Tag: legal technology

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Weekly Review for Law Practice Tips for Friday, May 30, 2014

Florida Law Practice Updates Friday, May 30, 2014

Florida Law Practice Updates Friday, May 30, 2014Here are some recent articles of interest that I found this week related to law practice management, law technology, and legal marketing. Enjoy!

Legal Tech Tips: Android Guide: Extending your Android Device’s Battery Life
One of the biggest gripes among device users is battery life. Devices and batteries are not created equal and the status quo for battery life seems to be about a day, from the time that someone wakes up in the morning and unplug their phone from the charger, to the point where they plug it in at night before they go to bed.
This all assumes that you don’t have one of those days where you’re talking to people all day or you get into a heated texting discussion with a friend, or you just can’t get off of Facebook. Read more here: http://www.howtogeek.com/school/basic-android-guide/lesson3/

Legal Tech Tips: 5 Ways to Run Windows Software on a Mac
Macs have a thriving ecosystem of software, but some programs still only support Windows. Whether you want to use business software or play Windows PC games, there are many ways to run Windows programs on your Mac.
Some of these methods are similar to the ways you can install Windows software on Linux or run Windows programs on a Chromebook. Virtual machines, dual-booting, the Wine compatibility layer, and remote desktop solutions are all included here. Read more here: http://www.howtogeek.com/187359/5-ways-to-run-windows-software-on-a-mac/

Legal Marketing Tips: Top Words To Use In Your Law Firm Blog Post Headlines
You know that strong headlines that attract attention to your blog post, articles, ezines, emails (and more) are very important. How would you like to know which words you can use that will do exactly this – attract the attention of your readers? Imagine a stronger interest in your law firm blog posts, simply with a few tweaks to your headlines?
Read more here: http://lawmarketing.com/top-words-to-use-in-your-law-firm-blog-post-headlines/

Law Practice Management Tips: Do You Tell People You’re “Affordable”?
You’re “affordable.” I know that you’re affordable because I read it on your website. It’s in bold. “Affordable” means cheap, right? You’re cheap? Yep, you’re underpricing. Why are you underpricing?

1. You think that if it’s cheap you’re less likely to be rejected,
2. You think you’re less likely to disappoint, and
3. You won’t feel badly when you sell it.

Those are good ways for avoiding emotional pain. Those aren’t good reasons for underpricing.  The only reason you should be cheap is because you’ve figured out a way to offer your service for less than the competition. And even then, you should carefully craft your pricing strategy in light of the market.  Low prices are the last refuge of the marketer who’s not particularly good at his job. Is that you?  Read more here: https://www.divorcediscourse.com/people-youre-affordable/

Litigation Tips: Ten ideas for better depositions
I recently became involved in a case where all the depositions had already been taken. The opposing lawyers were partners in a very large, very well-known law firm. And my predecessors on the case came from a firm with a recognizable name. The case was pending in Federal Court, so the depositions were all limited to 7 hours. While reviewing the depositions for use at trial, I marveled at the amount of time spent on things that were of no interest to the trial as well as some other quirks that struck me as pointless. So I started keeping a list, which I shared with my partner, Mark Sayre. Mark added a few of his own pet peeves, and together we created this list of 10 “Don’t Do These Things At Depositions.”
Read more here: http://www.patrickjlamb.com/2014/04/27/ten-ideas-for-better-depositions/

Legal Practice Tips: Beware of the Tricks Used to Encourage a Witness to Volunteer
Most witnesses do not understand the purpose of a deposition and believe their job is to teach the questioning attorney everything they know; indeed, many believe if they did any less, they “wouldn’t be telling the truth.” But a witness who talks too much, either in deposition or trial, can be a liability because volunteering information can potentially highlight vulnerabilities for the other side. Witnesses need to be educated about the purpose of a deposition – i.e., it is a fact-finding opportunity for opposing counsel, not an interview or a casual chat. Given this purpose, it is the opposing attorney’s burden (and job) to ask the right question, not a witness’ job to help and offer more than was asked. The first step in the process of getting a witness to stop volunteering too much information is educating the witness about the strategies opposing counsel might use to goad new (and sometimes even experienced) witnesses into talking a bit too much, thereby opening up potential and unexpected vulnerabilities for the case.
Read more here: http://www.thejuryexpert.com/2014/05/beware-of-the-tricks-used-to-encourage-a-witness-to-volunteer/

Thank you for reading (and sharing). Stay tuned for next week’s weekly review for Law Practice Tips!

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Are You a Tool to Technology?

Technology and its Indentured Servants

Let’s start with the premise that I am a very big fan of technology.  I crave all tools, big or small, tangible or online, that can help me work faster and more efficiently.  Drafting legal pleadings is accomplished quickly and efficiently with tablets or notebook computers armed with spellchecking, autoformating and advanced document logic that can almost create the documents for you.  Typewriters have been relegated as curious primitive objects in museums.  Storing your client files is now accomplished on portable hardrives instead of in steel filing cabinets.  We conduct legal research wherever we want when we want online.  No longer do we have to go to the firm library or the cold confines of an outside law library during office hours to page through ancient bound paper tomes.  Email, eFax and all other electronic communications are the predominant method of communicating with clients and opposing counsel.  Fading fast from the scene are stationary, envelopes, stamps and the mailman.  

The professed purpose for all of these advances is to help make you a bigger, faster, stronger lawyer who makes more money and can go home earlier.  Looking at it objectively, are we getting the benefit of the bargain from technology?  Is this an instance of a better mousetrap or are we just running faster on the hamster wheel?  I do not think this debate is over and in many ways it may not have even started.  Let’s see if I can get it going.

Notwithstanding all the advantages of technology, I hardly think it is blasphemous to look back fondly on those days of paper, pencils and thermal fax machines.  Do you remember the time when there was no email, text messages or cellular phones?  Imagine the tranquility of a work day when all you had to do was answer the office telephone when you wanted and had to respond to a handful of letters from clients or opposing lawyers per day.  How about the luxury of being able to respond to those written communications when you had the time to do so knowing that the senders of those communications did not expect to hear from immediately?  It is funny how all of this sounds primitive and archaic now but the reality is that it was not all that long ago.

Compare those simple times to now.  Today we have become slaves to multi-tasking.  You can receive hundreds of emails, text messages, faxes and electronic communications daily.  Worse yet, the expectation is that you need to respond to all of those communications immediately.  All this in addition to the handful of written letters that you still receive each day on top of the normal daily grind work that you must churn out.  As a consequence, we think and have pressure to make decisions in nanoseconds.  Our communications are short, terse and in 140 characters or less.  Emotions and personality we are told should be left out of the equation.  Being kind is to exhibit weakness.  Judgment is based on the here and now.  Consideration for the future is to be damned.  When you truly think about it, doesn’t all of this sound like we are becoming the machines?  

I also do not think that being machine-like is a good thing.  Often lost in all of this is the building of personal relationships.  Worse yet, instead of being able to do work quickly and more efficiently so you can go home earlier, the opposite is now true for many people.  You work harder, longer, do more things, handle more projects and go home later.  Scientific studies for the brain suggest that multi-tasking is not healthy and that the brain is not wired for that type of exercise.  Perhaps we may evolve as a species but in the meantime have a bottle of aspirin handy.  Expectations for the amount of work and results are higher but not compensation.  I cannot imagine that that salaries for most workers have trended at the same rapid pace as that of technology.  So the question remains, are we using technology or it technology using us? Given that technology may be cool, neat and fun but perhaps not accomplishing its professed purpose, I would suggest that it might be time for you to reign back control from technology instead of becoming such a tool.

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