TechnoLawyer: Email/Messaging/Telephony

Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers a practice management system with a tool for capturing and organizing client-related email (see article below), and the three leading ad blockers for Safari in iOS 9 (so far). Don't miss the next issue.

SHOW YOUR CLIENT-RELATED EMAIL WHO'S BOSS

What's the biggest technology pain point for law firms? There's no official study, but our statistics suggests that organizing client-related email is among the top 10 and might top the list were such a study conducted. An email pain reliever may have finally arrived.

LexisNexis Firm Manager … in One Sentence

Launched recently, LexisNexis Firm Manager is a cloud practice management system for solos and small law firms.

The Killer Feature

The new Matter Correspondence feature enables you to append email messages and attachments to a matter in Firm Manager. Matter Correspondence doesn't require an add-in so it works with all email services and programs — Office 365 and Outlook, Google Apps and Gmail, iCloud and Apple Mail, all Android and iOS email apps, etc.

Instead, Matter Correspondence works via email. Every matter has a unique correspondence email address. All email and attachments sent to one of these addresses gets added to the corresponding matter. You'll find all the email and attachments you've sent listed in each matter's Correspondence tab. Firm Manager provides unlimited storage so there's no limit to how much you can store.

In addition to adding these email addresses to your outgoing messages, you can also file messages received from others by forwarding them. Firm Manager has long offered the ability to upload documents from within a matter, but Matter Correspondence now offers an alternative for situations when it's faster to email documents.

Other Notable Features

LexisNexis has added a number of other major features since our last report. Chief among these, Money Finder brings to Firm Manager a technology that LexisNexis added to PCLaw and Time Matters a few years ago. Money Finder automatically searches calendar entries, tasks, and documents created in Firm Manager to find items not associated with time and expense entries. You decide whether to bill for each item. In all likelihood, you'll find billable events you forgot to record.

Also new, the 360 Degree Dashboard View provides an overview of your day, active matters, and your entire law firm. Google Calendar Sync eliminates having to enter calendar events twice. For example, events entered on your iPhone's Calendar app appear in Firm Manager and vice versa. Similarly, if you use LawToolBox for court rules, the deadlines it generates appear in Firm Manager.

Other features include a conflicts of interest search tool that stores and date stamps the results if needed in the future, a Matter Dashboard for each matter, time and expense entry, trust accounting, invoicing, and a Microsoft Office add-in for saving Word and PowerPoint documents to Firm Manager.

What Else Should You Know?

Firm Manager runs in desktop and mobile web browsers. LexisNexis encrypts all Firm Manager data, and houses it in data centers in the United States. Firm Manager costs $44.99 per month for the first user, and $29.99 per month for each additional user (annual plans offer a 20% discount). The subscription includes 24/7 technical support, and import of your data. You can try Firm Manager for free. Learn more about LexisNexis Firm Manager.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TL Answers contains these articles:

Neil Squillante, Avoiding Being Ashley Madisoned: Acrobat DC and Cloud Security in General

Caren Schwartz, How to Find Practice Management Software for Personal Injury

Tim Callins, "Holding" the Surface Pro: Is It Really a Tablet? (And What About the iPad Pro?)

Anita Roessmann, Archiving Email as PDF on a Mac: Is There an Easier Way?

Judith Bourne, Review: WordPerfect for Tables of Authorities

Don't miss this issue — or any future issues.

How to Receive TL Answers
Do you believe in the wisdom of crowds? In TL Answers, TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers. This newsletter's popularity stems from the relevance of the questions and answers to virtually everyone in the legal profession. The TL Answers newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to SmallLaw: Our editorial team has selected and linked to 40 articles from the past week worthy of your attention. Below you'll find a sample article from each section of today's issue, including our SmallLaw Pick of the Week.

The 9 Things I Wish I Learned in Law School

Running Your Firm From the Road (Podcast)

Why Your Content Sends You Zero Traffic

The Post-Referral Sales Investigation Meeting

Congratulations to Jim Woods of Productivityist on winning our SmallLaw Pick of the Week award: Six Email Principles to Boost Productivity

How to Receive SmallLaw
Small law firm, big dreams. Written by successful small-firm founders, managing partners, administrators, and legal technology and practice management experts, SmallLaw provides practical advice on management, marketing, and technology issues in solo practices and small law firms. Additionally, SmallLaw features comprehensive reviews of legal products with accompanying TechnoScore ratings. SmallLaw also ensures that you won't miss anything published elsewhere by linking to helpful articles, podcasts, and videos about solo practices and small law firms. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TL Serendipity contains these articles:

Neil Squillante, More on Why the Apple Watch Deserves to Exist on My Wrist Plus Apple Watch Usage Survey

Bunji Fromartz, Review: CamScanner and CamCard (Android Scanning Apps)

Silvio Nardoni, Review: SimplyFile v. QuickFile; Software Licensing

Ronald Cappuccio, Review: Netgear ReadyNAS

Don't miss this issue — or any future issues.

