One of my favorite sessions at ABA TECHSHOW is 60 Tips in 60 Minutes. Usually there is a panel of 3-4 technologists and they give their favorite tech tips or sites in a rapid fire presentation. There are quite a few technologies that I use day-to-day that have come from these recommendations. Recently, we attended a session like this at the Lousiana State Bar Association's 4th Annual Solo & Small Firm Conference and decided to share just a couple of my favorites from the panel - Catherine Sanders Reach, Jim Calloway and Ernie Svenson.
Catherine Sanders Reach
Director, American Bar Association Legal Technology Resource Center
MS Office 2007 Quick Parts
Do you ever feel like you’re retyping the same e-mail/clause/phrase for the 100th time? You aren’t alone: attorneys often find themselves needing to type the same snippet of information several times per week (or even per day). Perhaps you’re informing a potential client about your fee structures and initial consultation procedures, or maybe you’re just asking a marketer to remove you from their distribution list. Either way, retyping the information eats time that would be better spent elsewhere.
In the past, common solutions to this problem included copying and pasting from a saved text document or creating complicated templates. For users of the new Microsoft Office 2007, however, there’s a better solution: Quick Parts. Office 2007’s Quick Parts feature allows you to easily and quickly save snippets of frequently used text directly in Outlook, Word, and PowerPoint and then later insert those snippets back with just a few mouse clicks. If you’ve ever considered document assembly software and dismissed it as too complicated try building clause libraries with Quick Parts.
Claim Your UserName with KnowEm
You may have no intention of ever setting up an account with eHow, Tribe or Gawkk. However, do you want someone to use your name or a variation of your name – or your child’s name – as their username in any social media/web 2.0 sites? Check to see if anyone is using your name and stake your claim if necessary with KnowEm. KnowEm will search 120 social sites for your name, brand name, or domain and tell you where it is being used. For $65 they will also register you for each of these sites to protect you from “cyber squatting and social media identity theft”. The risk may not be worth the fee, but this is an interesting exercise.
Jim Calloway
Director, Oklahoma Bar Association Law Management Assistance Program
Posting your e-mail online increases spam
However, you can avoid that by using Scr.im (BETA). The website makes the case: “convert your email address into a short, cute and safe link you can share on the web, in Twitter, forums, Craigslist, anywhere”. To use Scr.im simply type in your email address and make up a custom URL (for instance: http://scr.im/jimc). Save your email from the spambots!
Free Utility for Converting File Format
Need to convert a file from one format to another? Try a visit to Zamzar which converts a file from one format to another and then emails you a link for downloading the converted file. Convert files up to 100MB from one image, document, music, or video file format to another. For instance convert .PDF to .DOC. or a .wav to an .mp3. You never know when you might need something like this!
Ernie Svenson, Esq
Svenson Law Firm, and www.ernietheattorney.net
These days it’s common for people to have their contact information at the bottom of their email; it’s not as common for people to send you .vcf file that you can click on to make that contact information automatically flow into your address book. But if you get copy2contact you can plug it into your Outlook mail program and do just that. It will also extract dates and put them in your calendar. Free to try for 30 days, and then you can buy It if you find it useful. You will, if you use Microsoft Outlook.
Easiest way to compare various airline flights. Gives you a graphic representation of the alternatives, showing how much time the flight will take and how long each layover is. Hovering over various elements will show you price, layover location. Other sites may have more information but no one organizes the information better. If you find a price you like it will hook you in the airline website to book the trip. Doesn’t seem to hook into Southwest airlines, though.
Lawyers should be good communicators, and today being a “good communicator” often means knowing how to use visual tools to convey ideas. Powerpoint is a powerful tool that is often used ineffectively because people don’t know how to convey visual information. PresentationZen.com and the book by the same name, are helpful aids for those who aspire to do better in their visual presentations.
