TechnoLawyer

I have two remote controls similar in size and functionality, but one is much better than the other because of its design. I'm referring to Apple's remote and Griffin Technology's AirClick remote (see photo).

The Apple remote has an oversized Play/Pause button in the middle surrounded by Previous/Next on the left and right, and Volume Increase/Decrease buttons on the top and bottom. This layout is simple but brilliant — you can easily find every button without looking. Volume has long used an up/down metaphor so it makes sense to have these buttons at the top and bottom. Similarly, Previous/Next has long used a left/right metaphor so placing them on the sides also makes perfect sense.

By contrast, the Griffin AirClick remote is functional but lacks this elegant design. For starters, the buttons are all the same size. The Play/Pause button sits alone at the top so it's relatively easy to find without looking — but not as easy as the oversized button on the Apple remote). Also, the Previous/Next buttons and Volume buttons are easily confused because they both use a left/right and up/down placement.

So, what can a remote teach you about running a law firm? It just goes to show that you can stand out even if you basically offer the same services as other law firms. The key lies in delivering a superior user experience — not just the outcome of your clients' matters, but the way you go about achieving success.

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 June 16, 2006 to Fat Friday: Caren Schwartz explains how to choose billing software, Nicholas Bettinger reviews several desktop search options, Kelly Lupo reviews using McAfee Anti-Virus software in conjunction with the open source ClamWin and how this combination compares to Symantec AntiVirus, Andrew Paterson reviews his experience with Dell customer service, and Kath Gilliam reviews her favorite iPod speakers (and admits to a guilty musical pleasure). Don't miss this issue.

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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 15, 2006 to Answers to Questions: Charles Beach offers up some Timeslips advice based on his ten years of experience with the program, Duane Murphy reviews WORLDOX and how to use it in a successful document management system, Carol Gerber discusses the potential problems in instituting automatic PDF-to-Word conversion, Barron Henley continues his Word v. WordPerfect rant, and Clint Pullin reviews the new "Send for Review" feature in Acrobat Pro 7.0. Don't miss this issue.

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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 13, 2006 to TechnoFeature: Lawyers nowadays bounce from firm to firm or often leave to start up their own practice. But do they fully understand the obligations and rules of conduct involved in such a transition? In this article, attorneys Robert Muldoon, Jr. and Margaret Paget discuss the ethical and professional issues that arise when lawyers leave their firms, and what laws govern their actions (or inactions). Learn the appropriate steps to take before jumping ship.

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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, tech expert Jill Bauerle covers litigation software that enables you to review documents at warp speed, a cost recovery technology that tracks everything from photocopies to BlackBerry phone calls, and a free online content management system for creating blogs or entire sites. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Review 2,000 Documents/Day Without Breaking a Sweat
By Jill Bauerle
Imagine a technology that can sift through discovery documents and create a radar-like map, making it a snap to identify documents as responsive, nonresponsive, or privileged. Sound like a Star Trek episode? Actually, this technology exists today in the form of Attenex Patterns Document Mapper, which enables lawyers to analyze documents at warp speed (well, ten times faster) and with greater accuracy (2,000 document decisions per day versus 200 using traditional methods). The key lies in the "document map" Attenex Patterns Document Mapper creates of your universe of documents. The software analyzes the nouns and noun phrases and clusters like documents together to help reviewers analyze similar material, and make faster, more accurate document decisions. For example, Attenex Patterns Document Mapper can tie together related e-mail messages, identify key players and dates, and even provide an early risk assessment (especially helpful for regulatory matters). Armed with this data, you can better strategize, evaluate legal theories, and conduct a cost analysis. On a more nuts and bolts level, Attenex Patterns Document Mapper's suite of tools enables you to dynamically reorganize and categorize documents as you review them. Specifically, the "Document Viewer" enables you to review documents in their native format. You can assign up to nine configurable categories (such as responsive or privileged) to documents as you review them. You can also add annotations and perform additional document tagging (e.g., a reason for privilege). Attenex Patterns Document Mapper also features powerful search tools. Lawyers often dread reviewing documents. With Attenex Patterns Document Mapper, lawyers may soon request to be beamed up to the document review room.. Learn more about Attenex Patterns Document Mapper.

