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11/10/2009

The Best of ABA TECHSHOW: Supercharge Your Referrals With Technology

Swing your mouse around legal sites on the Internet these days, and it's hard not to hit a story, Tweet or blog post about how to use technology to develop new business. While these articles and how-tos are undeniably useful, they often leave out an important reality: that it's easier to get new work from existing clients than find brand new clients. Surely technology can help lawyers market to their past and current clients as well?

The answer, according to Steve Matthews and Reid Trautz, is a definite yes. At ABA TECHSHOW 2009, they showed attendees how to stay in contact with clients, through use of newsletters, blogs, and social media, among other marketing tools. This is just one example of the great presentations you'll see at ABA TECHSHOW, which next takes place March 25-27 in Chicago, Illinois. To learn more about the conference, visit the ABA TECHSHOW Web site.

Read Supercharge Your Referrals With Technology.

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11/3/2009

The Best of ABA TECHSHOW: Got Apple Envy? Practicing Law with a Mac

It used to be the only apples found in the law office were in lunch bags. No longer: the resurgence of the Apple Macintosh platform has led to many attorneys now practicing law on their Macs. Popular Mac attorneys and bloggers Ben Stevens (www.themaclawyer.com) and David Sparks (www.macsparky.com) discussed the Macintosh platform at ABA TECHSHOW 2009 in their session "Got Apple Envy? Practicing Law with a Mac."

David and Ben provided a convincing argument about why using a Mac for the practice of law makes sense, and also shared strategies and recommendations on the best hardware and software solutions for a Mac attorney. Finally, they explained how to successfully drive a Mac in a PC firm with recommendations for networking and file sharing.

The attendees enjoyed an entertaining and educational session. Ben and David will both be back presenting at ABA TECHSHOW 2010.

Click here to read David and Ben's paper!

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10/27/2009

The Best of ABA TECHSHOW: E-mail Archiving: So, What's Wrong With Saving Everything?

We are proud to announce ABA TECHSHOW is opening its archive to bring you the best papers and presentations that have been prepared for past educational sessions of ABA TECHSHOW!

Every week, past speakers will blog about a session they presented at ABA TECHSHOW over the past years AND will provide you with a complimentary copy of their material.

If you don’t see something in the blog posts you want to learn about, or if you see a blog post that piqued your curiosity and you want to know more, we invite you to contact us and let us know about topics or presentations of interest to you so that we may invite the speakers to share their expertise and material in a future blog post.

In our first “Best of ABA TECHSHOW” blog post, we are proud to present: “E-mail Archiving: So, What's Wrong With Saving Everything?” This session was originally presented by Peg Duncan and Jason R. Baron at ABA TECHSHOW 2009, and took a practical look at the issues pertaining to e-mail management and why e-mail is such a problem for information management in general and for litigation in particular. (Click here to see a version of Peg's paper.)

Turns out it isn’t just the volume that makes e-mail challenging! It’s the way people use it, the way people manage it (or DON’T manage it!), and the way other people exploit it. We take our day-to-day use of e-mail for granted. No surprise, then, that it has become the single most “interesting” source of evidence in litigation!

Tips regarding the following are offered in this excellent piece:

Why it is NOT wise to save all e-mail
Alternatives to e-mail

Do you have any comments about this blog post? Do you have personal experiences to share that may help other readers? If so, please feel free to share your comments and experiences with us at techshow@staff.abanet.org!

Stay tuned for next week’s “Best of ABA TECHSHOW” post!"

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9/29/2009

ABA TECHSHOW Registration Opens in Two Days!

Registration for ABA TECHSHOW 2010 opens on Thursday, October 1! Be sure to visit www.techshow.com to register today in order to receive the early-bird discount -- as much as $200.

ABA Law Practice Management Section has presented ABA TECHSHOW, the world's premier legal CLE technology Conference and Expo, for 24 great years. Join us March 25 - 27, 2010, at Chicago's historic Hilton Chicago, and enjoy more than 60 educational sessions moderated by professionals who are experts in their fields.

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9/22/2009

Who's Been Viewing your Gmail?

There's been a lot of buzz lately about G-mail flaws and hacks. If you're curious about whether someone has been able to gain access to your account without your knowledge, G-mail has a feature which can help you find out. Once you're signed in, at the bottom of the page you'll find a lot of fine print. Beneath where it indicates how much of your allotted storage space you're currently using, you'll see a line that gives the time and IP address of your last account activity. Click on the "Details" link, and you'll be taken to a window showing the last several times anyone signed in to your account, how (Browser, mobile, POP3, etc.), the IP address, and the time. It will also tell you whether there is concurrent activity. There's also a button to allow you to close any concurrent sessions and link to allow you to change your password immediately. Whether or not your account has been compromised, isn't it time to change to a strong password now?

