Category Archives: Technology

E-Filing Tips.

09 Sunday Sep 2018

Posted by in E-Filing, Law Office Management, Legal Technology, Office Procedures, Technology

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E-Filing Tips for Attorneys, by Smokeball

https://www.smokeball.com/blog/e-filing-tips-for-attorneys/

Are you an e-filing superstar or novice? Regardless of your court jurisdiction, Smokeball has provided tips that cross jurisdictional lines. These are more common-sense suggestions rather than tips specific to a particular court, and worth your time. Smokeball includes a commercial for its product. Even if Smokeball is not your cup of tea, the underlying premise is a good one. -CCE

With the advent of e-filing comes new challenges and opportunities for mistakes. Some e-filling mistakes are caused by poor planning, clunky software or even something as simple as a setting in your inbox. To help you stay on top of your e-filling, here are five e-filing tips to help you avoid e-filing pitfalls.

‘[A] computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history – with the possible exception of handguns and tequila.’[1]

Use a Separate and Distinct E-Filing Email Address

Did you know that the average person receives about 120 emails everyday?

If you are like most people, you have to sift through the clutter to get to emails that are important. But, because you get so many emails everyday, you may overlook or mistakenly delete an important email.

With mandatory e-filing, every attorney is required to provide a primary email address and up to two secondary email addresses on all appearances and documents filed with the court.[2] This means that not only will you electronically file documents, you will also receive documents filed by other parties via email.

As you list your primary email address on your appearance, don’t use your personal email address as your primary address. Create a separate email address for e-filing to help you stay organized. A dedicated email address for e-filing will ensure that all notices are sent to one central address. This allows other members of your firm to access emails and look for notices from the courts specifically for your cases. Also, when you are out of the office, others can cover and look out for any actions taken on cases.

Check Your Junk and Spam Folders

Another simple but overlooked e-filing tip is checking your spam folder.

Everyday you receive junk or spam mail that clogs up your mailbox. Because of the countless number of junk mail we receive each day, our mail servers have filters that uses a set of protocols to determine what is junk and what are legitimate emails. However, there are times that legitimate emails are caught by an aggressive filter. For attorneys, that could potentially be an e-filling.

To ensure that you don’t miss a notice from the court or opposing counsel, make sure to check your junk mail folders. Also, don’t set your junk mail folder to delete automatically. You don’t want to make a mistake of missing a deadline because it was stuck in the junk mail folder and then auto-deleted.

Whitelist Important Senders

A whitelist is a list of email addresses or domain names that you provide that allows your junk mail or spam filter will allow through into your inbox. I recommend that you put the domain names of the courts and clerk’s offices on your whitelist.  Also, enter opposing counsels and key clients on the whitelist to ensure that emails are not blocked. It’s important to keep your whitelist updated as people and organizations change email addresses or domain names.

Check the Online Court Docket

It’s easy to rely on emails and notifications for new events on your cases, but don’t rely on emails to stay on top of your cases. It’s still a best practice to check the court’s docket online to ensure that no new action or orders were entered. There may be instances where emails were blocked, sent to the wrong address, or other technical glitches causing you to not receive a notice. Create a protocol to check the court’s online docket every 2 to 3 weeks on all your active cases.

Don’t Wait ’till the Last Minute

Supreme Court Rule 9(d) provides that you have until midnight to electronically file a document and still have it considered as filed that same day.  However, don’t wait till the last minute to file a document. E-Filing is a new process and there may be technical issues that you will encounter at the last minute. You may lose your internet connection, lose power, have computer issues, etc., which can cause you to miss your deadline.

Make sure your computer is up to date and have your anti-virus updated. Use a legal practice management system to ensure your data is backed up and you can collaborate with other members of your firm just in case something goes wrong with your computer.

E-filing with Legal Practice Management Software

It’s more important with e-filing to have all your case and critical data in a digital file, where you store all documents, emails, and other important case details in one central location. Enter Smokeball.

Smokeball not only allows you to keep all your information in one central place, you have access to over 14,000 automated legal forms, the most comprehensive automated legal forms library in the industry.

For attorneys in Illinois, Smokeball’s integration with InfoTrack allows you e-file directly from your practice management software. To learn more, see the software for yourself.

[1] Mitch Ratcliffe (quoted in Herb Brody, The Pleasure Machine: Computers, Technology Review, Apr. 1992, at 31).