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Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers an software that adds legal proofreading and research tools to Microsoft Outlook and Word (see article below), case analysis software that integrates with a legal research service, and two applications that enable you to run virtual OS X and Windows machines on a Mac. Don't miss the next issue.

ADD PROOFREADING TOOLS AND MORE TO MICROSOFT OFFICE

All legal documents inevitably contain errors. As a lawyer, you're responsible for getting the law right. But you should not have to shoulder the burden of finding inconsistencies, undefined terms, and other common issues — especially because they're easy to miss. These mundane but critically important tasks are best handled by software.

Lexis for Microsoft Office 5.2 … in One Sentence

Launching this week, Lexis for Microsoft Office 5.2 brings proofreading, legal research, and drafting tools to Microsoft Word and Outlook.

The Killer Feature

The new version of Lexis for Microsoft Office includes proofreading tools for drafting and review powered by Microsystems' well-regarded EagleEye technology.

From the Microsoft Word ribbon, you can use the Terms & Phrases tool to find undefined terms and inconsistent phrases in your document. The Definitions List ensures that you don't miss any defined terms or use inconsistent definitions for the same term.

Lexis for Microsoft Office also checks your document for accuracy and completeness. Regarding the former, it finds missing quotation marks and parenthesis, inconsistent numbering, and incorrect references. Regarding the latter, you can mark items as incomplete using your own custom term such as "Review." Later, you can locate all of these items for removal/replacement before you share the document.

"Effective and efficient document review is vital to the success of litigation and transactional practitioners alike," LexisNexis vice president, Lexis Advance Jeff Pfeifer tells us. "With the integration of EagleEye tools, we are giving Lexis for Microsoft Office users powerful means to automatically scan for consistency and errors, enabling them to deliver more precise, accurate, and complete agreements, briefs, pleadings and other documents."

Other Notable Features

In addition to the EagleEye integration, Lexis for Microsoft Office now integrates with document management systems through Lexis Search Advantage. From one search box, you can search Lexis Advance, your firm's documents, and/or the open web.

The integration with Lexis Advance has grown deeper too. Most notably, your Lexis Advance Work Folders now appear within Word and Outlook so that you can save, search, and download source materials without leaving these programs. Using drag and drop, you can insert quotations from cases, phrases from Matthew Bender forms, etc. into your Word documents and email messages.

The new version of Lexis for Microsoft Office also includes enhancements to the litigation tools. When creating a table of authorities with Lexis for Microsoft Office, you can now use "passim" in place of the page numbers cited. Settings enable you to adjust when it should appear. The page numbers remain intact below the surface so you can still click for a pinpoint preview of the source. Lexis for Microsoft Office supports the 20th edition of The Bluebook.

Also new, Get Cited Documents now exists in both Word and Outlook since email messages often include citations. As its name suggests, this tool retrieves from Lexis Advance source materials cited in a Word document or email message.

What Else Should You Know?

Lexis for Microsoft Office works with Windows 7, 8.1, and 10. It requires Microsoft Office 2007 or later and a Lexis Advance subscription. Learn more about Lexis for Microsoft Office 5.2.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to SmallLaw: Our editorial team has selected and linked to 47 articles from the past week worthy of your attention. Below you'll find a sample article from each section of today's issue, including our SmallLaw Pick of the Week.

Bend Over: The Credit Card Processor Is Here

The Managing Partner's Sex Change

10 Steps to Engaging More Prospects

Four Unique Law Firm Websites

Congratulations to Gina Rubel of Lawyernomics on winning our SmallLaw Pick of the Week award: Don't Start a Conversation or Email With These Words

How to Receive SmallLaw
Small law firm, big dreams. Written by successful small-firm founders, managing partners, administrators, and legal technology and practice management experts, SmallLaw provides practical advice on management, marketing, and technology issues in solo practices and small law firms. Additionally, SmallLaw features comprehensive reviews of legal products with accompanying TechnoScore ratings. SmallLaw also ensures that you won't miss anything published elsewhere by linking to helpful articles, podcasts, and videos about solo practices and small law firms. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers a secure internal messaging service that organizes your discussions and shared documents and tasks by matter (see article below), and three password managers that work on computers, tablets, and smartphones. Don't miss the next issue.

