TechnoLawyer

Fenwick & West's San Francisco office recently went shopping for a disaster recovery system. The firm retained InMage whose fees amount to just 10% of the fees proposed by AT&T, IBM, and Sunguard. InMage has its sights set on helping a segment of the market that has traditionally not engaged in disaster recover — small and middle market businesses, including medium and large law firms. Read more.

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.

Looking for a new job? TechnoLawyer member Paul Frank writes: "A leading global law firm, based in New York City, is recruiting a Knowledge Coordinator/Legal Taxonomy Analyst to work with librarians, attorneys, legal assistants and professional support lawyers. Position would be involved in maintaining the quality of search results and content and establishing workflow procedures for vetting documents. Position would oversee workflow, reinforce and monitor data inclusion and indexing and would establish and maintain effective working relationships with all legal and support departments firmwide. Position will develop a thorough understanding of the end user operation of the software and systems which support Knowledge Management in the firm and become the chief troubleshooter and go to person for expertise in the Enterprise Search end user experience. Position will work with attorneys to analyze and propose changes to the metadata in Document Management System and incorporate into workflow, and would be involved in any initiatives relating to software changes to the DMS. Person will be involved with the development and maintenance of our legal taxonomy, particular U.S. English, and to develop, monitor, and help maintain taxonomic consistency across all their data sets in all languages supported by the firm." If this job interests you or someone you know, .

About Quips
A Quip is a brief member contribution for which we don't have room in our Answers to Questions or Fat Friday newsletters. Instead, Quips appear first in TechnoGuide, and later here in TechnoLawyer Blog. TechnoGuide, which is free, also contains exclusive content. You can subscribe here.

Via DennisKennedy.blog comes news of a Law.com article about how some law firms have removed associate bios from their Web sites to prevent poaching by headhunters. This development reminds me of an incident during my first year of practice at Willkie Farr & Gallagher. Although we had just started our jobs, we first years started receiving calls from a legal recruiter.

Rumor had it that the recruiter had somehow procured a copy of the firm's phone book. This being 1993, the recruiter certainly didn't get our contact information from the firm's then non-existent Web site.

Just as you cannot stop the onward march of technology, you cannot stop a determined recruiter by stripping your site of associate bios (Wayback Machine, anyone?). However, as the Law.com article suggests, you can thwart a recruiter by creating a work environment that associates wouldn't want to give up. Easier said than done, but not impossible.

Update: Monica Bay, Larry Bodine and Bruce MacEwen have also weighed in this topic..

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.

Below you'll find one of the five articles from today's edition of TechnoLawyer NewsWire:

Let this E-Discovery Guide Lead the Way
By Brett Burney
Today's litigator faces a Mount Everest-like challenge — find the key documents and e-mail messages from among the tens of thousands that reside on the computer hard drives at issue in a discovery request or subpoena. Just as you would not try to tackle Mount Everest without the help of a Sherpa, you probably won't want to tackle a discoverable hard drive without the help of Sherpa Software's Discovery Attender. This electronic discovery tool enables you to conduct "dynamic keyword searches" (including Boolean queries and wildcards) on any electronic media. Discovery attender can also perform searches by age, type, sender/recipient, and many other parameters. In addition to searching the content of Microsoft Office and other such documents, Discovery Attender can also search Exchange mailboxes, Outlook PST files, and Lotus Notes mailboxes. A wizard-like interface makes this powerful tool easy to use. When Discovery Attender finds the keywords you seek, it summarizes the information and places both the summary and a link to the original item in a detailed report. Importantly, Discovery Attender searches in a nondestructive, secure manner that preserves the metadata associated with each document. In addition to its search capabilities, Discovery Attender can also copy files, messages, and attachments to a repository for safe-keeping. Discovery Attender works with virtually all versions of Windows, and can search Exchange 5.5 and higher and Outlook 98 and higher. Learn more about Discovery Attender.

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.