[2] Rule 11, Rule 131(d)(1)

 

Why Automatic Deletion of Spam Email Causing Failure to File a Timely Appeal Is Not Excusable Neglect.

30 Saturday Sep 2017

Posted by in Calendar/Docketing, Emails, Law Office Management, Legal Ethics, Legal Technology, Office Procedures, Technology

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(With hat tip to William P. Statsky)

My home email software has a spam folder where unwanted emails go to die – eventually. I must deliberately choose to send an email to the spam folder. Then, I must decide whether let it remain in perpetual limbo as spam, block it, or delete it.

Imagine the number of emails routinely sent and received by most law firms.  My computer’s email setup would not be practical.  But, when it comes to email configuration, there are good choices and bad ones. A Florida law firm rejected recommended safeguards to snag spam and allow someone, other than the computer, to decide whether to delete the email. That decision, along with others, turned out to be a bad call.

Here are the facts. The trial court’s court clerk served an order by email on the parties. The order awarded a significant amount of attorney fees to the appellee. The appellant claimed it did not receive the emailed order, which is why it failed timely to file an appeal. What happened? The firm’s email system automatically deleted the court clerk’s email and attached order as spam.

The appellant appealed and asked the court to vacate the original order and reenter the order to allow the appellant to appeal. Its email deletion error was “excusable neglect.” Not so said that trial court, and the Florida’s First District Court of Appeal affirmed.

The appellate court gave several specific reasons for rejecting the appellant’s argument.  First, the review of the court clerk’s email logs confirmed that the email with the court’s order was served and received by the law firm’s server. Second, the law firm’s email configuration made it impossible to determine whether the firm’s server received the email. Third, the law firm’s former IT specialist’s advice against this configuration flaw was deliberately rejected by the law firm because its alternative cost more money.

The trial court concluded the law firm made a conscious decision to use a defective email configuration merely to save money, which was not “excusable neglect.”

Another nail in the coffin was testimony by the appellee’s attorney. His firm assigned a paralegal to check the court’s website every three weeks to safeguard that his firm would not miss any orders or deadlines.  The court held that the appellant had a duty to check the court’s electronic docket.

What’s the moral here? Lawyers must configure their computer systems to prevent this costly error. And they must employ a “meaningful procedure” to prevent the series of events that caused this fatal error.

I rather liked the idea of the paralegal assigned to check the court’s online file. In this instance, the paralegal checked it every three weeks. I would modify this depending on the notice time required by your court’s rules.

I recommend reading the entire opinion for its analysis on “excusable neglect.” You can find the opinion here: http://bit.ly/2xI3gGB. -CCE

Law Firm Email Encryption – Are You Ethically Compliant?

11 Thursday May 2017

Posted by in Clouds, Confidentiality, Emails, Ethics Opinions, Law Office Management, Legal Ethics, Legal Technology, Rules of Professional Responsibility, Technology, Technology

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ABA Issues New Ethics Opinion on Encryption of Attorney-Client Email, Jim Calloway’s Law Practice Tips Blog

http://bit.ly/2qy8J2a

Does your state have an ethics opinion about encryption of your firm’s email? Do you use encryption? Do you use a secure cloud based platform? If you are not sure, don’t you think you should check?

Most law firms frequently use email over fax and regular mail to communicate with their clients, their expert witnesses, and opposing counsel. What is your obligation to ensure confidentiality of your firm’s email, and are you meeting it?

The ABA’s ethics opinion is instructive, as well as the Texas ethics legal opinion referred to by Mr. Calloway at the end of his post. -CCE

Email Spam or Have I Got A Deal For You!

25 Friday Nov 2016

Posted by in Emails, Law Office Management, Legal Technology, Technology

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The Holidays Bring More Email Threats, by Jim Calloway, Jim Calloway’s Law Practice Tips Blog

http://www.lawpracticetipsblog.com/2016/11/holidays-bring-email-threats.html

I may be the luckiest person in the world. I receive emails almost daily from people I do not know who want to give me money. I’ve won the lottery or I’m offered a fantastic job as a “mystery shopper.” And, boy, do I win a lot of stuff! Of course, none of this is true.

On the flip side, the tone may be more menacing. Emails from banks and credit cards saying they need me to respond to address a delinquent account or that someone has used my account. I do not have accounts with these folks.

Even with my firewall and my attempts to avoid viruses, Trojan horses, and other attacks on my computer, bogus emails and spam walk right in. I block these emails, mark them as “junk,” and they still come. I suspect many of you get the same things.