AN EMAIL REPLACEMENT FOR INTERNAL COMMUNICATION

Thanks to the app explosion of the past few years, enterprise software companies have adopted some consumer software trends — most notably messaging apps for internal communication and collaboration. This started with Yammer, which HipChat and Slack have since surpassed by offering a better user experience. But none of these tools are designed for law firms. A new product seeks to change this state of affairs.

ThreadKM … in One Sentence

Launched today, ThreadKM is a secure internal messaging and collaboration service that integrates with legal software.

The Killer Feature

ThreadKM works via native apps for Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android. You start by creating a "Workspace" for each matter. You can limit access to specific colleagues. Each Workspace can have an unlimited number of topic-specific "Threads" for group discussion (e.g., create a Thread to discuss a deposition).

In addition to text messages, you can share data such as web addresses. ThreadKM automatically displays a live hyperlink for web addresses and displays a snippet from that web page. ThreadKM stamps every message with a time stamp, and groups messages by day. You can search a specific Thread or the entire Workspace.

"Most lawyers who are overwhelmed with email have found instant messaging isn't a solution because information becomes so scattered quickly," ThreadKM CEO Dan Hauck tells us. "ThreadKM solves this problem by organizing and saving conversations in searchable, matter-centric spaces."

Other Notable Features

ThreadKM enables you to share documents (including photos) within Threads. Each Workspace contains a special area called Files where you can find all shared documents. Integrations with Clio and iManage enable you to share documents directly from those apps. ThreadKM indexes all shared documents to make them searchable — including scanned documents thanks to built-in OCR.

Each Workspace also contains an area for Tasks. ThreadKM offers a Kanban-Style task management system. This "lean" approach uses a series of columns such as "To Do," "Doing," and "Completed." Every task appears on a card within a column. The card also lists the person assigned to the task, the due date, and notes with status updates and roadblocks. This system enables you to visualize the status of a matter you're managing.

What Else Should You Know?

ThreadKM offers two configurations. Law firms with fewer than 50 users use the hosted version at $29 per month per user ($24 if paid annually). This version provides you with unlimited Workspaces, 10 GB of storage per user, and email support. Larger firms with more than 50 users must use the Enterprise version, which you can host in the cloud or on your own server. This version includes integrations with Active Directory, IntegrationBuilder, and WallBuilder as well as priority email and telephone support. You can try ThreadKM for free. Learn more about ThreadKM.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to BlawgWorld: Our editorial team has selected and linked to 62 articles from the past week worthy of your attention. Below you'll find a sample article from each section of today's issue, including our BlawgWorld Pick of the Week.

Cloud Practice Management Software Roundup

The 29 New Apps Included With Windows 10

The Best iPad Keyboard

Artificial Intelligence in Law Practice

Congratulations to Ernie Svenson of PaperlessChase.com on winning our BlawgWorld Pick of the Week award: How to Automate Your Email Follow-Up

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Our newsletters provide the most comprehensive coverage of both legal technology and mainstream technology of interest to the legal profession (e.g., monitors, smartphones, scanners, the iPad, and more). But not the only coverage. BlawgWorld enables you to stay on top of all the noteworthy legal and mainstream technology articles (and podcasts and videos) published elsewhere without having to hire a research assistant. Even when you're busy, you won't want to miss each issue's Pick of the Week. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TL Answers contains these articles:

Mark Olberding, Review: Chrometa

Paul Harte, Review: Jabra GN9350; Dragon Remote Microphone

Bobby Abrams, Review: Brother 7820N Printer; Canon DR-C225 Scanner

Robin Meadow, Clarification: Outlook 2013 and Acrobat XI Integration

Don't miss this issue — or any future issues.

How to Receive TL Answers
Do you believe in the wisdom of crowds? In TL Answers, TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers. This newsletter's popularity stems from the relevance of the questions and answers to virtually everyone in the legal profession. The TL Answers newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to BlawgWorld: Our editorial team has selected and linked to 57 articles from the past week worthy of your attention. Below you'll find a sample article from each section of today's issue, including our BlawgWorld Pick of the Week.

Three Cloud Storage Alternatives

Review: Windows 10

Best Smartphones (August 2015)

The Story of Windows 10 From Inside Microsoft

Congratulations to Sean Doherty of Above the Law on winning our BlawgWorld Pick of the Week award: Review of IBM Verse as an Outlook Replacement

How to Receive BlawgWorld
Our newsletters provide the most comprehensive coverage of both legal technology and mainstream technology of interest to the legal profession (e.g., monitors, smartphones, scanners, the iPad, and more). But not the only coverage. BlawgWorld enables you to stay on top of all the noteworthy legal and mainstream technology articles (and podcasts and videos) published elsewhere without having to hire a research assistant. Even when you're busy, you won't want to miss each issue's Pick of the Week. Please subscribe now.