Below you'll find one of the five articles from today's edition of TechnoLawyer NewsWire:

Help Is on the Way
By Brett Burney
There are moments when each of us feels invincible ... and then we wake up, go to work, and realize we need help — lots of help. Software Technology has heard this cry for help since 1979 when it first introduced Tabs3, its accounting/billing software for law offices. This month, the company released Version 12 of Tabs3 as well as Version 12 of PracticeMaster, its practice management software. As always, these new versions integrate with each other, but can also be used alone. Both versions feature a new XP-like look and feel and sortable column headings, and can output any report or statement to PDF. Among the highlights of Tabs3 is a new Collections Report designed to help you stay on top of accounts receivable. This report can include amount billed, amount paid, percentage paid, remaining balance, contact information, work in progress, billing history, and more. Also noteworthy is an improved system for recording and tracking write-ups, write-downs, and courtesy discounts. For example, time billed is now tracked separately from time worked. PracticeMaster also has its share of new features, including a redesigned e-mail system with improved Outlook integration, multiple signatures, HTML message formatting, the ability to append messages and attachments to client/matter files, and more. PracticeMaster also features a new field for a client photo, a "DropBox" for storing files in use, customizable fee ticklers for routine document assembly tasks, improved Palm OS synchronization, improved searching, a "SnapShot" view for virtually all types of data, and much more. Pricing starts at $295 for Tabs3 and $150 for PracticeMaster with volume licensing available. The company offers a 30-day satisfaction guarantee. Learn more about Tabs3 and PracticeMaster.

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.

Below you'll find one of the five articles from today's edition of TechnoLawyer NewsWire:

Follow That Document
By Brett Burney
What's the best way to share an electronic document with someone? Print it out? E-mail it to them? These methods work, but they don't facilitate the integration of changes other people may make to your document. Workshare Professional 4 provides "secure document compliance for Microsoft Office." The thrust of the application is to give you an efficient and secure way to collaborate with others on electronic documents. Tightly integrated with Microsoft Office, Workshare Professional 4 enables you to tag a document as the "master," and then send it to one or more "reviewers." It also integrates with your e-mail client (Lotus Notes, Groupwise, or Outlook) so that it can monitor when modified documents return. Best of all, Workshare Professional keeps an audit trail of any and all changes that were made to a document — think "track changes" on steroids. It can even produce a "Document Audit Report" showing change history, metadata, and send history. Got a document management system? Workshare Professional integrates with all the major players, including Documentum, Hummingbird, Interwoven, and SharePoint. New features in version 4 include one click PDF conversion and security, an enhanced Report Wizard, an "Always On Audit" for Word documents, the ability to centrally apply document policies, integration with DeltaView, and much more. Pricing for Workshare Professional 4 starts at $349 per seat with a 10-seat minimum; it's free for existing firms that have a software subscription. Learn more about Workshare Professional.

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.

In a recent issue of Fat Friday, TechnoLawyer member Martin Dean argued that well-designed software can eliminate the need for formal training. TechnoLawyer member George Manos agrees with Martin, writing: "On the point of intuitive software, and whether there can be such a thing, I don't know anyone who needed training on how to use a browser. I agree with Mr. Dean: software publishers are getting away with murder." I'm all for intuitive software, but I believe that most people need training — some more than others. Plus, I do know people who needed training on how to use a browser.

About Quips
A Quip is a brief member contribution for which we don't have room in our Answers to Questions or Fat Friday newsletters. Instead, Quips appear first in TechnoGuide, and later here in TechnoLawyer Blog. TechnoGuide, which is free, also contains exclusive content. You can subscribe here.

Looking for a new scanner? TechnoLawyer member Richard Haeussler writes: "I am in the process of buying a Visioneer 510 Scanner, which seemed to have better stats than the HP 5550C. Price is close: Visioneer 510 at about $330 after discount. HP is $279 after discount. Both have Automatic Document Feeds with about the same rate [10 ppm for Visioneer and 8 ppm for HP]. Will report later on how the Visioneer works. It comes with PaperPort." When Richard checks in with his promised review, we'll distribute it in our Fat Friday newsletter.

About Quips
A Quip is a brief member contribution for which we don't have room in our Answers to Questions or Fat Friday newsletters. Instead, Quips appear first in TechnoGuide, and later here in TechnoLawyer Blog. TechnoGuide, which is free, also contains exclusive content. You can subscribe here.

Last summer I was horrified to learn that my then girlfriend kept all of her e-mail in her inbox — a classic piler! As for me, I'm a filer. You'll never find more than 10-15 messages in my inbox — I always delete or file after reading and, if necessary, responding. LifeHacker, which we covered on February 23rd in TechnoLawyer NewsWire and which has quickly become my favorite non-legal blog, recently covered this topic. What do you think?

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.

Desktop search software is a hot topic as evidenced by all the reviews in our Fat Friday newsletter. Goebel Group, a search technology integrator, has published a handy chart comparing/contrasting all the major desktop search tools such as Google Desktop Search and X1. My one question about this emerging market — will all the free products harm traditional players such as dtSearch and Enfish that pioneered this market, or will the fee-based products be able to differentiate themselves?

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.