Make no mistake. You and I are targets. -CCE

Need to Turn Your iPad Into Second Monitor? There’s an App for That.

22 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in Law Office Management, Legal Technology, Technology, Time Management, Windows

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This App Turns Your iPad Into a Second Monitor, by Robert Ambrogi, LawSites Blog

http://www.lawsitesblog.com/2016/08/app-turns-ipad-second-monitor.html

When you start using two monitors, many of us are hooked. My favorite feature is the ability to drag documents and websites back and forth. Imagine having a spreadsheet or other document open on one screen, and the document or source of the information you need on the other screen. If you need to keep an eye on email or your docketing calendar, you can keep it up on one screen and work using the other. (If you do not have a second monitor, you can access your other open windows using Alt-Tab.)

I can understand why Mr. Ambrogi is excited about this app. -CCE

I am so dependent on a second monitor that I no longer feel productive without one. That can be a problem when I am away from my office. It is especially a problem when I travel and am hunkered down in a hotel room with important work to get done.

Then I discovered Duet Display, the app that turns your iPad into a monitor.

App Honey Pot for Lawyers and Other Legal Professionals.

13 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by in Apps, Clouds, Document Retention, Dropbox, Evernote, Google, Law Office Management, Legal Technology, Management, Marketing, Office Procedures, Technology, Time Management

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50+ Apps and Services to Manage and Grow Your Law Practice, by Tim Baran, Legal Productivity Blog

http://bit.ly/1O8iPGC

[H]ere’s a list culled from feedback from solos and small firm lawyers and administrators, my own experience, and lots of research, that will help to optimize the day-to-day management and growth of your practice. . . .

Continue reading →

Law Offices Targeted By Hackers.

26 Tuesday Jan 2016

Posted by in Cybersecurity, Disaster Preparedness, Law Office Management, Legal Technology, Passwords, Technology

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The Lawyers’ Guide to Hacking Threats, by Karen Conroy, Lawyerist.com

http://bit.ly/1POLdz2

International security authorities spent close to two years pursuing a criminal site called Darkode, where hackers could buy and sell malware meant to steal information. On the international site, which could only be accessed with a referral and a password, hackers advertised and sold their homemade software. Criminals who bought it could steal anything from Facebook follower lists to database account passwords.

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Law firms are especially tempting to cyber criminals because of the value of the sensitive information stored on their networks. A majority of law firms have experienced some sort of hacking, with law firms that handle government contracts and international business being targeted most often. About 80% of the largest 100 law firms have experienced some sort of violation. . . .

Continue reading →

More Ways To Use The Versatility of Evernote.

06 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by in Evernote, Law Office Management, Legal Technology, Note Taking, Office Procedures, Technology

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How Lawyers Use Evernote, by Tim Baran, Legal Productivity®

http://www.legalproductivity.com/practice-management/evernote-lawyers/

Evernote has so much potential. I have barely scratched the surface. This is a tool I definitely want to use and know more about. -CCE

Evernote is more than a note-taking application. We use it to store ideas, recordings, projects, tasks, images…The list is as comprehensive as we want it to be. Evernote allows us to offload our brain and organize our lives.

And how do lawyers use Evernote? I asked a few Evernote-loving lawyers. Here are their stories.

Continue reading →

Going Paperless?

26 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by in Document Retention, File Naming Conventions, Law Office Management, Legal Technology, Office Procedures, Technology

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‘Paperless’ Office Doesn’t Really Mean Paperless, But It Does Mean New Processes and Procedures, by Jim Calloway, Jim Calloway’s Law Practice Tips Blog

http://www.lawpracticetipsblog.com/2015/10/paperless-processes-and-procedures.html

‘Let’s just go paperless. We can free up all that space in the file room and quit paying so much for outside file storage.’

“What a great idea!

*           *           *

Thus begins the perfect storm of a paperless law firm makeover absolutely destined to fail. . . .

Continue reading →

Your Electronic Communications and Record Keeping Requirements.

21 Monday Sep 2015

Posted by in Ethics Opinions, Law Firm Web Sites, Law Office Management, Legal Blogs, Legal Ethics, Legal Technology, Rules of Professional Responsibility, Technology, Technology

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Deleting Your Website Can Come Back to Bite You in the Assets, by Anna Massoglia, Lawyerist Blog

http://tinyurl.com/nzda7hh

Chances are, you are all too aware that record-keeping is a tedious but necessary evil in the legal profession. There’s also a good chance that you have a website. According to the 2014 ABA Technology Survey Report, 84% of law firms do.