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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.

P. Douglas Folk, Tip: Acrobat Professional or Standard; How to Offset the Cost of Acrobat

TechnoLawyer member Michael Commins asks:
"I was recently told by a local legal support vendor that Acrobat Professional is the only version of Acrobat to consider using in a law office. Before he told me this, I had purchased 3 licenses for Acrobat Standard for our firm. Should we move to Professional?"

Professional has some annotation features that are not included in the Standard edition that are a must if you use it for document mark-ups and send files to clients and other users who don't have Acrobat (e.g., those using the free Reader). We purchased Professional for the lawyers in our office who are doing contract reviews and other more intense mark-up work on their files.

You can offset some of the added cost of buying Professional (or Standard for that matter) by using some of the freeware or shareware PDF file converters available in the marketplace for your secretaries or other people who don't need to do anything more than convert a scanned image of a document, or Word or Excel files, to a PDF file before e-mailing it somewhere. Several capable utilities are available as freeware or shareware from www.tucows.com, although I notice one of the more popular ones, AAbby Finereader, is now sold as a commercial program for $299, which is about what you pay for Acrobat.

P. Douglas Folk
Folk & Associates, P.C.
Phoenix, AZ

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.

Benjamin M Martin, Review: Windows XP Remote Desktop with Cisco VPN Client

TechnoLawyer member Edward F. Harney, Jr. asks:
"I am somewhat baffled at why folks would want to use GoToMyPC.com, especially in a small firm setting. We used PCAnywhere for years but switched to the Remote Desktop Connection application that comes free with Windows XP. It is incredibly quick and can be used on any machine that has XP. You just type in your static IP address and it is like you are sitting at your desk almost. Graphics take a bit of time to transmit but everything else is virtually seamless. With respect to GoToMyPC.com, is there something I am missing here? Is there a reason to use GoToMyPC.com instead of RDP with XP?"

As a newly-hired IT Manager here, we just setup new servers to replace the much, much antiquated old ones. Thus, the attorneys are now able to remote desktop from home and access their files, etc.

I've suggested using Remote Desktop built into Windows XP because it is very easy to use since all you need to know is the IP address or the computer name. In order to use the computer name, you must establish a VPN connection to your server to provide a secure connection and then you launch Remote Desktop and type in your computer name and, assuming it is turned on, it's as if you're sitting right in front of it.

We use the Cisco VPN Client that we received with our new Cisco PIX firewall.

The point though, is be sure to make a VPN connection to your server before you remote into a workstation since you're dealing with very important data and you don't need anyone "sniffing" it out of the connection.

Hope this helps,

Benjamin M Martin
IT Manager
Bassett Law Firm LLP
Fayetteville, AR

[Publisher's Note: Download Windows XP Remote Desktop. — 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 June 05, 2006 to IP Memes: You'll learn about a trademark dispute over the widely-used term "Web 2.0," about an organization determined to overturn every patent, what Don King and the Bellagio Hotel and Casino have in common (other than boxing), and much more.

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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.

Coming June 8, 2006 to Answers to Questions: David Hudgens reviews the pro and cons of PCLaw and Time Matters, Robert Lee suggests a way to easily convert a PDF file to Word, H R Kloppenburg reviews his experience using ISYS search software, Frank Feilmeyer shares some open source options for secure instant messaging, and David Silverman suggests a few ways to improve Timeslips performance (while also declaring his love for a certain spyware utility). 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 6, 2006 to TechnoFeature: You may claim to be a Word aficionado. Perhaps you know how to use Styles. But do you know how to edit text in Print Preview or use Autocorrect to reduce keystrokes? In this article, legal technology consultant Patricia Nemish shares her top ten favorite little-known features of Word. Many years ago Pat switched from WordPerfect to Word at her clients' insistence. They looked to her to teach them Word's sophisticated features — and now she'll teach you. Pay attention!

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.