Law firms spend a lot of time, energy and money trying to create a secure environment, both physically and digitally, for their clients’ confidential information. Disciplinary bodies, such as the North Carolina State Bar, spend gobs of time sorting out the ethical implications of cloud computing and software-as-a-service for lawyers. Then along comes an article… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Technology
Subscribe to Technology RSS FeedImagine a World With No Email
Posted in TechnologyThere’s a great scene in The Simpsons that imagines a world with no lawyers: A lot of lawyers might conjure the same scene in their heads imagining a world with no email. It’s not a dream for the 75,000 employees of French tech company Altos, which recently implemented a “zero email” policy, citing that only… Continue Reading
Stop! Search Time!
Posted in TechnologyThere are entirely too few tech stories that feature MC Hammer. Happily, that trend ended this week when MC Hammer announced his new search engine, Wiredoo, at the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. Wiredoo will focus on “deep search” – which he describes as relational search exposing relationships between sites, products, and links… Continue Reading
The Sounds of Home
Posted in TechnologyI’m not a great traveler. I actually travel quite a bit for my job, both around North Carolina and across the country. I’m just not that good at it. I admire those frequent flyer road warrior types who scoot through airport security and hotel check-in with “Up in the Air” Clooney-esque grace and agility as… Continue Reading
Ethics of Cloud Computing in NC – Take 2
Posted in TechnologyOn April 21, 2011, the Ethics Committee of the North Carolina State Bar revised its previous proposed opinion on cloud computing (2010 FEO 7) and reissued it as Proposed 2011 Formal Ethics Opinion 6, Subscribing to Software as a Service While Fulfilling the Duties of Confidentiality and Preservation of Client Property. If you… Continue Reading
Evernote for Lawyers
Posted in TechnologyI love Evernote. It does so many useful things that most of the time my biggest problem in using it is making sure I’m not missing out on ways to use it effectively. I saw via the Mac Lawyer blog this morning that the Inspired Solo posted a nice article on 9 ways lawyers… Continue Reading
Accounting and CRM: Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together
Posted in Finance, Marketing, TechnologyThe Wall Street Journal Digits blog reports that accounting giant Intuit and CRM (customer relations management) software giant Salesforce are teaming up in a move to dive deeper into the small business market. The product will be web-based and sold through Intuit’s App Center. This is potentially interesting news for lawyers in small and mid-sized… Continue Reading
Assessing Risk and the Fear of Flying
Posted in TechnologyI was reading an article on Lifehacker about how to set up an automated, bullet-proof backup strategy. While the article is pretty good (baically a strong plug for Crashplan as a backup tool) one of the comments really caught my eye (the comments on tech blogs are sometimes more informative than the underlying article). In… Continue Reading
Ethics of Technology and the New Admittees Professionalism Program
Posted in TechnologyToday I’m spending some time getting ready to present at the April 7, 2011 NCBA CLE titled, descriptively, New Admittees Professionalism Program or NAPP (Honorable Mention, World’s Worst Acronym, 2011). If you are scratching your head wondering what the New Admittees Professionalism Program is, as of January 1, 2011, per the North Carolina State Bar:… Continue Reading
The Ethics of Gmail
Posted in TechnologyIs using Gmail ethically permissible for lawyers? Executive summary: in New York, seemingly yes. In North Carolina… I’d be wary. The Lawyerist and 3 Geeks and a Law Blog have had a back and forth on this topic. It’s an important topic, in my estimation. I get a lot of emails from lawyers across North Carolina that come… Continue Reading
Google Chrome – Now With Apps!
Posted in TechnologyA funny thing happened on the way to Google Chrome. Earlier this week, Google rolled out the Chrome Web Store which allows you to add apps to your Chrome browser. So far, I’ve found some apps to be terrific, totally different experiences for interacting with a site (such as the New York Times app) and… Continue Reading
Get Email Notifications of NC Appellate Court Opinions
Posted in TechnologyThis is cool for the NC lawyers out there: you can now sign up to be notified by email when new opinions from the NC Court of Appeals and NC Supreme Court are published. The first opinion notifications should be coming out on December 17, 2010 (Supreme Court) and December 21, 2010 (Court of Appeals)…. Continue Reading
ABA TECHSHOW – April 11-13, 2011, Chicago
Posted in TechnologyWell, this is awkward. Been a while since I showed up around these parts. For months I’ve been hoping that if I just ignored it long enough my blog would start writing itself. Worked like a charm, obviously. Stupid lack of self-writing blog. Anyway, in a divine stroke of karma or coincidence or whatever belief… Continue Reading
Resources for Lawyers Using Macs
Posted in TechnologyOver the past few years, I have been getting more and more questions from lawyers who want to run their practices on Macs. Often these questions are from new solo practitioners, but increasingly I hear similar things from managing partners in larger firms. Small wonder, really. Between Windows Vista (RIP), software-as-a-service, and the Apple stock… Continue Reading
Are Your Browser Tabs Vulnerable to a Phishing Attack?