Record-keeping requirements include more than just client files and financial transactions. Many state rules also apply to other electronic communications — including websites.

It is not true that something released to the internet is ‘out there’ forever — especially when it comes to those attempting to comply with record-keeping requirements. . . .

Continue reading →

Retooling and Law Office Management Tips From Jim Calloway.

15 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by in Economics, Law Office Management, Management, Marketing, Office Procedures, Technology, Time Management

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Effective Client Intake and the Rise of Firm Pricers, by Jim Calloway, Jim Calloway’s Law Practice Tips Blog

http://tinyurl.com/pfxnpk5

Effective client intake and law firm pricing may not seem like closely connected topics, but they are connected and will be even more connected in the future. My column in the September Law Practice Magazine is Effective Client Intake and the Rise of Firm Pricers.

Law firms are retooling and reevaluating many of their operations and procedures. How long has it been since you have taken at look at your new client (or new matter for an existing client) intake procedures? . . .

Continue reading →

Is It Okay To Wipe A Former Employee’s Computer?

04 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by in Discovery, E-Discovery, Evidence, Forensic Evidence, Law Office Management, Litigation Hold, Office Procedures, Preservation, Technology

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Court Denies Request for Sanctions for Routine Deletion of Files of Departed Employees: eDiscovery Case Law, by Doug Austin, eDiscoverydaily

http://tinyurl.com/p2jfsqe

For many employers, it is normal procedure to “wipe” the computer of recently former employees after removing anything not already stored on the employer’s network. Is this a bad practice? -CCE

In Charvat et al. v. Valente et al., 12-5746 (N.D. Ill. July 1, 2015), Illinois Magistrate Judge Mary M. Rowland denied the plaintiff’s request for spoliation sanctions for the defendant’s admitted destruction of computer files belonging to two departed employees, finding that the plaintiff did not provide any evidence that the defendant acted in bad faith. . . .

Continue reading →

Some Tips For Starting Your Law Firm’s Website.

27 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by in Advertising, Law Firm Web Sites, Law Office Management, Legal Technology, Marketing, Search Enginges, Technology, Using Social Media

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How to Create a Successful Law Firm Website: Getting Started, by The CyberAdvocate

http://www.thecyberadvocate.com/2015/07/27/create-law-firm-website-pt1/

Creating a new website for your law firm, whether you’re opening up a new practice or updating a dated law firm, can be an immense task. I’d love to say that following this guide will allow you to put together a successful and profitable website in your spare time. It won’t. . . .

Continue reading →

How To Avoid The Emails We Wish We Had Never Sent.

25 Saturday Jul 2015

Posted by in Emails, Law Office Management, Legal Technology, Technology

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Tech Tip Of The Day: Add A Two Minute Delay To Sending Emails, by James B. Levy, Legal Skills Prof Blog 

http://tinyurl.com/oub7e74

This is a great tech tip from the Harvard Business Review blog that most of us should probably implement. It involves programming your email account to wait two minutes before each message is sent. It’s a great fail safe measure to prevent those emails we regret as soon as they’re sent and the typos (and omitted attachments) we don’t catch until it’s too late. . . .

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Let’s Think About Going Paperless.

19 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by in Economics, File Naming Conventions, Law Office Management, Legal Ethics, Legal Technology, Office Procedures, Scanners, Technology, Technology, Time Management

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How One Law Firm Went Paperless: An Interview with Andrew Kucera, by Tim Baran, Rocket Matter

http://tinyurl.com/noy2suz

For years, law firms have talked about going “paperless.” It took some time to catch on. Scanners were sometimes more trouble than they were worth. It took money and many hours to convert all the files to a paperless system. It sounded like a good idea, but not everyone was convinced.

Things have changed. These days, going paperless makes good sense and good economics. No more filing or indexing pleadings? I can live with that.

This post from Rocket Matter makes good sense. If you decide to go that route, do not start until you look into file naming conventions. Pick one that is logical and easy to understand. Now you are on your way. -CCE

While putting together the Paperless Law Office E-Book, we thought, who better to learn from than a firm who went through the process? So we interviewed Andrew Kucera who was instrumental in helping move six-person Cuttone & Kucera, PC (now, Cuttone & Associates), a real estate and business law firm in Fresno, California, to a paperless operation. . . .

