probably crack them for you. The company claims that all these smarts mean you'll never miss a valid document, resulting in more accurate work product than competitive offerings.

When you're ready to export data, you'll find that Cricket Box integrates with Concordance, CT Summation, Ringtail, iConect, iPro, and other popular tools. Cricket Box is sold on a subscription basis. For a limited time, a one year subscription sells for $10,000.

Learn more about Cricket Box.

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.

Richard Bash, Review: Broadband: Worth the Expense?

TechnoLawyer publisher Neil Squillante asks:
"What do you use for Internet access at your firm — a T1 line, SDSL, ADSL, Cable, something else? How fast? How much does it cost? Which provider? How well does it work? Please reply and help your fellow TechnoLawyer members avoid costly mistakes."

I use AT&T/Yahoo to reach the Internet via a DSL modem (supplied by Yahoo). Cost is now $59.99 a month and barely worth the expense. May go back to dial-up. Broadband is not all it is cracked up to be. Lots of slow times.

Richard M. Bash
Attorney-at-Law
Anderson, IN

[Publisher's Note: It sounds to me like you don't have true broadband because there is no comparison to dialup. Before you revert, try another provider. DSL providers in particular are a dime a dozen. Also, make sure you get download speeds of at least 1Mbps in both directions (i.e., SDSL as opposed to ADSL), which I suspect is currently not the case. If you don't need fast upload speeds, you can opt for ADSL with download speeds as fast as 6Mbps. You can check your speed here — Neil Squillante]

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.

Mark Sargis, Tip: Convert Image-Only PDFs into Editable Word Documents

TechnoLawyer member Larry Olsen asks:
"I am enquiring about the existence of cost-effective software that can reliably convert incoming PDF files into Word files (.doc) at the mail recipient's desktop. Hopefully such software would enable Word documents conversion into pdf files — again at the desktops. Our firm of 35 humans have networked smart desktops — high speed. Any advice? Many thanks."

Bob Lee responded:
"If you have the Standard or Professional version of Acrobat 7, choose File: Save As. In the "Save As" dialog box, you can choose Microsoft Word Document from the pop-up menu. Then just click the Save button, and open the document in Word. Voila, you are done!..."

Please note: If your original PDF document is only a scanned-in image, when you "Save As" into Word format, you will only get an image of each page pasted onto each page in Word. If you want to manipulate the text in Word, you must first perform a "Recognize Text Using OCR" function in Acrobat 7 (in the drop-down menu under Document, called something else in Acrobat 6). Acrobat's OCR functionality isn't the best, but at least it's available right in the program.

Mark R. Sargis
Bellande & Sargis Law Group, LLP
Chicago, Illinois

[Publisher's Note: Learn more about Adobe Acrobat. — Sara Skiff]

About Answers to Questions
Posts like the one above appear exclusively in Answers to Questions, 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. You can subscribe here.

Coming August 4, 2006 to Fat Friday: William Ziacoma reviews the USB-based GPS system Microsoft Street and Trips, Steven Finell explains when and how to date your file names (calendar dates, not romantic dates in case you were wondering), and William Kelly shares his experience using dual monitors at his firm. In addition, this issue features links to 5 additional Posts in the TechnoLawyer Archive. 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 August 3, 2006 to Answers to Questions: Tim Schober explains how he uses Word's built-in document assembly features, Peter Pike reviews his experience with Amicus Attorney's Outlook integration for e-mail, Cynthia Zook discusses how WordPerfect X3 handles metadata, Miriam Jacobson reviews RTG Software as an alternative to QuickBooks and Timeslips (plus we provide links to some very helpful articles on time-billing solutions), and Jed Berliner explains how to scan multiple documents into one PDF file with a ScanSnap. In addition, this issue features links to 5 additional Posts in the TechnoLawyer Archive. 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.