Monday, April 26, 2010 at 7:00AM Just as lawyers have started to get comfortable with online word processing as a concept, along comes another big shakeup: Microsoft and Facebook just partnered to create Docs.com, an online word processor. Lifehacker explains it this way:
SaaS, Software in Technology Wednesday, April 14, 2010 at 7:00AM Ernest Svenson of Ernie the Attorney reveals the software and hardware that power his practice in this post:
Hardware, Software in Technology Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 2:13PM Folks who follow me on Twitter (@erikmazzone) know that I love Evernote. They also know I drink too much coffee and hate Notre Dame and the Red Sox.
But I digress.
If you are curious about Evernote - what it is and how you might use it - I wrote an article in the October issue of Law Practice Today that is a short primer on Evernote. Check it out and see if you can use Evernote in your office or at home.
Productivity, Software in Technology Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 9:00AM 
Two of the questions I am asked most frequently from lawyers starting new firms are:
Recent articles by two of the smarties in law practice management, Dennis Kennedy and Lee Rosen, showcase thoughtful answers to these questions.
Dennis, in his ABA Journal article Teaming Up, Starting Anew, advises new law firms to use technology to cut costs.
[Sidebar, this reminded me of the scene in Moonstruck where Cosmo the plumber explains why he favors only copper pipe:
There are three kinds of pipe. There's aluminum, which is garbage. There's bronze, which is pretty good, unless something goes wrong. And something always goes wrong. Then, there's copper, which is the only pipe I use. It costs money. It costs money because it saves money.
Perhaps admitting that I know the movie Moonstruck by heart is not the high water mark for my testosterone level...]
But I digress.
Dennis goes on to advise that new law practices be technologically prepared to:
He also includes a handy 7 point checklist of items to consider at the end of the article. Make sure to head over and check the article out.
Different but equally sound advice comes from Lee Rosen, author of the family law practice management blog Divorce Discourse. Lee, ever the marketer, says:
"The first thing to do, the very first thing, is not to buy something, it’s to sell something. Find a person that needs what you’re offering and get them to buy it."
Lee also offers great guidance on how the new family lawyer can find his/her first client:
It's a good read for new family lawyers, and, come to think of it, new lawyers in any practice area.
There you have it: technology tips, marketing advice and a quote from a girlie movie.
My work here is done.
Hardware, Networking, Software, Start Up in Marketing, Technology Saturday, August 30, 2008 at 5:24PM Don't you love when you put on a jacket you haven't worn in months and find a $20 bill in the pocket? It's like winning the lottery, without the inconvenience of having to live in a mobile home or make due with fewer than 32 teeth.
I love it out of all proportion.
I feel like I hit the software lottery this week. Several months ago, I downloaded Evernote. Evernote is a free, web 2.0 note taking software application that allows you to store data in many different formats organized into notebooks.
There are a lot of cool things about it, but one of my favorites is its ability to sync information between a PC, a Mac and the cloud. The trouble is that I couldn't come up with anything that I really wanted to do with it. For some reason, the notebook metaphor didn't really speak to me and I couldn't wrap my head around a use for Evernote that I wasn't already doing in some other way. And of course, the phrase, "if ain't broke, don't fix it" ran through my head.
At lunch the other day with a lawyer friend of mine (also an Evernote user) we started spitballing about different ways to use the application, and I finally happened across one that works for me: I've decided to press Evernote into service as a CRM application, to keep track of contacts that I make networking and marketing my practice management assistance program.
Although it is early going using Evernote in this capacity, I am pretty pumped about it so far. I can input data in a bunch of different ways, tag each "note" in countless ways and search and sort the data very easily. I don't bother actually keeping the contact info in there as I'm more or less locked into using Outlook and a Blackberry for that, but I use Evernote to keep all the emails, notes, and PDF documents I need about each contact.
I create one "summary" note for each contact so I can easily find the most recent activity, and then each additional item is a note, tagged by contact. I find it to be just the right amount of CRM for me -- it would not do for someone used a heavy duty CRM for tracking leads, etc, but in my experience, most lawyers don't know what CRM is, let alone have a powerhouse program for it that they are wedded to.
If you don't have a CRM program you love yet and you would like a free, simple way to keep up with your marketing and business development efforts, take a look at Evernote. Best of all, it won't cost you one cent from that $20 bill you found in your jacket.
CRM, SaaS, Software in Technology 