Continue reading →

Another Major Hack. Checked Your Law Firm’s Cyber Security Lately?

05 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by in Computer Forensics, Confidentiality, Cybersecurity, Disaster Preparedness, Law Office Management, Legal Ethics, Legal Technology, Technology, Technology

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The Real Reason You Need Cyber Liability Insurance, by Brian Focht, The Cyber Advocate

http://tinyurl.com/p8y5k2y

Another day, another hack. Yesterday brought news that four million current and former government employees may have had their personal information stolen by Chinese hackers.

Of course, this comes on the heels of what has been a staggering 18 months of hacks. Starting with the Home Depot and Target hacks, we’ve been barraged with story after story about major companies and retailers being hacked for their customers’ data. It’s not just big companies and big-box retailers, though. Law firms are increasingly the target of hackers, due to a combination of factors including relatively lax security and large quantities of organized, valuable information. . . .

Continue reading →

Yes, Lawyers Have An Ethical Duty Of Technology Competence.

23 Saturday May 2015

Posted by in Law Office Management, Legal Ethics, Rules of Professional Responsibility, Technology, Technology

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13 States Have Adopted Ethical Duty of Technology Competence, by Robert Ambrogi, Law Sites Blog

http://www.lawsitesblog.com/2015/03/11-states-have-adopted-ethical-duty-of-technology-competence.html

If this standard has not yet hit your state, it is only a matter of time. If technology intimidates you, take a deep breath and jump in. I promise the water is nice and warm. As technology has evolved, it has become more intuitive, which makes it easier to learn.

Regardless of whatever excuse you use to avoid updating technology in your law office, you cannot avoid the requirement imposed by an ethical duty. It is not a question of whether your state’s bar association will adopt this standard – it’s when.

Paralegals and other legal support staff — same goes for us too. -CCE

[Update: It is now 14 states. See my 3/27/15 post on the rule’s adoption in Massachusetts.]

In 2012, something happened that I called a sea change in the legal profession: The American Bar Association formally approved a change to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct to make clear that lawyers have a duty to be competent not only in the law and its practice, but also in technology. . . .

Continue reading →

If You Still Enter Your Billable Time On Paper, This Post Is For You!

16 Saturday May 2015

Posted by in Economics, Law Office Management, Technology, Time Management

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Those Hated Timesheets – Are You Still Using Them?, by Jim Calloway, Jim Calloway’s Law Practice Tips Blog

http://www.lawpracticetipsblog.com/2015/05/those-hated-timesheets.html

“Most lawyers hate filling out timesheets to record their billable time. Lawyers are also not perfect at Time sheet accomplishing this, leading every company with a time and billing product to tout how much money can be made if only every bit of ‘lost’ time was recorded. But the practice of recording time by hand on paper timesheets really does need to go the way of the Dodo bird.

*     *     *

‘[T]here’s one observation that I can make today with a great deal of certainty. A lawyer entering their time by using pen and ink on a paper timesheet is employing an inefficient practice that should no longer be used. You need to enter your time digitally. This means you.’ . . .

Continue reading →

Don’t Have A PIN Lock On Your Phone? Hope Your Malpractice Insurance Is Up To Date.

16 Monday Feb 2015

Posted by in Android Phones, Attorney Discipline, Blackberry Phones, Cell Phones, Confidentiality, Cybersecurity, E-Filing, Emails, iPad, iPhones, Law Office Management, Legal Ethics, Legal Technology, Malpractice, Office Procedures, Passwords, Rules of Professional Responsibility, Supervising Support Staff, Technology, Technology

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Most Consumers Don’t Lock Mobile Phone Via PIN, by Ed Hansberry, DARKReading, InformationWeek©

http://tinyurl.com/plw76ut

My guess is that most people who use a smart phone access some kind of confidential information, such as your bank account or conversations with a client or the office. If you do not have a PIN lock on your smart phone, this truly is special kind of stupid.

This is not a hard one to understand. If you use your cell phone to communicate with clients, sync your phone to your office computer and docket, or attach yourself to your office and confidential information – without taking simple, basic security measures – you are  inviting a dangerous breach of confidentiality. -CCE

44% of respondents say it’s too much of a hassle, new survey reports.