Posted in TechnologyChristina Warren of Mashable highlights another way to lose your confidential information on the web — through a phishing attack aimed at your browser tabs: Aza Raskin, the creative lead for Firefox, has just posted about a new type of potential phishing attack, dubbed “tabnabbing.” Raskin has a proof-of-concept and an explanation for how this… Continue Reading
Free Online Digital Signing Service from Adobe
Posted in TechnologyRick Borstein lays out a step by step process with photos on Acrobat for Legal Professionals showing how lawyers can use the new (still in beta) Adobe eSignatures sevice for signing documents: Print. Sign. Scan. Fax or email. Repeat. If that sounds familiar to you, you’ll want to try Adobe eSignatures, an online electronic signature… Continue Reading
Get the Federal Rules on Your iPhone for Free
Posted in TechnologyJeff Richardson of iPhone, J.D. spotlights the app LawStack that provides users free access to the Federal Rules and other statutes: There are lots of apps, both free and paid, that provide you with federal rules and other statutes on your iPhone, but LawStack is notable because it is a free and powerful app that… Continue Reading
On the Road to Paperless: Do You Really Need to Keep That Original?
Posted in Management, TechnologyThe perceived need to keep all original documents is a threshold issue many lawyers face in transitioning to a paperless practice. Ernest Svenson offers these thoughts on getting past this issue and on the road to paperless at PDF for Lawyers: One of the biggest barriers to scanning is the notion that you need ‘the… Continue Reading
Best of Both Worlds: Using Google Docs and Microsoft Word Together
Posted in TechnologyThe How To Geek lays out a simple system in a Lifehacker article for using Google Docs and Microsoft Word together to get the best of both programs: Microsoft Office 2010 is about to be released, and you aren’t sure if you should upgrade or switch to Google Docs. But have you considered using the… Continue Reading
Essential Technology for the New Law Practice
Posted in TechnologyLee Rosen of Divorce Discourse shares what’s on his must-have list for the new solo: I’m going to suggest that they keep it simple when it comes to technology and that they avoid buying a bunch of stuff. I’m sure there are many alternatives to my suggestions, but I don’t want to overwhelm people with… Continue Reading
Is Your Second Monitor Making You Less Effective?
Posted in Management, TechnologyJohn Heckman of Does It Compute? offers these thoughts on using a second monitor: I recently reorganized my office and wound up with an extra monitor. Since “everybody” swears by dual monitors (or more) I thought I’d give it a shot. Much to my surprise I found the extra monitor distracting and somewhat annoying. After… Continue Reading
Microsoft Office Climbs into the Cloud
Posted in TechnologyOptions for running a law practice in the cloud continue to expand. Over at All Things D, John Paczkowski writes about Microsoft Office’s foray into cloud computing: Office 2010, the long-awaited “cloud” version of Microsoft’s (MSFT) Office productivity suite arrived at market today amid some measured trash talking from Google (GOOG). In an anomalous post… Continue Reading
How to do Free Group Video Conferencing via Skype
Posted in TechnologyRick Georges of FutureLawyer discusses using Skype video conferencing in the small law practice: Skype is a great way to leverage long distance calls in a small law practice. The ability to have one to one video chats is a nice addition, as well. You have to be…
Why No One Reads Your Law Firm Blog
Posted in Marketing, TechnologyMichelle Greer weighs in on Building 43 on some of the common mistakes companies make with their corporate blogs: There are too many employees who are miserable because no one reads what they write and too many companies not understanding how much money a blog can actually make you. THE #1 BIGGEST MISTAKE: Leaving the… Continue Reading