Posted by Laura Calloway | Alabama State Bar Practice Management Assistance Program

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9/15/2009

IT Employees May Be Reading Your E-mails and Copying

On June 11th, 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported that a global survey has found that the number of information-technology (IT) employees who admitted to accessing corporate information has risen from 33% to 35% in just a year. Additionally, the survey demonstrated that the number of individuals who stated that they would take company financial reports and merger and acquisition plans has increased over six-times from a year ago, to approximately 47% of IT staff surveyed. Many believe that the recent economic turmoil and layoff fears contribute to some of the behavior revealed in the study. Adding to this problem, 74% of IT workers said they could get past the controls currently in place for protecting confidential information. Also, a downsized company may now employ a smaller staff which makes monitoring access that much harder. The security-software company that administered the survey emphasized that companies must realize that IT administrators have access to anonymous accounts which do not leave footprints showing who is logging in and accessing the information. A copy of the survey results can be found at http://www.cyber-ark.com/news-events/pr_20090610.asp
Posted by Sharon Nelson | Sensei Enterprises

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9/8/2009

5 Great Feature Enhancements to Expect in PowerPoint 2010

Microsoft is hard at work on its Office 2010 product. We've started to see features of the updated productivity applications, and here are some of the great feature enhancements to expect in PowerPoint 2010:

    1.    Screenshot Tool. You can now easily capture screenshots and add them to your PowerPoint presentations without having to use the antiquated Print Screen method or purchasing a third-party product. This is fantastic for capturing and zooming in on paragraphs in legal documents or displaying sections of graphics photographs.

    2.    Video Editing Tool. Microsoft has embedded basic video editing capabilities in the new version, so you do not have to invest in a third party program to make many basic edits. Using the Trim Video feature, you can trim the start time and end time from a video. You can also use the slider tool to make these adjustments. Bonus: Once edited, you can also compress the video.

    3.    Add a Video from an Online Site. From the Video button bar, there is now an option to insert Video from an online video source such as YouTube. This will automate the process of inserting a hyperlink to the video into your presentation. Note, however, you will still need an internet connection during your presentation. TIP: An alternative to this is to convert the online video to an MPEG or AVI and save it locally on your computer. This can be done with a free download utility like Vixy Video Converter or online converter such as Zamzar.com.

    4.    New Slide Transitions. Microsoft has many added new professional-looking slide transitions to give presentations a little more oomph.

    5.    Save PowerPoint to Video. PowerPoint shows can now be saved as popular video formats, such as AVI, WMV, MPEG, MOV, MP4, and FLV. This is a great option for letting non-PowerPoint users review a show, or if the audience wants to view it on a DVD player.

Paul Unger on | ABA TECHSHOW 2010 Planning Board; HMU Consulting www.hmuconsulting.com

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9/1/2009

Smartphones and Security

An increasing number of lawyers and firms are adopting iPhones - a trend evidenced by the increasing interest in the devices at TECHSHOW. But before you rush off to find an app for that you might want to pause to consider what you're going to use that iPhone for.

In recent weeks security researchers have discovered or announced a number of serious security flaws in the iPhone. One of those flaws, the SMS bug that affects a number of mobile devices including the iPhone, has apparently been patched in the most recent version of the operating system. However a serious vulnerability that could allow someone to bypass the iPhone's encryption and access the data from the phone (which might include contact information, e-mails, even documents in some circumstances) is apparently still an open issue.

For more details on this issue read John Simek's article at:

http://ridethelightning.senseient.com/2009/07/iphone-security-a-complete-misnomer.html.

Whatever mobile device you choose you need to exercise caution about what data, including e-mails and attachments, you allow on the device. Losing your phone is bad enough. Losing your client's confidential work product (and the other things you might lose as a result) is even worse.

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8/25/2009

Even Free Speech Needs a Traffic Cop Sometimes

As more and more people begin to adopt social media, many businesses,including law firms - both internally and on behalf of their clients - are struggling with creating policies that will allow employees to show off their expertise in a given field without causing the company to come down with a bad case of "foot-in-mouth" disease. This topic recently came up on the PMA circuit, and led to a search for a good form or other starting point for drafting a social media use policy within a business organization, bar association or law firm. We came across a great article, How to Write a Twitter Use Policy for your Employees http://www.cio.com/article/499049/Twitter_Tips_How_to_Write_a_Twitter_Policy_for_Your_Employees?source=CIONLE_nlt_web20_2009-08-11, by C. G. Lynch at http://www.CIO.com which lists 4 easy steps for crafting your own policy. And the website of Sun Microsystems provides their Guidelines for Public Discourse http://www.sun.com/communities/guidelines.jsp, which is a great starting point for drafting a policy of your own.

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8/18/2009

Paper Evidence Can Still be Persuasive

People v. Ashonti Hall: 07CR10342. July 14, 2009. This is a murder trial arising from a shooting that occurred in a church parking lot. The People are presenting a diagram to the jury which includes markings for shell casings, bullet fragments, and other evidence to show locations in the parking lot. They have shown this to the jury by way of a document camera.

Moral? Sometimes there is no substitute for a piece of good old-fashioned paper. The jurors are straining to see the very small markings on the diagram. The People also present more than 50 photographs depicting that evidence. If each juror had their own color copy of the diagram, it would have made it easier for them to understand the evidentiary value of this evidence. Think about the most effective way, not necessarily the most technologically advanced way, to present evidence.

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