People put a lot of sensitive info on their phones, but they often give little though to how secure their data is. In a survey by a security company, over half of the respondents said they didn’t bother with a PIN lock. This takes on a whole new dimension when you begin to understand how many of these people keep corporate data on the device.

Losing an unlocked phone can be far worse than losing a wallet. Emails on the device alone can reveal a wealth of information about the person, including where they bank, where they live, names of family members, and more. If company email is on the device, and it often is, there can be competitive information, salaries, system passwords, etc. If any of those emails contain links, often clicking on it will take you into the website, be it Facebook or a corporate portal.

According to Confident Technologies, 65% of users have corporate data on their phone, even though only 10% actually have a corporate issued device.

For that majority that don’t lock their phone at all, 44% said it is too much of a hassle to lock it and 30% said they weren’t worried about security. These are likely the same people that store things like social security numbers, passwords, and other sensitive information in text files or basic note applications. They may even store their computer’s password on a Post-It Note in their center desk drawer. . . .

Continue reading →

Jim Calloway’s New Legal Technology Column – This Will Be A “Must Read!”

11 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by in Law Office Management, Legal Technology, Technology, Time Management

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It’s Time To Love Technology, by Jim Calloway, Jim Calloway’s Law Practice Tips Blog

http://www.lawpracticetipsblog.com/2015/01/ime-to-love-technology.html

Lawyers tend to have a love/hate relationship with technology. Of course, that’s often true for any of us who use today’s technology for our work. But for many lawyers, these feelings are quite pronounced and, without offering any amateur psychological diagnosis, I feel many members of the legal profession evidence a split personality when using technology.

So begins my column, It’s Time To Love Technology, in the January/February issue of Law Practice Magazine. I know that statement is easier for me to say, having an interest in technology rather than the very-typical lawyer aversion to technology. But it is time, past time actually, to be updating to technology-based digital work flows. It is time to embrace the fact that the tools of our trade are mainly technology-based tools. We would certainly judge others who did not know how to use the basic tools of their trade properly. It is time. I appreciate that you are too busy and think you don’t have the time.

But, as I noted in my column:

If you are billing a client for four hours to do something that could be done in 20 minutes, you are not doing right by your law practice or your client.

Time For A New Office Computer?

19 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by in Apple, Computer Forensics, Confidentiality, Law Office Management, Legal Ethics, Legal Technology, PC Computers, Technology, Technology

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Give Away your Computer, Revisited, by Craig Ball, Ball In Your Court

https://ballinyourcourt.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/give-away-your-computer-revisited/

This is the fourth in a series revisiting Ball in Your Court columns and posts from the primordial past of e-discovery–updating and critiquing in places, and hopefully restarting a few conversations. As always, your comments are gratefully solicited.

Give Away Your Computer 

[Originally published in Law Technology News, July 2005]

With the price of powerful computer systems at historic lows, who isn’t tempted to upgrade? But, what do you do with a system you’ve been using if it’s less than four or five-years old and still has some life left in it? Pass it on to a friend or family member or donate it to a school or civic organization and you’re ethically obliged to safeguard client data on the hard drive. Plus, you’ll want to protect your personal data from identity thieves and snoopers. Hopefully you already know that deleting confidential files and even formatting the drive does little to erase your private information—it’s like tearing out the table of contents but leaving the rest of the book. How do you be a Good Samaritan without jeopardizing client confidences and personal privacy? . . . .

Continue reading →

Martindale Hubbell’s Brand Is Not What It Used To Be.

16 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by in Advertising, Law Office Management, Legal Technology, Marketing, Technology

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Martindale Hubbell: Another Legal Icon Bites the Dust. But It Was Once Worth Its Weight in Gold (and Held for Ransom), by Jean O’Grady, J.D. M.L.S., Dewey B Strategic Blog

http://tinyurl.com/l24mabe

In August 2013 LexisNexis announced that they had entered into a joint venture with Internet Brands (the owner of Cars.com) to develop ‘marketing solutions’ using the Martindale.com platform. Although Internet Brands is taking the lead in managing the joint venture there is no mention of Martindale on their website. Since LexisNexis owns InterAction,  the leading ‘contact management’ product which is used in many law firms – it is puzzling why some effort was not made to integrate Martindale with InterAction and other LN sources containing rich actionable client data such as Courtlink dockets.

Blogger Kevin O’Keefe recently posed the question ‘Does Martindale Hubbell, as we knew it still exist?‘ ‘The answer is clearly ‘no,’ and O’Keefe wonders aloud whether the Martindale brand divorced from the legacy of Martindale Hubbell has any real meaning.  The announcement of the joint venture was followed by the layoff of most of the Martindale staff. These were the people who used to curate the surveys and data collected to evaluate whether lawyers and firms qualified for the for the ‘gold standard’ AV rating. So what is left of the legacy? . . .

 

It’s Almost The First Of The Year – Time For Strategic Planning Meeting!

25 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by in Disaster Preparedness, Law Office Management, Management, Marketing, Office Procedures, Technology, Time Management

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Leadership for Lawyers: How to Conduct a Strategic Planning Meeting, by Larry Port, Legal Productivity

http://tinyurl.com/o8txfh9

Your office may run perfectly – or so you think. We all have room for improvement. The same goes for the workplace. You may feel that, if there are any changes needed, you’ll make that decision. Fair enough. But is it possible that someone else at your office may have an idea you haven’t considered? You won’t know unless you ask. -CCE

What I’m about to ask you to do may initially seem like madness for an hourly lawyer, but I argue that it’s madness NOT to do it.

For the love of all that’s holy, PLEASE spend a day or two (even three) a year, locked in a room away from your office with the most important people in your law firm.

You need a yearly planning meeting like the one I describe below, and without it you’re spinning in circles without a navigation system. You won’t know where you’re going or when you’ve arrived.

Your annual planning meeting is the most critical conversation you will have all year for your law firm. When well-executed, you will emerge with a blueprint for the future direction of your firm. You’ll lay out concrete initiatives and goals that will, in turn, drive quarterly plans, which trickle down to your everyday to-do list.

Thought of in reverse, every activity you engage in on a daily basis should support a quarterly objective which is derived from the road map you draw in your annual offsite meeting. . . .

What Is A “Zero Knowledge” Cloud And Why You Should Care.

24 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by in Clouds, Confidentiality, Document Retention, Law Office Management, Legal Ethics, Legal Technology, Malpractice, Technology, Technology

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‘Zero Knowledge’ Encrypted Cloud Service Sees Business Boom, by Steven Nelson, U.S. News & World Report

http://tinyurl.com/q9fj4l8

If you have been paying attention, you have heard about “zero knowledge” clouds — and you are thinking about changing from Drop Box or other clouds that can access the information you put in them. If you know nothing about zero knowledge clouds, don’t stop here. Read more about them, and decide whether it is time for your firm to change to a more secure cloud platform. -CCE

File-storing service SpiderOak says it’s experiencing a business boom – rapidly nearing one million users and doubling its site metrics in six months – amid a constant trickle of news reports revealing Internet surveillance by the government.

Files stored using SpiderOak are encrypted and their contents unknown – and unknowable – to the company. Sharing such files will soon be ‘zero knowledge,’ too, as the company prepares to roll out Crypton, its open source app-building framework, which will be publicly available within the next couple months.

‘Essentially what we did was we inverted the Internet,’ says CEO Ethan Oberman. ‘We created a world where the server is actually a big dumb machine. It only sees encrypted data blocks.’

A free version of the file-hosting service offers 2 GB of storage in exchange for a name, email address, username and password.

‘We don’t really fact check that information,’ Oberman says.

The company does know the IP address of users, he says, but IP-masking browsers – such as Tor – can conceal that information as well, making it possible to store files without disclosing any identifying information.

If the government were to come to the company with a valid legal demand for data, Oberman says, ‘We could turn over the data, but it is literally in encrypted data blocks and not decryptable by us. The only way it’s decryptable is if you have the key, which we do not maintain.’ . . .

All Types Of 2015 Internet Privacy Protection Sites.

14 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by in Clouds, Computer Forensics, Computer Virus, Cybersecurity, Document Retention, Health Law, HIPAA, Law Office Management, Legal Ethics, Legal Technology, Technology, Technology

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Guide To Privacy Resources 2015, by Marcus P. Zillman, LLRX.com

http://www.llrx.com/features/privacyresources2015.htm

The Guide to Privacy Resources 2015 is a comprehensive listing of privacy resources currently available on the Internet. These include associations, indexes, search engines as well as individual websites and sources that supply the latest technology and information about privacy and how it relates to you and the Internet. These resources and sources will help you to discover the many pathways available to you through the Internet to find the latest privacy sources and sites. . . .